Growing highly effective managers

Polson Higgs, Business Advisors, realise the importance of leadership skills for their people to complement existing technical expertise. They wanted to provide the necessary development opportunities for managers to advance to higher levels of responsibility and accountability.

Otago Polytechnic experts drew on our own business excellence journey and our research to design and deliver a series of workshops where those participating could apply what they were learning directly to their own situation.  The 12 month programme comprised six half day workshops. Sessions covered understanding yourself as a leader, enhancing self-awareness, and building a variety of leadership skills eg communication, team development, conflict resolution and resilience. Presenters were Michael Simmons, Lesley Gill and Hannah Sinclair.

Paul Galloway, Manager - Training, was very happy with the results. "Most importantly the presenters have maintained the flexibility to adapt presentations to cover areas of particular interest and challenge to the participants and provide an excellent learning and development outcome for our management group."

One of the participants in the leadership development programme was Julia Connor. “I participated in the Leadership Development course this year and it reiterated to me the importance of emotional intelligence (EQ) in business. Whether you are dealing with staff or clients, colleagues or customers EQ and its associated qualities can be the factor that will determine success”.