Facilitative Leadership

#Leadership, a widely discussed topic, encompasses diverse views and perspectives. During this session hosted by the Ruhelkhand Management Association, Bareilly and BRINDAVAN BEVERAGES PRIVATE LIMITED (a franchise of 可口可乐公司 ), leaders from various backgrounds and stages of their leadership journey convened..

#Concept

Whenever I've taken the lead in any initiative since I have known #Facilitation, I've noticed personal growth in my role as a facilitator. Embracing the values and traits inherent in facilitation has been instrumental in navigating these experiences. When presented with the opportunity to host a session on leadership, I was inspired to delve into the concept of Facilitative Leadership, drawing from my own journey.

During my research, I came across a book on "Facilitative Leadership" by Sanjay Dugar, CPF , a book that provided valuable insights into this approach. Its contents expanded my understanding of facilitative leadership, offering a fresh perspective.

I'm excited to share a summary of the session with you all, hoping to impart some of the key learnings gleaned from this exploration.

#Client Discussions

During the planning stages, I was allocated a two-hour slot for the Leadership Session. However, as discussions progressed with the client, they expressed interest in incorporating the strengths of leadership into the session.

After thorough deliberation, we concluded that covering all traits within the allotted time frame would be impractical. Following several discussions and negotiations, we agreed to focus on two key strengths: #TeamBuilding and #EmotionalIntelligence. Additionally, the session duration was extended to three hours to accommodate this expansion.

It was mutually agreed that the session would primarily center around Leadership, with the other two topics serving as supplementary elements. To ensure clarity and alignment with the client's expectations, I conducted multiple calls and even made a personal visit to gain a comprehensive understanding of their needs and spatial requirements.

#Design

The session itself was challenging enough of having enormous topic of Facilitative Leadership. It became more challenging when I had to marry all the 3 topics (Team building, Emotional Intelligence in 3 hours desired by the client.

The entire design was now depending on how I design the flow. After a lot of deliberations and talking to experience of other facilitators, I went on with Knowing Self >> Knowing Leadership>> Knowing Team Building and Emotional Intelligence>> combine all 3.

#Divergence through:

• Game based experiential learning through making a origami plane as a check in / Ice Melter. It was also to bring in childlike exploratory mood amongst the participants
• Paired Discussion helped to navigate through each other’s experiences of being a leader and bring out the traits of a leader
• Leadership Envelops - https://www.sessionlab.com/methods/leadership-envelopes helped in understanding various principles of Leadership and marrying them to Team Building and? Emotional Intelligence while bringing out practical ideas at workplace.

#Convergence through:

• Power Walk - https://jliflc.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Power-Walk.pdf helped the participants to understand different styles of Leadership and their acceptance.?

• Mentimeter for bringing out final action ideas for the participants

#Delivery

What went well:

• Space Setting – We wanted an open space to play Power Walk, which we fortunately got next to the room allotted.
• Personal visit to the venue to get an idea of Space settings and designing the flow
• Session Flow which went from knowing self to team and then to self
• Clear contracting for taking pictures, making videos, providing the stationery, etc.
• Contracting for where to place the tea brake during the situation
• Letting go off control during the session sometimes
• Trust the process and concept
• Trust the collaborative wisdom
• Picking up the exercises which gave an insight into all the aspects which client wanted saving the time for more conversations
• Ran through the Slide deck multiple times

Learnings:

• Avoid Complex Instructions and Questions
• Usage of language which is more comfortable with participants
• Be careful during transition phases (While changing from Experiences to Application) and while going from Divergence to Convergence.
• Don’t rush the Convergence due to time shortage
• How do you manage a Facilitated session in a conference room set up
• To vision the process in more detail

Thank you Dr Manish Sharma , President - RMA and Manoj Kumar Chaudhary, VP - Brindavan Beverages Pvt. Ltd. & Team and Qadir Ahmed, Secretary - RMA , for giving me this opportunity to experiment something different with the members of RMA.

Thank you Sanjay Dugar, CPF for the enlightening book on Facilitative Leadership, excerpts from? which helped participant conversation richer. I recommend everyone to read it at least once.

Thanks you Shalaka Gundi (IAF Certified Professional Facilitator) for always being my sound board and showing us the Power Walk exercise in IAF EME Conference 2023.

Thank you Chetan Patil for that quick 5 mins call help for clearing out my thoughts on combination of aspects.

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