What do you do if you want to use your facilitation skills to step into a leadership position?

Here are the key 3 Steps to use Facilitation skills for a top job: 1. Highlight Transferable Skills: Showcase how your facilitation skills align with leadership qualities on your resume and during interviews. 2. Provide Concrete Examples: Share specific instances where your facilitation skills led to successful outcomes to demonstrate your ability to lead effectively. 3. Network Strategically: Utilise your network to connect with influential individuals and demonstrate your value proposition through your facilitation abilities.

Facilitation Skill is crucial for leaders to create a safe space, solve problems, handle conflicts, brainstorm, and bring out the best in people, which is vital for leadership. To gauge your facilitation skills, list the transferable skills you excel in and those you want to improve. Observing great leaders and learning from their skills is valuable. Self-awareness is essential for growth, so learn not only by doing, listening, or reading, but also by observing influential personalities. This awareness will greatly benefit your journey as a leader!

Your adeptness at facilitation is a valuable tool as you aim for a leadership role. These skills—steering conversations, fostering teamwork, and building agreement—are foundational to effective leadership. Highlighting your proficiency in facilitation, being proactive, and enhancing your leadership capabilities can set the stage for your advancement. Indeed, exceptional facilitation acts as a catalyst for leadership excellence. To bolster your transition, illustrate the organizational benefits of your facilitation skills, thereby presenting a compelling argument for your move into leadership.

As I am very driven to intervention and strategizing towards professional development my key focus is to replicate leadership skills to address imbalances in terms of past experiences during apartheid. In selecting key leadership skills to be cascaded to retool and upskill my downline. I managed to obtain national endorsement for training teachers to embrace diverse teaching styles and teaching strategies to embrace Inclusive Education seamlessly. My success rate of taking education from good to great is evident leadership skills enhanced.

Facilitation skills play a crucial role. Here are some key aspects of facilitation: Clear Communication: Facilitators must communicate effectively, ensuring everyone understands the purpose and objectives. Active Listening: Listening attentively to team members fosters trust and encourages participation. Asking the Right Questions Facilitators ask relevant questions at appropriate times to guide discussions. Objectivity Suspending personal judgment allows facilitators to remain neutral and focus on group dynamics Goal-Setting Clearly defining goals helps steer discussions & decision-making. Encouraging diverse perspectives ensures well-rounded outcomes Flexibility Adaptability is essential to handle unexpected situations during facilitation

To gain exposure as a leader become a master of FACILITATION. As an example, when launching my business, I became certified in D.I.S.C., and needed to practice the new materials. So, I provided a complimentary training for a group. There are many groups in need of weekly presentations. By providing a half-day training, I gained the needed experience facilitating, while landing a billion-dollar public works engineering project that I stayed on for three years! So, to be elevated into leadership, learn and practice facilitation by offering training for any group, even a group of your friends. Practice, practice, practice, and be sure you acquire feedback, and you too will gain the experience and exposure to be elevated into a leadership role.

My favorite way to provide feedback I call "Forward Feedback." It's not necessary to be negative when providing correction. Instead, provide feedback by making suggestions for the future. "Dalia, next time you write the members of our board, if you could please use formal language when writing, I believe it will be received better. By providing feedback as in the example above, you won't dread correcting your employees, and they won't be as devastated. I also use this skill in training when appropriate, and team members are having challenges with one another. When teaching a group how conduct it, be sure to tell the person receiving feedback, that the only acceptable response is, "Thank You," and nothing more!"

Leading by example is probably one of the most consistent areas of focus in my leadership, and in my leadership coaching. The fact is your team watches you carefully, what you do and what you don't do, to understand what behaviours are appropriate and what truly matters to you. Role model the behaviours and actions you want. Follow-through is a critical subset here: if you say you are going to do it, do it. This is particularly important in areas of change. With a recent client, we were changing the way that she ran internal sales team meetings. The first meeting no one came prepared in the 'new way.' The second, about half. By the third meeting everyone came ready to have a different kind of conversation and she'd turned it into a habit.

As a leader it is often necessary to ensure that every employee is heard and diverse perspectives are shared. Facilitation helps with this. Leadership skills and knowledge of facilitation complement each other in harvesting the collective knowledge of the team/organisation. It helps a leader to instil psychological safety in the organisation.

A leader's main role is to listen and facilitate (make things easy). Use your facilitation skills to facilitate decision-making processes that are inclusive, participatory, and consensus-driven. Ensure that all voices are heard and considered in the decision-making process. Use your facilitation skills to navigate conflicts, overcome obstacles, and keep the team focused on the bigger picture.