How did your relationship with Gradvert come about?
I’ve been working with Gradvert for the past couple of years. Funnily enough I saw an advert on LinkedIn noting that Gradvert was on the hunt for coaches who were used to working with large organisations from the manufacturing and engineering sectors, which suited my experience perfectly.At the interview I knew immediately there was a good match the team’s strategic and delivery methods for training matched my thinking and were a perfect fit with my personal values. I was impressed by the dynamism behind this young and growing business. I’m really enjoying the work and varied client base we have delivered for and continue to deliver on.You deliver leadership and management training, change management and coaching.
Tell us about this work.
Business challenges are often the same, regardless of size or sector. These can be about leadership style, not implementing change effectively, not having robust planning processes in places and poor internal communication.This means my work frequently centres around transformational leadership – helping directors and managers to move from an autocratic, transactional style to a more open and democratic approach, with a collaborative culture and flatter hierarchy.
A critical part is helping and supporting the C-Suite to become leader role models, which entails setting the standard for everyone else to follow, from behaving with honesty and integrity and living the company values, to engaging properly and coaching others.Often, it’s about enunciating the purpose behind the organisation, making sure there is a clear vision of the future, and that everyone supports the mission (what they are trying to achieve). Then it’s about ensuring there are strong processes and people commitment in place to support the operational delivery. It’s a very rewarding job. When there is investment in training for management and teams it can bring about immediate and measured change within the business. It’s a great thing to see team leaders become more confident and voice and implement ideas when previously they had been reticent to come forward. Using my years of experience in different client sectors I encourage people to present change as an opportunity not a threat and how to suggest changes that could make tangible benefits to the team and business. It’s amazing how much more proactive and cohesive it makes a workforce. You also train the trainers within organisations.
How does that work?
That’s right, I also work with those who have responsibility for training and coaching others within a business. This is all about ensuring the trainer has the relevant knowledge and insight, as well as resilience in the face of adversity, because it can be a challenging job.What I do is help trainers to choose the right training models and frameworks and understand different learning styles and techniques.I also work on their confidence so they can deliver presentations within the training environment to a high quality standard. By the time I leave, each trainer has the ability to generate positive group interaction and manage group meetings/challenges in a really engaging way.
If you'd like to know more about the leadership needs of today, please visit www.gradvert.com/insights/guides/ or give Gradvert a call on 0191 607 0225.
