Like John F. Kennedy once said: “Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other”. Leadership is just not a given fact, it is different in every organization, situation or moment and therefore we (need to) keep learning every day.
Let me tell you a story about myself... back in the day when I was responsible for my team, I really thought this was going very well. The overall employee satisfaction rate was good, the collaboration in the team was good but then we had that one colleague, let’s call him Peter. Peter was a great employee, worked hard but in communication we didn’t have a great match. In my opinion this was just because Peter and I were very different, so I didn’t pay that much attention to it. But when I started to learn more about myself and my own leadership, I figured out that Peter just needed a different approach, because he was really good at his job, but in confidence he needed a bit more attention that I didn’t give him. The self-reflection taught me how to work with Peter on a different level and afterwards he became one of my best employees!
Therefore, one of the key elements that we use a lot when we work with experienced Facilities Managers or with employees who have leadership ambitions, is self-testing. We often hear some doubts up front, because looking at yourself isn’t the easiest thing to do, right? But this tool really helps you to understand what kind of employees you are dealing with and how you can lead naturally. After making this very clear, it helps you to pick and choose learnings from every one of the leadership styles we share in this training course and adjust your leadership to any person or situation.