The Leadership: Influencing People & Managing Change program centers around leadership capabilities: exerting your influence and steering change, both at the interpersonal level and at the organizational level. It is placed in the context of finance, as a department or as a service, and role and responsibilities of the finance professional. In signaling, advising and ‘guiding into the right direction’ these leadership skills are indispensable.
Participants will strengthen their skills in influencing people in business interactions, as well as in managing change throughout an organization. They will augment their effectiveness in bringing about behaviors which contribute to better decision-making and greater organizational results.
“Reach goals more effectively by influencing people and managing change.”
Professor Marwan Sinaceur, ESSEC Business School Paris, France
The three critical components to effective leadership are divided over the three program days:
Day 1: Strong influence & communication behaviors
Key behavioral reflexes in interpersonal interactions
Which key efficient communication behaviors work across a wide range of business and organizational situations? How do you defuse tension or conflict in interactions? We discuss and practice how to ask questions and remain open-minded despite distrust, conflict, or lack of interest. By means of concrete case-studies, participants experience these key points in a compelling way, and grasp the power of non-verbal behaviors.
Day 2: Influencing across levels
Applying indirect influence & be a leader in groups
How do you enhance your influence while taking into account the social and organizational context? This means going beyond the one-to-one, one-shot interactions. What weight to attribute to certain contextual aspects? We discuss and practice how to exert influence through indirect means, leveraging your influence in team & group interactions, generating effective group processes, and facilitating better decision-making.
Day 3: Leading change
Understanding how to make change happen
What ways are at your disposal to lead, foster, and implement change throughout your organization? How do you effectively deal with the complexity of collective dynamics? We discuss and practice psychological and organizational barriers to change, general strategies to lead and foster change, concrete behaviors to implement change, and what makes effective change leaders in today’s organizations.
The program is intensive and hands-on. It starts with an interpersonal efficiency perspective: to enhance participants’ immediate, interpersonal impact. And finishes with an organizational efficiency perspective: to enhance participants’ long-term, organizational impact.
This interactive program consists of a combination of lectures, real-life cases and examples, and role plays.
How you will benefit
- Augment your effectiveness in dealing with people
- Strengthen your leadership and influencing capabilities
- Expand your situational overview and leadership toolkit
- Enhance your behaviors in one-to-one interactions
- Improve your understanding and use of non-verbal behaviors
- Learn about and practice with strategies of indirect influence
- Enlarge your impact in groups and lead them to better decisions
- Learn about strategies and behaviors to lead and implement change
Program length
3 days
| Day 1 | 09:00 – 18:00 |
| Day 2 | 09:00 – 18:00 |
| Day 3 | 09:00 – 18:00 |
Next steps
We offer carefully crafted learning paths designed to help you dive deeper into various facets of finance. Take the next step in your professional learning path by choosing one or more of our specialized programs, for example:
Day 1: Strong influence & communication behaviors
As indicative outline:
- Understanding underlying interests despite conflict
- Formal versus informal influence
- How to understand what your counterpart values
- How to remain open-minded toward your counterpart despite distrust
- How to offer appealing solutions
- Efficient behaviors & persuasion
- Manage Timing
- Asking questions
- Communicating ideas by using emotional, concrete examples
- Understanding the power of non-verbal behaviors and emotions
- Paradoxical behaviors
Day 2: Influencing across levels
As indicative outline:
- Understanding and mapping the organizational context
- Understanding the social context of relationships
- Indirect/side influence
- Manipulating perception
- Leading groups toward better decisions
- Group decision-making role-play
- Debriefing of the group decision-making role-play
- Ensuring efficient group processes
- Leading by influence in teams & groups
- Understanding the social dynamics of groups
- Influence tactics & behaviors in groups
Day 3: Leading change
As indicative outline:
- Leading and implementing change in a business organization
- Understanding Barriers to change
- Psychological / individual barriers to change
- Organizational / collective barriers to change
- Leading & Inducing Change in an organization: An action plan
- Strategies to lead change
- Behaviors to implement change
- Frameworks to analyze & assess change
- How to analyze strategic choices of change
Program preparation
There is some preparatory work required for this program. Pre-readings consist of case materials, chapters of a book and/or a few articles. These materials will be made available on a password protected webpage a few weeks prior to the program.
To ensure maximum benefit from the program for participant and fellow-participants, we strongly advise to prepare prior to attending.
Read more
> ‘Reach goals more effectively by influencing people and managing change’
The Leadership: Influencing People & Managing Change program is relevant to finance professionals and managers who seek strategies and tools to strengthen their effectiveness in dealing with people, steering change and are keen to expand their leadership capacities.
Please contact us should you feel the need to verify your level of knowledge, and/or the relevance of your work context.
Is this program not the right fit for you?
We offer other programs which you might find more interesting or useful, such as:
