Leadership Formation

CanoeMid career and particularly in mid-life, you may begin to ask yourself deep personal questions. Questions about your professional choices, about your identity and purpose, about the patterns of thinking and beliefs which guide you, about the quality of your relationships, and even what it means to live a good life.

Leadership Formation as a discovery process will  enable you, in concert with a peer group, to thoroughly explore these questions. In doing so, you will strengthen your sense of identity and integrity, examine and challenge your patterns in relationship, bring sharp focus to behaviours and thinking which undermine your performance and success, and ultimately reconnect you to what is most meaningful to you.

Grounded by heightened awareness and a broad integrative experience you gain renewed clarity to wholeheartedly lead yourself.

How do I know if Leadership Formation is for me and whether I’m ready?

  • are you an experienced professional with leadership responsibility as an Executive, Director, Entrepreneur, Consultant, Educator or Senior Manager?
  • do you believe that consciously leading yourself is crucial for successfully leading others and leading more broadly in the world?
  • do you recognise the vital importance of self-knowledge, inner strength and interpersonal skills for the rigours of leadership?
  • do you want to improve your ability to engage with the complexities of change in people, tasks, situations, organisations and life as a whole?

What’s involved in the Leadership Formation series?

Meeting Area 1Through Leadership Formation, a select peer group works and learns together intensively for up to two years. You will explore long established patterns of thinking, feeling and relating and test them for integrity and leadership effectiveness.

Group Work and Study – Action – Reflection are key learning approaches. Participants are guided through study topics and research material; undertake personal and professional change projects; mentor each other throughout the course; and complete a key self-reflective presentation as the culmination of each stage. Foundational concepts and practices are taught, however as the work builds upon the unique contribution of each participant, the developmental process itself is highly fluid.

Course content is a synthesis across a diverse range of fields including Philosophy, Psychology, Art and Literature, Leadership Theory and Practice, Consciousness Evolution, Conflict and Change Management, Interpersonal Relations, New Sciences, Organisational Culture, Environmental Studies, Ethics, Mythology and Wisdom Traditions. (Reference List)

If this sounds like work you want to pursue, I invite you to contact the course leader.

Feedback from past participants

“Initially I was concerned about the commitment involved. And frankly I have attended so many corporate leadership courses, that they all tend to blur into vanilla. From the very start I realised Leadership Formation was different. Within weeks I’d uncovered a deep pattern of behaviour of which I’d been unaware.” General Manager Marketing

“Looking back over the past ten years, I credit the work of Leadership Formation with opening up significant personal growth and a new career. I gained the clarity, strength and skills to wholeheartedly pursue a meaningful, yet risky endeavour. The work is tough, but then doesn’t anything worthwhile need to be earned?” Entrepreneur

“Leadership Formation proved to be a fantastic opportunity for me to grow as a leader and an individual. When I started the journey I wasn’t quite sure what the outcome would be but I was at a point in my career where I was ready to extend myself. Over the two year course I found a true centre within myself and a new confidence to take into my life and my career. Feedback from colleagues and managers consistently confirms my own sense of progress. An unexpected bonus are the continued friendships and mentoring from the small group I studied with. I can’t recommend Leadership Formation highly enough, particularly for those prepared to invest time and real effort to learn and evolve as a leader and a person.” Banking Professional