Defining Leadership Principles

What are Leadership Principles?

Leadership Principles are the set of actions or guiding beliefs that leaders can implement to drive them toward success. How well an organization, company or business performs is directly related to how effectively the leader motivates and guides their employees.

As an organization, our intention is to define the Leadership Principles that will be used as competencies to measure the behaviors that define a successful leader. These principles will become the cornerstone of how we coach our team members, measure leadership competency, and invest in programs for ongoing leadership development.

The Leadership Principles will be concise, simple and powerful to ensure all team members can easily identify them and know what is expected as they continue their own development plans and coaching focus.

• Guiding principles spring from our values.

• Leadership buy-in is critical to driving principles.

• The principles need to be consistent with the vision.

• Leadership Principles describe the behaviors that drive how we coach, develop, and align as leaders.

• Ensure the principle doesn’t outline the exact “how to,” but does emphasize the important leadership behaviors to the organization.

What will Leadership Principles be used for?

Once established and agreed to, the Leadership Principles will form a consistent platform and common language to utilize and embed into the team from the executive level on down. These principles, and how leaders embody or exhibit them, can be used for execution, decision making, coaching, team strategy, and communication alignment.

Why is this workshop important?

As a team, it is important to have diverse voices represented with the Leadership Principles. Establishing this foundation of leadership core competencies and a culture of coaching will drive success within the organization.

How will the workshop work?

Pre-work (15 minutes)

• Use examples from other companies below to spark ideas and thoughts. (Examples: Amazon, Indeed, Military)

• Think about yourself as a leader as well as your team. What are the actions and grounding beliefs that can guide and become the cornerstone of development, action and success?

• Be prepared for an exercise to brainstorm and discuss.

Workshop: (45 min)

• Set-Up (5 minutes) Begin with an Ice-breaker to engage the group and revisit the “what” we are doing and “why” we are doing this.

• Breakout Rooms (15 minutes) Small groups of 3-4 people will be organized into breakout sessions to brainstorm and share ideas. Each group will come up with a list of 3-4 leadership competencies and behaviors.

• Share (10 minutes) All groups come back and one spokesperson from each group presents their list of Leadership Principles. (2-4 minute per group)

• Discuss (15 mins) Engage in a facilitated discussion around the proposed principles. Each person indicates the most compelling 5 principles to them. A list will be compiled, aligned and presented back to the team for feedback and approval.