Keep Calm … and Keep Developing Your Leaders

Many companies are shutting down non-essential travel due to the coronavirus. Late last week, Amazon, the second largest private employer in the United States, indefinitely halted all nonessential travel, including trips within the United States. Recruiters were told that many hiring interviews were to be done by video conference. Twitter, Google, Facebook, and others are following suit.

And while some current restrictions have a “let’s reevaluate” date of April or May, many travel restrictions are indefinite.

Ironically, one of the first casualties of such a travel ban is leadership development; ironic because when effective leadership is MOST needed — in times of uncertainty and crises — leadership development for many companies is cancelled.

For other companies, leadership development is business as usual in unpredictable times like these. For years, Entelechy has worked with some of the largest companies in the United States — all with global reach — to provide leadership development in social learning environment. Creating customized social learning experiences ensures:

• The program addresses the specific and unique development needs of each client; Entelechy carefully designs and develops/curates content that is engaging, practical, and relevant.
• The interactions engage cohorts through collaboration and competition.
• The learning culminates in the development of business-changing projects and initiatives … while developing in each leader the skills to execute on that initiative.

A typical leadership development experience may include:

• A virtual instructor-led training (vILT) session to kick off the experience; participants get to meet each other and their facilitators — virtually — and begin forming bonds similar to those achieved in face-to-face training.
• A customized online 360° assessment to help participants identify strengths and areas for development to help focus their learning.
• Carefully curated readings, videos, and other content that helps each participant expand and refine a specific concept or skill such as authenticity, building relationships, execution, change management, communication, or any of hundreds of other topics critical to your leaders.
• Ingeniously designed questions and assignments that help participants reflect upon, internalize, and share what they learned with their cohort members, inviting conversation and discussion of how these concepts apply HERE to our organization.
• Subtle guidance and prodding by facilitators who monitor responses and provide additional insights or questions to encourage deeper thinking.
• Projects the help participants apply what they learned to a real-life challenge they face. This thematic approach provides a constant thread throughout the experience AND results in real, immediate change.

Clearly the coronavirus is changing the way business gets done. It shouldn’t stop you from developing the very thing that will help you through this — and other — challenges: your leaders.

If you’d like to learn more about Entelechy’s work in creating customized social learning leadership development experiences, check out the work we did for a leading global utilities company:

And then contact us to discuss how social learning can empower and engage your leaders — even during a time of uncertainty.