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Combining 15 years of research with practicality, optimism and humor



The Symbolics of Leadership...
Shaping Culture by Making Values Come Alive

What's it About?

“Watch the Boss” is still the most prevalent, and powerful, training happening at every level of every organization.  As we increasingly count on an understanding of strategy and values to guide decision making throughout our organizations, leaders at all levels need to be very aware of the daily role they play in shaping that understanding.  To their people, they are the personification of the organization’s story: its culture, processes, and decision criteria.  After they “have a vision,” here are the specific, day-to-day mechanics outstanding leaders use to make that vision come alive in their organization.

Management is reporting the number & enforcing the rules
This is Grammar
Leadership is conveying the vision and unleashing potential
This is Poetry

Who Should See It?

Originally designed for senior managers in large organizations (and frankly most powerful for the executive suite), it has won rave reviews for valuable insights right down to front line supervisors.

Where Did This Come From?

Today all organizations need fast, flexible, innovative, and responsive behavior from empowered people at all levels.  We’ve got to be constantly reexamining how we do what we do while embracing continual change, and how to keep up with our marketplace. To allow this, we’ve got to ‘burn the policy manual’ and remove micromanagement.

The challenge is ensuring that the thousands of individual judgment calls made every day add up to the whole team functioning the way the leaders envision it should. Some organizations, some elements of every organization, are able to make this happen. They accomplish more with fewer resources, deliver better results, and have higher morale and lower turn-over to boot! Most can not. The  research that created this presentation set out to answer the question “What are the leaders doing, at every level, that accomplishes these results?”

The answer that emerged is they all understood, and understood how to harness the symbolic elements of leadership to drive the right messages for their teams. Regardless of industry, sector, size, level, this was the one common factor that separated the super successful from the average.

This presentation systematizes that knowledge into tools that thousands of leaders have now used to enhance their effectiveness.

 






 

What Does It Cover?

  • Why you can not “thrive on chaos!!”
  • How the Symbolics of Leadership becomes a tool that enhances productivity, innovation, retention, service delivery, and change processes.
Memorable Words
  • Avoiding hollow clichés & the latest catchphrases from the management guru de jour
  • A formula for creating decision fulcrums that shape behavior.
  • When, where and how to deliver them
Symbolic Actions
  • Making the words come alive
  • Planned spontaneity
  • Recognizing and leveraging power moments
  • Seeing, creating, and maximizing teaching opportunities
Perfect Heroes
  • Why you need them, what they look like
  • Where to find them, what to do with them
Creating Your Corporate Story
  • Providing the right understanding . . . on purpose!
  • Guiding attention and behavior
  • Navigating through uncertainty
The “Invisible They”
  • Who “they” are
  • Harnessing the grapevine
  • Decisions and explanations
The Weapon On Your Wrist
  • Using your calendar to set organizational priorities

 

 

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Susan Luke
susan@susanluke.com
Phone: +1-210-643-4367
Toll Free (in North America) +1-888-228-1738
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