Leadership Journey: Finding Purpose Through Crisis

Program Overview

When global disruption hit and isolation became the norm, we showed that we are resilient, compassionate and — given the opportunity to shape how we work — deeply innovative. Leaders today face a dramatic wave of unknowns. There are many questions about what the world of work will look like and feel like. Will compassion, intimacy and flexibility still be valued? How will we work together as a team? Will decision-making be as expedient? When we lose the level-playing field, will every voice still matter?

Our faculty keep a close pulse on these challenges. We recognize that the puzzle pieces don’t fall into place without help. In response, we offer virtual Leadership Journeys with this transition in mind — targeted learning and development programs that tackle the mindset, skillset and behaviours key to re-engaging. These powerful, high-impact initiatives are tailored to support individuals, teams, and organizations as they reaffirm a leadership identity.

This journey focuses on harnessing the crisis to take your leadership capabilities to the next level. The crisis has raised questions and curiosity for you about your own leadership and how you are developing. How did I react to the crisis? How did it affect my leadership? What drives me as a leader, and how has that changed in the current environment? You’ll Come away from your journey with a better understanding of leadership purpose through crisis.

What You Learn

Link self-awareness and motivation

• Increase your awareness about your drivers and talents for leadership, and your leader character development.
• Develop higher confidence with a broader repertoire of leadership behaviours.
• Leverage your strengths to increase your leadership impact.
• Experience enhanced energy and purpose in your leadership.
• Develop a deeper understanding of the relationship between neuropsychology, values, purpose, and leadership.

Apply your leadership needs and talents

• Understand the context for leadership development: why change and crisis require learning to be at the forefront, the dynamics of our own development, and the importance of clarifying your own motivation to lead.
• Building on the Motivation Factor results, identify your current leadership drainers and energizers, and link them to your current needs and talents and your leadership situation. Explore how your motivations are similar to and different from others, and how to lead taking this into account.
• Choose actions to increase your leadership energy and impact in the next week, and reflect on their effectiveness.
• Complete the Motivation Factor self-assessment: A 20-minute survey applying the latest research in neuropsychology and leadership.

Grow towards your leadership purpose

• Finding leadership flow and purpose: balance challenge with development by understanding your own reasons to lead.
• Build further on the Motivation Factor results, draft your Leadership Purpose and begin to assess how it increases your leadership impact. Explore how your Leadership Purpose is similar to and different from others, and how to lead taking this into account.
• Reflect on how your Leadership Purpose helps you build character for difficult situations. Complete the Leadership Character Insight Assessment: a 20-minute self-assessment applying the latest research on leadership decision-making and strength in difficult situations.

Build your Leadership Character

• Living leadership character in challenging times: the role of key character traits in leading others and providing direction in uncertainty.
• Build on your Leadership Character Insight Assessment results: What are your own strengths in leader character, and how have they developed during the crisis? How can you leverage them further?
• Choose actions to apply and develop your Leader Character further, and provide guidance for others. Watch the one-hour Ivey webinar Hercules meets Buddha.

Bring it all together

• Review and discuss Hercules meets Buddha: drive others towards aligned performance while simultaneously encouraging variety and empowering others. Powered by self- and other-awareness, character, and your own leadership development.
• Build on your reflections and experiences so far, and discuss how you can bring these perspectives together in your own leadership. What strengths do you bring? What might get in your way, and how can you manage these dynamics?
• Choose how you will build habits of reflective leadership development, supported by peers and others in your network.

Ivey Academy Coaches

Ivey Academy executive coaches take a blended approach to development, combining world-class coaching processes with leadership advisory services. Your coach becomes a confidential thinking and sparring partner, sharing and challenging your ideas. They help you navigate “in the moment” challenges, illuminate blind spots, and accelerate decision-making. They also help you understand yourself more deeply as you move into different career roles and stages, so you flourish where you are and prepare for what’s next.

Our coaches are selected to join an elite community because they combine deep coaching expertise across many contexts, credibility through their own practical experience, and a passion for supporting leaders’ personal development journeys. Through our Ivey Coaching Certification Program, they master Ivey’s unique experiential learning approaches, our leading-edge knowledge about business trends and frameworks, and the very latest research and assessment tools to support advanced leadership development.