Real World Group is excited to be embarking on a major new leadership and management development programme with Leeds City College – the third biggest Further Education (FE) organisation in the UK. Leeds City College, which has expanded significantly in the past two years, has even greater ambitions for growth over the next few years in creating excellent learning experiences for individuals, businesses and the community.

The College recognises that key to its success will be creating engaging leaders who truly harness the potential of all their staff. They are therefore investing the time of all their managers from the highest level in a programme of culture change to build on strengths and push ahead in creating great value for their learners in spite of global economic challenges.

The flip side of effective, engaging leadership is “derailment” – when an individual dramatically falls off their career trajectory as a Executive or CEO because their inappropriate, self-serving behaviour has finally come to the end of the line as far as their organisation is concerned. Such individuals tend to leave a “body count” behind them, as they have ruined others’ careers by playing them off each other on the slippery pole to success. You might be surprised how common this is…

Expert psychologist in the field of derailment is Professor Adrian Furnham, author of “The Icarus Syndrome: Leaders who fail and derail”. He and Real World Group’s Chief Executive, Professor Beverly Alimo-Metcalfe will be presenting keynotes at the upcoming British Psychological Society’s Psychometrics Forum on 15th February in London. Expert in Engaging Leadership (where leaders positively harness the potential of others for a win-win situation) Beverly Alimo-Metcalfe will be presenting the positive path to career success at the forum, a clear juxtaposition to derailing behaviours.

With two of the world’s leading leadership psychologists inviting debate, the event will certainly provoke interesting conversations about the leadership selection criteria that organisations must apply to ensure that their performance is sustainable, rather than under the spell of a “toxic” leader.

We would like to take the opportunity thank all clients and individuals with whom we’ve worked over the past year — your support has been much appreciated and we wish you all the best for a happy & healthy 2012.

The RWG offices will be closed after the 23rd December and we reopen again on 3rd January 2012.

Real World Group was excited to present at the CIPD Annual Conference 2011 in Manchester this month. As HR professionals know, the opportunity to run a Masterclass at this event is a highly sought after opportunity for which a company must present a clear business benefit to the attendees, most of whom are already expert in their subject area.

The Masterclass, entitled ‘Better Leadership Today‘ was run by Real World Group Chief Executive Professor Beverly Alimo-Metcalfe and attended by over 150 attentive delegates. The content included updates on understanding of leadership in the new global context, an exercise to explore leadership in the delegates’ current context, and new research on High Readiness for Change.

This is a fairly new concept in organisational culture that is critical not only for successfully negotiating ongoing uncertainty in organisations, but also serves as an important foundation for implementing new business processes such as LEAN, SAP, and other types of reengineering. High Readiness for Change diagnostic tools for teams will be available in a 360 format from Real World Group in 2012.

Sign up to our mailing list to find out more nearer the time.

Following a whirlwind three days of high level presentations including the Ministry of Health conference, and an invited talk to the Permanent Secretary of the Civil Service College and her colleagues, Real World Group and Sequoia Group hosted current and new clients at Raffles Hotel, Singapore.

The event for 40 participants was a great success, with attendees furiously writing notes as Real World Group’s Chief Executive, Professor Beverly Alimo-Metcalfe gave a lively and passionate presentation on the nature of effective, engaging leadership, and its impact on the bottom line for both public and private sector organisations.

The surroundings were beautiful and the refreshments were as you would expect at Raffles – elegant and just right. Attendees came from the public and private sector with a number of multinational corporations among the audience, including the CEO and top team of a large, privately-owned utilities company based in South East Asia who have already used Real World Group’s TLQ to lead the way in creating a more engaging culture.

Following Real World Group Chief Executive, Professor Beverly Alimo-Metcalfe’s rousing keynote address at the Ministry of Health conference last week, there was substantial interest in the follow on workshops run by Managing Director Juliette Alban-Metcalfe, and Jacqui Wong (from strategic partners Sequoia Group).

Real World Group and Sequoia’s offering had already been placed in the main ballroom (where the keynote addresses were held) but no one could have anticipated their popularity. On day one, the workshop focusing on building engaging teams and cultures was attended by 350 participants. On day two, the workshop focusing on how to strengthen individual engaging leadership among clinicians and non-clinicians surpassed these numbers and was attended by an estimated audience of 500. How many people were left to attend the five other concurrent sessions is unknown!

