NPI Workshops

Interpersonal Leadership Styles

Registration Fee: $40 includes light refreshments, lunch, and professional survey
Registration Deadline: August 28, 2018 or when maximum capacity is reached

As leaders it is imperative to be self aware and understand the impact you have on others. It is equally important to understand where others are “coming from” and be able to flex appropriately to meet their needs in order to produce the desired results whether in negotiations with partners and allies, working with colleagues or in supervising direct reports.

In advance of this workshop, you will complete an Interpersonal Leadership Styles (ILS) survey online, then examine the results at the workshop. The ILS survey is a powerful interpersonal communications tool that focuses on individual styles of behavior and the impact different styles have on producing results. Fundamentally, the goal of the ILS experience is for every participant to learn how to:

• Increase their awareness of interpersonal styles: their own and others.
• Learn about their own style’s specific strengths and blind spots
• Become aware of and appreciate differences in other styles
• Improve their ability to build more effective partnerships, despite stylistic differences
• Understand the need to change/flex their style depending on the situation
• Develop strategies to improve communication and coordination by working with (rather than against) their own and others’ styles.

The tool was co-developed by Dr. Andrew Ahlgren, a professor at the University of Minnesota, and Ralph Colby, a well-known consultant with extensive experience in training and measurement. To construct a highly accurate model, they began by compiling a list of over two hundred word pairs that people frequently use to describe other people. Through a statistical process known as “factor analysis,” they found that certain word pairs tend to be used regularly with certain other word pairs to describe a particular individual’s behavior. For example, if you call someone “dominant,” you are also likely to call them “bold,” and so on.

Their results were fully supported by the independently established findings of Professor Charles Osgood, the noted University of Illinois Semanticist, as reported in his book, The Measurement of Meaning. While their data was “rotated” somewhat differently from Dr. Osgood’s, the results were essentially identical.  The demonstrated accuracy of the model is over 90%. Its truest validation comes from the fact that the instrument has been used with thousands of people over the years. Experience reveals an almost unanimous acceptance of the individual results – usually immediately, and almost always after reflection.

Process

In preparation for the NPI Workshop, you will need to complete an online Interpersonal Leadership Styles (ILS) Survey which takes approximately 10 minutes to complete. There are four distinct styles – each with their own specific strengths and blind spots.

At the workshop, you will work in groups to understand your Leadership Style and how you can become more adaptable and flexible in your communications and leadership when working together and with key partners across the community.

Signing up multiple members of your staff and/or board is recommended! There will be opportunities to work in small groups with the partners you interact with regularly.

Every participant will take home an ILS booklet to help you understand your survey results and tips & tools for communication.

Workshop Schedule

Who Should Attend

This workshop is designed for staff, board members, and other leadership roles within nonprofit organizations.

About the Presenter

Leslie Sholl Jaffe has over 31 years’ experience as a consultant across a broad spectrum of businesses and nonprofit organizations, creating environments that enable people to transform their lives and achieve results. Her expertise is in leadership development, curriculum design and facilitation, effective communication, meeting facilitation and coaching for personal and professional development. Unlike interventions which seek only to increase skill levels that impact behavior, Leslie’s work gets at the core elements that produce long-term results in individuals, teams and organization systems. By identifying and analyzing deeply held convictions that motivate decisions, behaviors and relationships with others, Leslie facilitates dramatically increased individual and organizational results.

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