Advanced Skills for Influential Leadership in Higher Education

This specially designed workshop for educational leaders is based on the Skills for Influential Leadership program, an introduction to GISC’s model of influential leadership. The program will present the interpersonal skills required to build highly effective groups and organizations. It will focus on college leaders and team members expanding self-awareness including work-style preferences and personal impact. Participants will develop an understanding for how their patterns and those of colleagues impact each other, their work and their students. Participants will learn about the cycle of change and its central role in institutional culture and personal growth and how to productively handle resistance to change while practicing techniques of managing teams.

Using a variety of feedback tools, including a pre-workshop assessment instrument, participants will experience a rare opportunity to understand their impact and build awareness of their competencies. Practical opportunities will be provided to explore how to increase influence and accomplish objectives. Through small group leadership exercises and using their own challenging work situations as casework, participants will practice how to support effective group behavior, effectively manage differences, and work with the dynamics of change and resistance in an academic setting.

The program will present the research and theory of this leadership model and its application in collegiate settings but will emphasize practice, reflection, and feedback. Through a combination of presentations, individual and small group exercises, and discussion, participants will gain a new understanding of what characterizes effective leadership — both for themselves and for others. Pre-workshop personal assessment instrument will be included.

Benefits

Participants will:

• Learn how their own presence influences their impact
  on others
• Develop the ability to recognize and support specific
  skills of influential leadership among colleagues
  and students and team members
• Identify and understand the interactions of small
  groups with more clarity
• Develop skills to better understand and cope with
  resistance and change processes that frequently
  color the academic environment
• Learn to interact with strategic intent to accomplish
  objectives
  

Participants

This program is suitable for higher education leaders, division, department and program heads, and educators who seek a new approach to their roles. It will also be of interest to those who want to move into educational leadership roles or support those who do.