Lab to Leader
4-day classroom programme
If you prefer classroom-based training over full days at your offices of labs, we recommend a four-day approach supported by psychometrics, coaching, online resources and Action Learning. A typical programme is described below, but can be adapted to suit your group’s experience levels and goals.
Day 1. Leading and managing in scientific organisations
Leading and managing your team
- Introductions – confidentiality, research base, science-relevance
- Leadership and management behaviours, skills and knowledge
- Developing a flexible leadership style
- Understanding action-centred leadership, balance the needs of the task, team and individual
Engagement and Emotional Intelligence
- Engagement science – understanding engagement of teams and motivating individuals
- The top 12 predictors of engagement
- The 12 categories and 4 domains of emotional intelligence
- The link between emotional intelligence and effective leadership
- Ways to develop self-awareness and emotional intelligence in yourself and your team
- Giving and receiving feedback – down, across and up
Building a positive lab or team culture
- Identifying the culture you’d like to create, and the legacy you’d like to leave at your organisation outside of your science / technical / operational role?
- Focusing on ‘how’ we work, as well as ‘what’ we do
- Understanding what it means to lead and live your organisation’s values
- What do we mean by psychological safety and why is it so important?
- Identifying ways of building psychological safety in your lab or team
- Creating a blame-free culture
- Building an effective team
- Identifying ways to collaborate within teams and across the organisation
Getting the best from a diverse team
- Discussing how we create a diverse workforce, including (& not limited to) gender, disabilities, BAME, neurodiversity, LGBTQplus
- Unconscious bias
- Understanding what different generations need in a leader
- Maximising the benefits of cognitive diversity through constructive disagreement
Personal reflection and action planning
Day 2. Coaching and mentoring your team for high performance
A practical session developing skills to empower the team to solve problems, make decisions and use their initiative more
Review – What have you used since last time?
Developing competence and confidence in your lab or team
- The competence / confidence grid
- Using the Lead / Manage / Do triangle
- ‘Do we delegate to develop or dump through despair?’ – delegating effectively
- 1:1s and supervisions
Setting goals and objectives
- Setting specific, measurable and time-bound goals
- Recognising when setting goals can be hard in a scientific / culture
Introduction to coaching skills
- Introduction to coaching and mentoring skills
- What are coaching and mentoring skills and how do they fit into the leadership tool kit?
- Recognising the difference between coaching and mentoring
- Understanding the ‘push / pull’ continuum
Powerful listening and questioning skills
- The power of listening
- Developing a range of core and advanced questioning skills to encourage your team member to think for themselves more and make more effective decisions
- ‘Managing the Kitten’ to help your team to solve their own problems and reduce reliance on the team leader
Using the GROW model
- Understanding the GROW model in the context of scientific and operational teams
- Using a powerful 4-step model that encourages team members to think for themselves more rather than relying on leaders for the answers to issues
- How to avoid jumping in with solutions
- Practical demonstration of the GROW model
Extended skills practice using the GROW model
- Using these skills in 1:1s to coach each other with a science or operational work-related issue
Personal reflection and action planning
Day 3. Building influence and having challenging conversations
Review – What have you used since last time?
Different types of challenging conversations
- Different types of tricky conversations and how to manage them
- How to set clear expectations, including knowing when to say ‘no’
- Handling difficult attitudes and strong emotions
- Selecting the appropriate approach when providing difficult feedback
Managing behaviour under pressure
- The role of words, tone and body language
- Identify your own trigger points and how to manage these
- How to gain the other person’s attention / buy-in
- Increasing your emotional intelligence
Preparing for your own challenging conversation
- Questions to consider before you have a challenging conversation
- Anticipating the other person’s responses and how you’ll respond
Extended skills practice using science-relevant scenarios written for your own organisation
Influencing styles
- Discovering your natural influencing style
- Developing a flexible influencing style to increase your impact
- Managing up – working productively with your manager and senior colleagues
Personal reflection and action planning
Day 4. Strategy, stakeholders,
politics and resilience
Review – What have you used since last time?
Widening your influence and stakeholder network
- Identifying your key scientific and operational stakeholders
- Power and politics – understanding the political landscape, how it impacts your work, and how you can influence it
- Increasing your personal visibility and the visibility of your work/science
- Building networks, coalitions and support processes
- Making the most of networking opportunities at scientific conferences etc.
- Developing an influencing strategy
Personal impact
- Circle of control – identifying what you can control and influence, and what you can’t do anything about.
- Adapting your tone and body language to create the impressions you choose.
- The difference between intention and behaviour.
Strategy
- Where would you like to get to, and how are you going to get there?
- Thinking strategically about your career
- Planning strategically for yourself and your team
- Working ‘on the organisation’ as well as ‘in the organisation’
- Seeing the bigger picture
Developing personal resilience
- Increasing your wellbeing by building resilience
- Managing your energy throughout the working day and week
- Reframing and cognitive restructuring – identifying thinking patterns to build pragmatism and perspective
- Building wellbeing across your lab or team
- Being more confident talking about well being with your team
- Using case studies to develop skills to talk with your team / lab about wellbeing
Personal reflection and programme action planning inc. pair coaching
Supported by blended learning
Options to suit your learners
Choose from a range of additional tools and resources to reinforce learning and ensure that it translates into practical action.
From habit-forming e-nudges to virtual coaching, our blended learning services can be integrated into your classroom, virtual or hybrid course.
Virtual coaching
One-to-one executive coaching sessions provide a chance to focus on personal challenges and development needs. Often run before and/or after the main programme, they can also incorporate a Strengths assessment or 360-degree debrief.
Psychometrics and diagnostics
We are experienced and qualified in a range of personality and psychometric assessments. We can include appropriate tools as part of your programme to build self-awareness, foster relationships or develop an understanding of individual differences.
Recap video emails
After each training module, participants receive an email with a video recap of important takeaways from the session, plus extra resources to enable them to dig deeper into the topics they have covered .
Personal e-nudges
Throughout the programme, participants identify top action points, and receive follow-up emails that encourage them to implement their learning and provide useful practical tips and advice.
Resources portal
An online portal provides access to useful videos, articles, interviews and book suggestions that build on the content of the training.