Developing Leadership Impact: Executive Retreat at Royal Roads University

I recently attended a week-long retreat at Royal Roads University entitled "Developing Leadership Impact." Having attended a few course of similar nature, I told the facilitators that I was cautiously optimistic of the week ahead. I viewed the course as a bit of analysis of one self, knowing what your styles, behaviors, and strengths are as a leader so that you can successfully negotiate your way through your career. Indeed, I was partially correct on this assumption. My final reflections on the course had me state to the facilitators and group, “that I learned all about myself, but even more about those around me, and it was a pleasure to get to know everyone outside of work. For this I thank everyone who attended.” There was no real revelations within this course but a lot of self-reflection which is often the cause when you are trying to find out what exactly makes you “tick.” I particularly enjoyed conversations on theory and the use of “simple” models to explain the behavior of change and resistance.

Part of the pre-course work was to engage my boss, peers, and observers in a 360 degree review of myself. Boss being those individuals that I report to (or have in the past), peers are those in similar positions of authority, and observers are those individuals that report to me (or have in the past). The feedback revealed a slight halo effect in that I has underscored my performance when compared to that evaluation of my colleagues. I was pleased with the results and while there were no obvious gaps, a review with my coach revealed some areas of improvement around issues such as adaptability, facilitation skills, and globalism. Knowing my strong character, I purport this to possible intimidation by others in my presence, something I need to be more considerate of when dealing with introverts. Things I scored highest in included honesty and integrity, something I feel is the hardest to gain from your colleagues and I was pleased with these scores.

I also completed and received the results of an HBDI survey that assesses you thinking styles through correlation with what is called the Herrmann Whole Brain Model. The profile (a transparent sheet that shows your style based on 4 quadrants: facts, form, futures, and feelings) looks like a bullseye with the cross-hairs separating the 4 distinct quadrants. Some of this is based on left brain – right brain, but more of it has to do with where you comfort lies as an individual. For example, I scored high in facts, futures, and feelings categories (with a slight edge in futures). My least preferred style is form which revolves around being detailed, organized, and working in a sequential fashion. The interesting part of my score was a second dashed line that formed another shape between the first and showed that in times of stress I move further away from the forms quadrant and more into the futures quadrant. This result bolds well for my leadership style as I tend to back to organizational goals and visions to help direct our activities in a time of crisis. What was even more interesting than my scores was that of two colleagues in the class who when comparing results had shapes that were almost identical.

I was also asked to complete a Parker Team Survey(PTS) in preparation for this course. The PTS reveals your team player style when working within groups. The 4 distinct styles are contributor, collaborator, communicator, and challenger. Scores from a series of behavioral questions revealed I had two primary styles (scores within 3 points of each other) that included being a communicator and challenger. According to PTS, “I ensure that the members work well together while you push the team to address important questions about its strengths and weaknesses. However, you run the risk of seeing process as an end in itself. You need to keep in mind that the team must set long-term goals and work hard to deliver high-quality products and services that satisfy current customer needs.” The beneficial part of this exercise was how others in my team for this week-long retreat scored and how I could use those scores to understand their team player styles.

As eluded to in the earlier paragraph, I was put in team with 4 other individuals and assigned a business case for the Royal BC Museum. The purpose of this was to use learning’s within the class to work through a tangible case in the real world. Seeing as we only had a week and limited time outside of lectures to work on this, I was reminded of my younger graduate and undergraduate days where we worked on similar tasks. The challenge presented by the museum was one around declining revenues and admission and how we could revive the “presence” of the museum within the hearts and minds of British Columbians. What I learned form this task was that we had some very different styles on our team but worked well under pressure. One weakness was my automatic need to facilitate and in bringing the team some structure I also used a lot of my business related jargon. This provide a bit detrimental to the presentation as the other 2 groups worked more of a feel-good approach, something museum executives picked up on. Otherwise, our group came up with some very creative ideas from partnerships, global exhibits, and a theme-based game for kids.

The Developing Leadership retreat was great experience and one I would recommend to anyone. The retreat was sent in the old Hatley castle which belonged to the Dunsmuir family. This was a surreal part of the whole experience and a tour of the history helped me appreciate the architecture even more. It also helped to spend more than 14 hours a day in lectures and team work sessions there as well.

My 2 thoughts anyways…