Richard Sharp – Challenge of Leadership

This course allowed me to develop a holistic toolkit to become a better leader in the workplace.

Having recently moved into a position which required supervision of junior staff. I felt I had good people skills but recognized the need to develop my communication skills and learn how to motivate, empower, and lead a group of individuals. This led me to enroll into LMA’s Challenge of Leadership Course.

Throughout the course I was hoping to improve my ability to communicate effectively with colleagues and team members, particularly around both negative and positive feedback. I also wanted to grow, not just as a manager but as a leader who can evoke a sense of empowerment, motivate self-development within individuals and recognise my own biases and barriers that may have inhibited my potential in the past.

Personally, I hoped to be able to prioritise how I spend my time at work to maximise the time I spend on doing things that matter most. I even set myself a personal goal to develop a financial plan to save for a holiday to Fiji!

From a learning outcome perspective, I found the 5 whys to be a great tool to find the root cause of problems. Other great concepts included the ‘tell me about it’ when conducting performance reviews and issue resolution. I have become very conscious to undertake some self-awareness, introspection and understand my own biases when interacting with individuals, whether they be clients, team members or management.

This course allowed me to develop a holistic toolkit to become a better leader in the workplace. I have shifted my focus from managing people issues to facilitating growth, development, and empowerment within my team through trust and effective communication. I have noticed my ability to relax a little more when delegating tasks as I allow my team space to make mistakes and trust them to learn and grow.

I would highly recommend this course for those who would like to improve how they interact with others, whether it be team members, juniors or even your managers and executives. The course is about increasing the effectiveness of human interaction to optimise productivity and grow high performing teams!