Articles 2 min read

Creating Sustainable Leadership with Inspiration from Fun boy three, Bananarama and the Blues Brothers

Raise your hand if you’ve ever tried creating sustainable leadership in your organisation. It’s an objective S A Partners implement in different types of organisations and sectors all the time, and one that organisations always have issues with in implementing successfully, and that’s where S A Partners come in via our Leadership Development Programme.

I was driving home from work in the summer, and had been wrestling all day with how to create a leadership programme within S A Partners that delivered on the objective for our clients in an even more effective way. Because of our long standing experience we had loads of great ideas, products, slides, thinking and even some enthusiasm but we wanted a better way of hanging it all together. I switched on the radio and it was as if a divine light brightened up and showed me the way (a bit like that iconic scene in the Blues Brothers). Funnily enough, it wasn’t just the light bulb moment as a Bananarama song was playing on the radio called ‘it aint what you do it’s the way that you do it‘ followed by the fun boy three classic, ‘and that’s what gets results’.

A Framework Creating Sustainable Leadership

That’s it I thought, focus a leadership programme around a key deliverable, use the divine inspiration ‘and that’s what gets results’. So I nipped into Mc Donald’s – was obligated to have the chicken sandwich, fries and a diet coke, I didn’t go large, and scribbled the leadership programme onto a napkin.

It started life as “Me, It and Them” but with the help of our crew changed into what we have today which is “Who I am”, “What I do” and “My Team”.

The Leadership Development Programme section of the implementation framework, helps develops the necessary behavious for leaders at front line, middle and senior levels to engage people in their improvement journey, and provides awareness for leaders around the most effective behaviours to exhibit at each management level in the business.

Which Leadership Approach is Best?

Creating Sustainable Leadership drives the debate about which style of coaching is better suited to any particular situation. Situational Leadership for example, proposes that managers be more directive where the competence and commitment of people is at their lowest or where situations require urgent action. DOWNLOAD the free white paper that advises which style of coaching is better suited to what situation.

DOWNLOAD THIS PAPER

In 2019 we are going to publish a monthly blog around our programme highlighting some of the thinking and inspiration we have taken in putting together the content. Hopefully you will find it useful, Alex our graphics guy and his band were a support act at a festival headlined by Bananarama in the summer- just goes to prove if you take this stuff seriously you can go on for years- ”it aint what you do” is now over 25 years old.

This article is written by Simon Grogan, MD, who has been with S A Partners since 2001. Prior to this he had a successful career in the automotive, medical device and construction industries and is an LCS Master coach, an accredited Shingo trainer with a degree in Business and Finance. You can email Simon to find out more, or to have a chat around Creating Sustainable Leadership in your organisation.

The Business Transformation Network has posted this article in partnership with S A Partners.

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