Leadership Program is a middle management development program focused on maximizing on their simultaneous roles of being a leader and a follower, as well as a strategic and operational decision-maker.
Middle management is generally the most numerous management level in companies, with a challenging task where they need to be able to think strategically and execute operationally at the same time. Their role is even more complex, as they need to think strategically, but might have limited impact on strategy, and need to translate strategy into execution, but without being involved in the execution itself. Therefore, as their role is challenging (i.e. rather “unnatural” to human nature), this program aims to equip middle managers with the right mindset and knowledge to balance across levels and goals.
Leadership Program Key Takeaways:
- Identification of middle manager’s role in a company
- Identification of key challenges for middle managers
- Understanding of underlying principles behind the challenges
- Ability to think in systemic platform ways and build one’s role into platform role
LP is organized in four modules comprehending 40 academic hours with intense interactive lectures based on discussions, various case studies and workshops through a set of modules (11/2020 – 07/2021).
Module 1: Underlying principles of Balancing Across Conflicting Alternatives
As managers progress to middle management role, they move from a context where they were in charge of achieving well-defined results, to a context where they are faced with the challenge to continuously balance across conflicting alternatives. Their role challenges them to do the “unnatural” and, at the same time, deeply connect with people and projects as well as genuinely detach from them, thus allowing them to balance across (rather than within) project funnel and people funnel, ensuring optimal structural solutions for the company.
Module 2: Underlying principles of Individual and Team Leadership
As middle managers need to connect strategy to execution, their role focuses on processes that enable such transmission of information, and more importantly – meaning. As middle managers leadership role is highly challenging (i.e. “unnatural”) requiring them to be led and to lead at the same time, this module focuses on understanding how to balance the two roles simultaneously. It will expose them to the key principles enabling transmission of leadership insights from top management, while maintaining one’s personal leadership uniqueness.
Module 3: Underlying principles of Ambidextrous Structuring
Given the above-mentioned “unnatural” requirements on the part of middle managers, the role requires them to structure processes and organization as projects-people platforms. Therefore, this module focuses on insights into how to build platform systems that ensure middle managers’ goals are achieved by transferring the challenges which are “unnatural” to humans, into solutions that are “natural” for platform systemic solutions.
Module 4: Underlying principles of Ingenuity and Fundamental-thinking to facilitate decision-making
In this module, participants will be exposed to key principles behind biology and psychology of human brain that enable management of exploitation and exploration thus enhancing one’s decision-making capacity. As the role of middle managers tends to be highly challenging (i.e. “unnatural”), this module focuses on how one can be able to manage his/her brain to perform his/her role of middle management, rather than falling into a more “natural” role of clear strategic/operational targets. For this session participants would explore and enhance their innate approach to thinking, problem-solving and decision-making.
Leadership Program lecturers (11/2020 - 07/2021):
- prof. William Barnett (Stanford)
- prof. Irene Scopelliti (London)
- prof. Michael Ahearne (Houston)
- prof. Ajay Kohli (GA Tech)
- prof. Goran Vlašić (University of Zagreb)
- Darko Kreiner (US AirForce)