It is truly encouraging to see how well the engaging leadership model was embraced by the crowd from Singapore. Speaking to Juliette Alban-Metcalfe outside the conference venue, two nurses who attended the workshops on both days were asked whether they intended to take the lessons learned back to their teams to show them the nature of true leadership. Responding in the most engaging way possible, they said, “Yes, in time, but first we must start with ourselves”.

Such is their belief in Real World Group’s model of engaging leadership for ensuring the future health of the nation, Singapore’s Ministry of Health placed Chief Executive, Professor Beverly Alimo-Metcalfe, as the opening keynote speaker following the country’s Minister for Health, Mr Gan Kim Yong.

Beverly’s presentation on the critical need for engaging leadership to ensure stronger, safer and more sustainable healthcare was very well received and led to overcapacity workshops for Real World Group’s Managing Director, Juliette Alban-Metcalfe, on both days of the annual conference.

Beverly’s keynote was followed by a number of invited sessions including a private lunch event with the Permanent Secretary and her team, closed session for key clinicians and healthcare leaders, and a panel discussion with other keynote speakers.

We were recently dropped a line by Piers Cain, Head of Knowledge Management for the Chartered Management Institute to let us know that he had blogged about an article Real World Group’s Chief Exec Beverly had written:

“The ‘need to get more for less’:  A new model of ‘engaging leadership and evidence of its effect on team productivity, and staff morale and wellbeing at work.”

We are thrilled to hear that the article is currently one of the most top rated on the CMI site.  Good news indeed, since the positive effect of engagement on productivity, morale and wellbeing is surely needed now more than ever.

Piers’ blog and a link to the article in question can be found here.  If you found the information valuable, please let us know!

Thanks to all those who submitted questions during Beverly’s keynote presentation at the recent HBAA Event.

You can read the questions and answers in a PDF format here.

The HBAA is a trade association that represents the collective interest of the parties involved in the procurement and management of conference, meetings and accommodation in the UK and internationally and represents buying power of £2.3bn through its members. So we were thrilled when Real World Group Chief Executive, Professor Beverly Alimo-Metcalfe was invited to speak at their Annual Forum in Manchester.

The theme of the 2 day conference was ‘Future Vision’. HBAA chair, Juliet Price remarked that “These are unprecedented times and the tough trading climate is not over yet… However, as an industry we lose sight of the longer term at our peril.” For this reason the objective of the event was to share industry and global trends and be inspired by thought leaders such as Beverly. Juliet hoped that delegates would go away with something of value for their business and something of value for individuals.

Held at the Ramada Manchester Piccadilly Hotel, General Manager David Daly has effectively rejuvenated the hotel which now provides the highest quality of service. A keynote from Paul Simpson from Marketing Manchester set the scene for delegates describing Manchester as the ‘Original Modern City’ with a continuous ‘aspiration for change’ the beating heart of this rejuvenated city.

Beverly presented a keynote urging delegates to consider their notion of leadership and what it is to be a leader. She insisted that Heroic leadership is dead. She maintained that ‘heroic’ leadership is based on the idea that leadership resides in the hands of one particular individual whom others must follow, which creates a sense of dependency. During an inspirational keynote, Beverly shared research data, examined the evidence and reviewed her scientifically proven model of engaging leadership the TLQ. In conclusion Beverly showed that this model of ‘engaging leadership’ is based on leaders working in partnership with those in their teams, ensuring they understand what is expected of them, but also empowering them, valuing their contributions, encouraging their suggestions, and supporting their development. At all times, the leader is mindful of the standards, goals, and quality of the service being delivered, but so also are their staff.

During the presentation the audience provided questions, live, through the Crystal Interactive system – these questions, along with Beverly’s answers, are available here.

Beverly urged the delegates to embrace engagement at an organizational and individual level to harness the full potential of their employees.

Beverly’s Top Tips to Take Away

• Leadership is a contact sport it’s not virtual reality
• Start treating people as human beings not human doings
• Believe that with every pair of hands you get a brain for free

Beverly’s references – extra reading

• CIPD report ‘Shaping Future Engaging Leadership’
• Greenleaf R K (1970).  The Servant as Leader. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Download a PDF document of Beverly’s slides from the event here.

For information on the ‘Benefit You, Benefit Your Business’ promotion, visit out hospitality specific information page here: www.realworld-group.com/missing-piece