"It isn't about me being a leader or 'look at me' - none of us accomplishes anything alone. Your team should be full of leaders, not just you. We need to develop leadership everywhere: frontline workers, managers, supervisors, directors and executives."
- Victor Deyglio, Founding President
Spring is upon us and to our utmost excitement our highly anticipated return to in person programming!
Fourteen participants joined us at the Alliance Leadership Centre in Toronto for a five day intensive program of discussion, debate and solutions thinking in the face of social, economic, and other challenges in today's context.
On Leadership
What it boils down to is this: Leadership has to be contextual. It has to be specific. It has to be relational. That was Founding President Victor Deyglio's takeaway from our sessions. Our supply chains are only as robust and resilient as our leaders, and our leaders aren't just the people with roles and titles, but the people ready to step up, to make decisions, and to take accountability as required.
It is, of course, not that simple. To say a leader wears many hats understates a key role at every level of an organization, if for no other reason than every step of your supply chain requires relationship management. Suppliers, drivers, deliveries, warehousing, the list goes on. Maintaining your business can require 2.7 quintillion relationships. QUINTILLION.
If that isn't enough, there's always the question of your team's engagement. Society has been asking the question for years: how do we get people engaged and how do we keep them engaged. The answer is not just money - that's no longer enough. And because layers of complexity are woven into the leadership cloth, a good leader isn't solely focused on the group that is actively disengaged. They know that the right group to focus on, especially when aiming to make change, is that sweet spot in the middle.
But more than anything else, "Leadership in Context" emphasized that leadership is not about authority, it is about influence. For you to influence your team, they need to trust you - and you them. You need to adapt, to be genuine and authentic, and understand that regardless of your role, your behaviour needs to shift with every situation and every person you encounter.
Toolkit Takeaway
Our TLI programs always leave you with an addition to your toolkit. This time around our participants applied a PESTLE analysis to an extremely popular fast fashion brand.
In a number of robust discussions, our participants went from identifying problems, to brainstorming sustainable solutions to a consumerist, demanding and yet environmentally conscious market. What do you see when you look at fast fashion? What are some of the PESTLE factors that influence how fast fashion dominates today's economy?
And most importantly, food!
On top of fantastic discussion and tonnes of information, the food was wonderful! Big thank you to Susan's My Bon Appetit for spoiling us!
Congratulations to our new P.Logs!
Kelvee Hoffmann |
Ted Slugocki |
Rémi Boivin |
Adam Vezina |
Ilyas Shaikh |
Jasmine Gill |
Phoebe Samuelson |
Nadir Ismail |
Feras Aldaoud |
Emily Savage |
Iqbal Shanavaskhan |
And a generous thank you to our P.Logs that attended "Leadership in Context" and lead by example throughout the program!
Have questions or intrigued by what you see here? We'll be announcing Fall Session dates in the coming months!
For other summaries and information about what went on at the Leadership Program, check out our social media platforms: