Leadership Skills for R&D Professionals          R&D Excellence Workshops

1 or 2-Day Workshop

This workshop can be customized to meet your needs, and is delivered at most locations internationally.

Contact us for more information.

This workshop teaches the competencies needed to lead projects, drive innovation, influence others, build teamwork, and improve communication. The most important leadership traits that apply to R&D responsibilities are emphasized.

Examples and case studies specific to the R&D environment are used extensively to illustrate how to apply what is learned. Participants engage in exercises that assess their individual leadership abilities, and they create personalized development plans for guiding improvement of key competencies that apply to their particular jobs.

Benefits

This program enables participants to:

• become more influential

• improve your ability to effectively lead projects and teams

• identify leadership development steps specific to your individual role

• get more support for ideas that will benefit your organization

• build rapport with employees, managers, and peers

• resolve the five major issues that limit the performance of teams

• identify and build teamwork skills needed as an individual contributor

• implement teambuilding activity in your teams at work, no matter what your role is on the team

• build a high level of trust among peers and managers

• overcome fear of conflict

• define and achieve measurable results

• develop key interpersonal and business skills needed to excel as a technical professional

Workshop Style

• Team case study exercises

• Extensive course notes included

• Interactive exercises where teams create an actual "product"

• Each participant creates a personalized development plan

• Facilitated discussion to address your real-world issues

• Tools and techniques that can be implemented immediately

Who should attend?

We understand that every organization has its own culture and business objectives. Thus, we can customize Leadership Skills for R&D Professionals to achieve your goals. For example:

• We can provide minimum to comprehensive training with a wide variety of modules

• We can work with your team on a specific project

• We can tailor the syllabus with the topics of special relevance to your teams

• We can offer the workshop in a single session, or break it up into several smaller meetings

• We can train your trainers and facilitators

Workshop Outline

Day 1 – Leadership Fundamentals

What is Leadership?
What leadership is, and what leadership is not
Why leadership skills are important for R&D professionals
Differences between leadership and management skills
Self-analysis of key leadership skill areas to improve
Five levels of leadership

How to Develop Trust and Respect
Characteristics that help credibility and perceived integrity
Characteristics that hurt credibility
Self-assessment

The Art of Influence
Building rapport with business associates
Helping others to see your view
Influencing managers and other leaders
Case study: Systems Engineer with Poor Leadership Skills
Understanding the process of “give and take”
Leading by example, even in tough situations
Applying influence instead of using authority or worrying about not having authority

Self Assessment of Leadership Ability and Potential
Abilities in three key areas are individually assessed and areas for improvement are highlighted

Project Leadership and Project Management
Overview of leadership and management skills necessary to effectively lead projects
Opportunities to distribute project leadership and management responsibilities
Case study: Sharing of Leadership and Management Responsibilities
Overview of project planning skills and tasks
Key project leadership skills
Case study: Outstanding Project Leader (a role model for project leaders)
 

Day 2 – Teamwork and Communication

Overview of Essential Skills
Balancing technical and non-technical skill development
The importance of “soft” skills

Conversation Skills: The Key to Successful Collaboration
Why face-to-face conversation is important
The art of listening
How to make conversation easy – even for the highly introverted
Optimizing email and phone communications

Presentation Skills
Presenting to groups, both small and large
Length and detail of presentations
Keeping the audience engaged
Tips for using PowerPoint or other visual aids

Overview of Effective Teamwork
The five major teamwork obstacles
Other issues that interfere with team performance
What does it take to be a successful team player?

The Importance of Trust
What is trust?
How to achieve the level of trust needed on high-performing teams
Trust building exercises
Team Operating Agreements
Communication practices for building trust

Healthy Conflict
Why conflict is needed
Ideal operating point
Focusing on common interests
Simple, but effective conflict profiling tools

Raising the Level of Commitment
What is a commitment?
Team commitment
Personal commitment
Use of proper language to clarify expectations

Roles and Accountability on Projects
Assessing team member strengths and weaknesses
The power of peer pressure
Helping peers be more accountable
Setting the tone

Results and Measurements of Success
Defining success
Measurable objectives for teamwork
Traps and challenges

Effective Team Meetings
The one thing all meetings need
Keeping boredom out of meetings
Three steps to interesting and productive meetings

Teambuilding Exercises
Key elements of adult learning
Appropriate exercises for “professionals”
Integrating teambuilding exercises with project work
 

Our Guarantee

If for any reason you are not satisfied, write to us within 30 days after attending the workshop and return the course materials and we'll arrange for you to receive a full refund - hassle-free!