Introducing Toolkit Courses for Leadership Development

The innovative Skillsoft Leadership Development Program powered by MIT Sloan Management Review is designed to deliver leadership training focused on essential modern competencies, informed by a scientific understanding of how adults learn best for improved performance. Scenario-based videos in the program feature a unique learning design and innovative pedagogy which helps learners internalize the critical human-interaction elements of leadership through the use of compelling drama and pragmatic storytelling. The program’s flagship courses cover 30 of today’s most critical leadership competencies, including Building and Leading Teams, Leading Through the Challenge of Change, and Leading with Agility.

As announced previously, we are pleased to introduce a new SLDP channel called Leadership Toolkits. Every leader needs practical, effective approaches for conducting mission-critical, team-based leadership activities. The three initial toolkit courses demonstrate how to effectively facilitate a brainstorming session, facilitate an ideation workshop, and run a team debrief for learning and performance improvement. All toolkit courses leverage Skillsoft’s award-winning scenario-based design.

“At the foundation of digital leadership competencies lie mindsets that must be developed and continuously honed. Mindsets are the mental operating systems guiding a leader’s behavior. To achieve durable behavioral change, leaders must embrace the development of new mindsets, and in the process abandon pre-existing notions of what effective leadership looks like. Exposing leaders to high quality scenario-based video content showcasing the behaviors embodied in these new mindsets and providing leaders with the tools to put these behaviors into action offers a powerful way to develop leadership capability at scale.” – Heide Abelli, Customer Market Leader, Leadership and Business - Skillsoft

Here’s a summary of first three new Leadership Toolkit courses:

Leadership Toolkit: Facilitating a Brainstorming Session

Facilitating effective brainstorming sessions allows leaders to harness their teams’ creativity to generate a greater quantity and quality of ideas and strategies to spark innovation and provide a wide range of possible solutions to specific business problems. Successful brainstorming sessions provide creative grist for the strategic mill.

In this course, you will learn specific techniques and strategies for facilitating a successful brainstorming session. You’ll also learn about leading your team through productive activities, handling diverse personalities and priorities, and keeping your business team focused and on-task without limiting ideas and innovation.

Leadership Toolkit: Facilitating a Workshop

Facilitating effective workshops requires a delicate mix of didactic, proactive leadership and structured interaction that helps teams generate and debate creative, innovative ideas and build strategies for applying them to solve business problems and explore new business opportunities. Effective workshops allow the team to benefit from shared experiences and expertise. For a workshop to be successful, the facilitator must choose the right team, plan the meeting space to foster the participants comfort and participation, and get participants involved and engaged early in the process. Everyone should be clear on the decisions that have been made and their next steps and roles moving forward.

In this course, you will learn specific techniques and strategies for facilitating a successful workshop, mitigating the challenges of diverse personalities and priorities, and keeping your business team focused and on-task using structured activities. You’ll also learn how to help participants evaluate the session afterward so they can learn and grow from their experience.

Leadership Toolkit: Running a Team Debrief

Debriefs are a way to systematize what you've learned from a business situation. They present an opportunity to reflect on how the team performed and reinforce a culture of learning and proactive communication. Running an effective team debrief helps business teams more fully understand both the positive outcomes and shortcomings of team events and what needs to be done to rectify missteps and make similar future events even more successful.

In this course, you will learn specific techniques and strategies for running a successful team debriefing while handling the challenges of diverse personalities and perspectives. You’ll also learn how to keep your business team focused on improving processes, mitigating potential future risks, and finding solutions while avoiding the temptation of assigning blame or abdicating responsibility.

Here is a clip from Leadership Toolkit: Running a Team Debrief

Bringing it All Together

Successful leadership in today’s business world requires a multitude of skills and competencies, along with the right tools to implement them. Skillsoft’s new Leadership Toolkit courses can help you master critical team leadership activities and develop the skills you need to be successful in managing diverse teams of individuals with different backgrounds, experiences and expertise. Request a demo today!

Nancy Santacesaria is a Project & Program Manager, Leadership, Business Skills, and Digital Transformation Content Solutions at Skillsoft.