5 tips for facilitating opportunities for leaders to learn from their leaders
I get a buzz from working with clients to include opportunities throughout their leadership programs for participants to hear from experienced leaders across their organisation as it brings real relevance and authenticity to the development experience.
It’s also a tangible way for senior leaders to sponsor leadership development and signal its importance, which is important for creating the necessary authorising environment for other leaders to lean into their development and change their behaviour.
One of my clients has incorporated an ‘on the couch’ style Q&A panel with senior leaders into each workshop within a 6-month leadership development journey for team leaders.
Q&A formats work well because you can prepare questions with panellists in advance so that they can gather their thoughts and choose which stories to share while still facilitating the panel in a conversational way.
I’m seeing increasing numbers of leadership programs incorporating opportunities for leaders to learn directly from their leaders, so I’ve summarised my top 5 learnings for facilitating these here, in case you’re also keen to try it in your organisation.
#1. Think carefully about who to invite to be on the panel
Questions to consider include:
Who role models the leadership behaviours that you seek to develop?
Who would bring a new and different perspective to the conversation?
Who would enjoy being on the panel?
Who would benefit from the visibility?
Who might see it as a development opportunity of their own?
And the question often the dealbreaker: Who’s available and has capacity?
#2. Set your panellists up for success
Brief each panel member, focusing on the big picture. Share with them what the leadership program is trying to achieve overall, who it is for, and the overarching intent of the specific part they are participating in.
Be clear about your ask of them and how the panel will work (including who will be on it with them). Ask them what else they might need and finish by giving them no more than three key messages you would like them to reinforce.
Make sure background details (such as leadership topics and content covered) are readily accessible if they want them and be available for any questions in the lead-up.
#3. Be flexible
While all the best preparation can go into bringing a panel together, I’ve found that almost anything can happen on the day! You need to be ready to adapt.
This is easiest if you’ve thought through a few different game plans for likely scenarios you may face, such as last-minute unavailability or a panellist not being able to commit as much time as they hoped. Always reconfirm any ‘hard stops’ panellists have before you kick off.
I’ve also had plenty of panellists who have been very generous with their time, and if participants are hanging on every sentence, you won’t cut off the conversation just because your session plan says to. Instead, have a few different strategies for making up time in ways that don’t negatively impact the learning.
#4. Have a debriefing strategy
You can cover a lot of ground in a panel discussion, with different people taking different things away from it. Sharing these takeaways helps to deepen the learning.
Once the panel has concluded discussing prepared questions, I invite participants to digest what they heard at their tables and then, as a group, agree on the number one follow-up question that they would like to ask.
Over the years, this has become my go-to debriefing strategy for high-quality follow-up questions because it means there is no awkward silence when you open up for questions, and you don’t get off-topic questions that only seem relevant to the person asking it (which are always tricky as a facilitator to reel back in to wrap up the panel on a high note).
#5. Make connections
I like to jot down points, including specific words and phrases that I can see resonating with the group to repurpose and reference regularly when exploring the leadership concepts that follow.
I focus on weaving what panellists share back through the content to make ideas as sticky as possible. This means I will sub out ways I would typically outline or describe different things for language and examples that the panellists used to join the dots and reinforce key messages.
It may seem like a small thing, but certain phrases that panellists use can really catch on, becoming shorthand for much meatier leadership ideas, and helping to shape the leadership language within the organisation.
Finally, don’t forget to thank your panellists. Take the time to circle back afterwards to describe the specific impact and difference their contribution made to the leadership development of others.