Professional Certificate in Leadership for Elected Local Government Officials

This flexible 3-module certificate program arms you with advanced leadership competencies to create greater impact during your term of office, and drive your municipality to a new level of excellence.

Acquire the advanced leadership tools you need to improve your effectiveness as an elected official. Surveys of top retired elected municipal officials have confirmed that leadership skills are considered the most important factor in a CEO / councillor's elected career – rated above intelligence, knowledge and previous career job skills.

This specialized program will strengthen your ability to lead through interactive and engaging modules specifically designed to enhance the communication, influence and strategy development capabilities of those in local elected office.

The Best Part

You'll learn how to turn your vision for office into reality by achieving peak performance in your role as advocate / community leader / decision-maker.

Who Should Attend

This program is ideally suited to anyone elected by the public to local government positions, including

• Mayors
• Councillors
• Reeves
• Aldermen
• Regional Council Members
• School Board Trustees

The Professional Certificate in Leadership for Elected Local Government Officials is designed for maximum flexibility to suit your learning needs:

• Features three convenient two-day modules to accommodate your busy schedule
• Allows you to participate in individual stand-alone certificate modules, or choose the entire three-module Professional Certificate and save $600

Program Content:

Module 1: Essential Skills for Elected Local Government Officials

Develop your leadership potential as you learn to define your role and approach, enhance the effectiveness of your interpersonal communications and influence, leverage collaboration and teamwork, and balance tasks with key relationships for maximum effectiveness.

Module Overview: Foundational to the following two modules, this session focuses on enhancing personal leadership capacity and improving personal effectiveness.

Key Outcomes You will learn:

• What it means to lead in a complex social environment – how to apply leadership models
• Define and understand the leadership behavior implications of your role
• How to enhance your communication effectiveness in all contexts
• How to make choices around communication mediums
• To identify sources of power and your impact on communication
• How high performance teams develop and essential skills for leading teams

DAY ONE: Essentials of Executive Leadership

Introduction to Elected Leadership

• Leadership vs. management
• Defining the role of EO as leader
• How we think about leadership: balance of task and relationship

Situational and Servant Leadership

• What does leadership look like for the various roles of the elected official?

Leading Teams

• Team development, norms, communication and goal setting

Leadership and Power in Organizations

• Sources and types of power
• Values and power
• Role of power in partnerships, collaboration, managing expectations
• The role of impression management in leadership

DAY TWO: Teams, Communication and Effectiveness

The Role of Emotional Intelligence and Self-Awareness in Leadership Effectiveness

• Self-awareness, social awareness, regulation of emotion, effective communication and leadership

Enhancing the Effectiveness of Interpersonal Communications

• Setting objectives in communication
• Managing perceptions
• Managing ambiguity
• Ensuring the sending and receipt of clear messages
• The ability to nurture instrumental relationships through rapport development
• Self-control and taking responsibility for one's own communication
• Using a cooperative, contributory approach to having positive dialogue
• Understanding others while keeping a focus on your own goals

Using Multiple Mediums of Communication – e-mail, Telephone, Face-to-Face

• Media richness – which medium to use and when?
• Making communication choices
• Limitations of mediums
• What are the common barriers to effective communication?

Module 2: Inspiring Excellence in Governance – How to Influence without Authority

In order to get things done, elected officials must be able to influence and get agreement with numerous and diverse stakeholders, from constituents to support staff. Learn to more effectively influence and foster consensus among people with different needs and viewpoints to ensure ongoing success.

Module Overview: This module teaches critical skills related to influencing, strategic communications, negotiating agreement, collaborative problem solving, conflict resolution, and overcoming resistance to change.

Key Outcomes You will learn:

• How to influence change in a complex political system
• How to broaden and strengthen their leadership approach
• Innovative communication strategies to influence up, down, laterally, and out
• How to persuade and reconcile differences without resorting to power
• How to achieve consensus on difficult and polarized issues
• How to de-escalate conflict and move people back to a productive state
• Interest-based problem solving techniques to move people from positional to collaborative mode

DAY ONE : Fundamentals of Influence Without Authority
The Dynamics of Influencing: Power / Rights / Interests

• Exploring the important influencing requirements of EOs in their roles as advocate, policy advisor and decisionmaker
• Power, rights, interests – when and how to use
• Taking an interest-based approach to influencing others
• Reframing positions to interests
• Building your influencing "toolkit"
• Level III listening

Building Commitment to Change

• Overcoming resistance to change
• How to plan and deliver compelling communications that foster stakeholder trust and commitment
• Applying a strategic 4-box influencing model to actual government change initiatives
• Influencing up, down, laterally, and out
• Assessing your influencing approach - completion of the Strengths Deployment Inventory (SDI)

DAY TWO : Leveraging Your Leadership Strengths for Enhanced Interpersonal Effectiveness

Motivating Others for "Win-Win" Agreement

• Understanding the seven (7) motivational value systems (MVS)
• Leveraging your strengths for enhanced interpersonal effectiveness
• Paying attention to "overdone strengths"
• Understanding conflict "triggers"
• Diffusing conflict early and getting stakeholders back on track

Negotiating Agreement / Joint Problem Solving

• Moving people from "positional" thinking and behaviour to focusing on interests
• Multi-stakeholder negotiations
• How to get consensus among polarized viewpoints
• Innovative strategies to get "outside the box" solutions
• Holding a "coaching conversation"
• Applications of learning to municipal elected official environment

Module 3: Development of Key Strategies & Priorities in Changing Times

Review the key elements of a successful strategy development and implementation approach, and reframe your thinking about how accountability, responsibility, innovation and results-orientation all combine to revitalize leadership in the municipal sector.

Module Overview: Learn how to ensure your strategic plan doesn't sit on the shelf through the application of results-oriented strategies that are compatible with your organizational capacity

Key Outcomes You will learn to:

• Produce strategic plans that do not sit on a shelf
• Set realistic strategic priorities
• Ensure good strategic planning process design
• Develop shared expectations for success
• Establish an ongoing strategic adaptation process
• Translate strategic priorities into action
• Get everyone on the same page

DAY ONE : Strategic Context Systems Thinking

• The open systems model to take a holistic approach to planning
• Emerging paradigms to understand the contemporary local government context
• Establishing the rationale to obtain buying to undertake a strategy process

Strategic Process

• The 4 Ps of good process to guide design and assess progress
• Key phases & steps to visually chart the process
• Identifying external interests to involve in the process
• Engaging internal and external stakeholders in the process

Strategic Planning

• The notion of shared expectations to paint as future vision
• Using both observable and measurable indicators
• Creating a vision score card to assess the present conditions
• Clarifying the mandate to ensure everyone is on the same page

DAY TWO : Strategic Action Strategic Assessment

• Examining external influences that impact the community
• Assessing the internal capacity of the organization
• Identifying issues and opportunities facing the organization and community
• Short listing key strategic topics for further examination

Strategic Choices

• Exploring strategic topics using a creative problem solving approach
• Assessing response options and developing action plans
• Developing action plans with defined activities and clear timelines
• Conducting a reality check to ensure success in strategic implementation

Strategic Implementation

• Determining now, next & later strategies using urgency criteria
• Establishing council and staff role clarity for implementing strategic priorities
• Linking the strategic priorities to day-today processes and activities
• Its an ongoing process! – tools for adaptation and monitoring

Directors