Case study: Spiire’s Inspiiring Leaders program

I get a good feeling about things when people are up for a play on words!

Last week, I facilitated the Inspiiring Leaders workshop, a key component of the broader Inspiiring Leaders program.

I was thrilled to be part of it with Spiire, a property and infrastructure consultancy supporting local development projects with local expertise.

And when I say expertise, I mean it.

The talented leaders participating in the program are responsible for integrated teams with diverse skill sets, including civil engineers, landscape architects, surveyors, town planners, urban designers, visual media artists, and water engineers.

With program touchpoints virtual up to this point, our interactive, conversation-driven workshop brought these geographically dispersed leaders together to share their experiences and learn from one another in person.

We took a deep dive into how to deepen connections with those you lead, how to empower them to stretch and grow, and how to support them to perform and succeed.

Seeing the relationships between participants flourish as they collaborated on their leadership challenges and opportunities was a real highlight.

Given our shared leadership development philosophy based on closing the knowing-doing gap, we were inspiired (yep, not yet ready to let go of that one!) to go beyond a traditional ‘one and done’ workshop to create an 8-week leadership development experience to better support behaviour change.

Additional program elements include:

Program launch

This virtual kick-off, for participants, their line managers, and senior leader guest panelists, was geared towards inspiring the right mindset for the learning experience and ensuring participants and line managers knew what to expect and what was expected of them, including the time commitment required.

Leadership diagnostic and debrief

This was added to enhance self-awareness and spark reflection. A virtual group debrief was included to support participants in understanding their profiles and using knowledge of their leadership strengths and development opportunities to set learning intentions.

Application activity

Following the workshop, participants were given an activity to complete with their teams to enhance their ways of working, ready to share the outcomes of this with their line manager during their check-in.

Peer learning circles

This was added in for participants to regroup following the workshop to coach one another to set or enhance a leadership development goal(s) to include in their Individual Development Plans (IDPs).

Line manager check-in

Towards the end of 8-week journey, a check point was added with line managers, creating space for a 1:1 conversation to reflect on their learnings and key takeaways, share the outcomes of their application activity, and discuss their leadership development goal(s) and the support needed to achieve it.

Learning hub

Beyond the 8-week leadership development journey, the newly launched Learning Hub provides online and on-demand tools and resources to support leadership effectiveness on the job.

Development plan

At the conclusion of the 8-week leadership development journey, participants update their Development Plans with their leadership development goal(s).

For ongoing structure and accountability, this connects participants’ development to an ongoing business activity, by way of the organisation’s performance and development cycle.

Participants’ development plans will also be used to track the effectiveness of the leadership development solution.

Prior to embarking on the journey, a negligible percentage of participants had development plans that include a specific goal related to their leadership. The goal of this solution is for 100% of these talented, emerging leaders to have dedicated goals relating to their leadership included within their development plans.

*****

Thanks again to the Spiire team for the opportunity to co-design the Inspiiring Leaders program and facilitate the workshop component - I’m definitely still feeling inspiired! ; )

“I am blown away with how valuable this program will be.”

Inspiiring Leaders participant

“This will be front and centre for me for a long time.”

Inspiiring Leaders participant