Leadership Judgment Video Training

Leadership Judgement Video Training

A video-based training pack is now available from eBay.  It is an important offering for all users of the Leadership Judgement Indicator (LJI) in its various forms - the LJI is published by Hogrefe.  

This leadership coaching pack contains two USB thumb drives with the following loaded upon them:

• Four videos illustrating a performance discussion between a leader and a reporting colleague.  
• Four files containing transcripts of the dialogue in the four videos.
• Three files containing different versions of the leadership decision making model underpinning the performance discssions.
• Guidance about how to use the videos in coaching and training situations, specifically written for the training of assessment centre observers but with much broader applicability.
• A support document giving detailed descriptions of the leadership decision making styles and the competencies that underpin them.

The actors in the videos are Michael Lock, one of the authors of Hogrefe’s Leadership Judgement Indicator and British stage and screen actor Duncan Duff - https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0240375/.  In each video the leader (Michael Lock) adopts either a directive, consultative, consensual, or delegate style of leadership with varying degrees of success.  His reporting colleague (Duncan Duff) tellingly displays the effectiveness of each style in the given scenario.  

The transcripts of the video dialogue are useful in coaching and training situations for they allow situational analysis which readily elicits key learning points.  The user is also provided with the leadership models upon which the framework for the performance discussions rest.  A further document describes the leadership styles in detail, as well as the competences that underpin leadership judgement. The breakdown of those competencies, found in this document, is not to be found in any other published source, so is a nugget of gold for those who use or have been assessed by Hogrefe’s Leadership Judgement Indicator in one of its several forms.  

Background to the Videos

The four videos show a meeting between the Director of Operations in the European Division of SymChem, a large multi-national biochemical organization, and one of his Project Managers, Kim Bailey.  The Director of Operations oversees a number of projects within SymChem but does not get directly involved in the day to day running of the projects themselves.  Instead, he has a number of Project Managers who are responsible for coordinating and implementing all aspects of project delivery.  Their job is to ensure that projects are completed in line with the agreed deliverables and milestones.  

It has recently been brought to the Director's attention that a very important project, managed by Kim Bailey, is in danger of slipping behind schedule.  Kim Bailey works in the Fine Chemicals Division of the subsidiary Telion and is responsible for delivering the Xena-II process review project.  There are some concerns about the progress of this project because work is not being completed to a high standard and it is falling behind its target delivery date.  Employee survey and project reporting data has alerted the Director to these slippages and now he has received messages of concern from senior engineers within the project team.  

Kim Bailey started at SymChem seven years ago after graduating with a degree in Chemical Engineering.  Kim has worked up through the organization to become Project Manager and has an extremely good understanding of technical aspects of project delivery, given his background as a Chemical Engineer.  Kim has traditionally managed product design projects requiring specialist technical expertise and in this area has gained credibility as an extremely competent individual.  Kim has less experience in the process management area.  As Kim has a reputation as a competent Project Manager the Director has so far refrained from any form of supervision up to this point.

Kim Bailey is in the building for another meeting later today so the Director has taken the opportunity to meet him.  During the meeting the Director aims to:
•    investigate Kim’s view of the progress made on the project so far;
•    establish a definite plan of action for the implementation of the project;
•    identify any support that Kim needs;
•    discuss any other issues that Kim wishes to raise;
•    identify ways to help Kim motivate his team.

Leadership Style Alternatives

There are four possible ways the Director could lead this meeting:
    
a) Use a Directive approach - having questioned Kim about the facts, the Director could decide on the solution himself and tell Kim exactly what he needs to do.  

b) Use a Consultative Approach - having discussed the situation with Kim, the Director could get Kim's ideas and suggestions, then use these to tell Kim exactly what he needs to do.  

c) Use a Consensual approach - having discussed the situation with Kim, the Director and Kim could collaboratively generate and evaluate alternatives and attempt to reach agreement on a solution.

d) Use a Delegative approach - having questioned Kim about the facts, the Director could provide Kim with clear parameters and objectives and give him the responsibility to solve the problem.