Leader’s Toolkit

Leader's Edge > Leader’s Toolkit

Welcome to the N Vision Leader’s Toolkit section! Keeping to the spirit of our Statement of Purpose, especially “we motivate and enable people to develop pragmatic mindsets that stimulate change”, here you will find pragmatic tools that may help you clarify your vision and engage the group to release their true potential.

A word of caution here; we’ve used the following interventions with very positive results, however we cannot guarantee your outcomes. From time to time we will describe activities from other sources, and if so, will clearly identify the source. If you are a leader and would like to use one of these learning interventions, please prepare carefully and feel free to contact us if you have any questions.

Additionally, we nvision this section to be organic and dynamic, and continue to grow from your suggestions. We will review your contributions and consider listing them in this leader’s toolkit section! Just send us your experiences and let us know if you’d like us to post them on this site with your name.

Pragmatic Ideas to Bring Your Values Alive (38 KB)
Push or Pull Kick-Off Meetings (36 KB)
Your Leader's Forum (30 KB)
Leader Feedback Processes (36 KB)
Your Expectations Exchange (34 KB)
Capturing Your Leadership or Group Reality (30 KB)

Ensure exercises are clearly explained, and use these “learning interventions” as positive and constructive development opportunities! Review and discussion afterwards are very fruitful, especially when relationship issues and differing perceptions are raised. Plan and practice all unknown aspects of the activities before using them. Logistics, facilitation and especially how you split the group into the numbers of team members per team are factors which have a big effect on how the exercises work and the experience for all.

Additional ideas for leadership development and group dynamics can be found at:

How Leaders Build Value

Using People, Organization, and Other Intangibles to Get Bottom-Line Results
Dave Ulrich and Norm Smallwood

Team Fitness

A How-To Manual for Building a Winning Work Team
Meg Hartzler and Jane E. Henry, Ph.D.

The World of Moderation

The Neuland Approach: Philosophy and techniques for extraordinary group performance and active learning
Michèle Neuland

Winning Group Results

Techniques for guiding group thought and decision-making processes with the Moderation Method
Karin Klebert, Einhard Schrader and Walter G. Straub

Learning Instruments

The world would be a pretty boring place if everyone were the same. Thank goodness we're all different in some ways. Yet differences can be difficult to talk about constructively. Psychometric instruments are a tool for objectively making differences between individuals transparent. They have a wide application within personal and team development. We prefer to call them "learning instruments" because they help people learn about their strengths and development areas. By providing a framework in which people can learn and talk constructively about similarities and differences, they can significantly improve individual, team and organizational functioning.

Find out more about the following learning instruments:

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator MBTI (33 KB)
STRUCTOGRAM (51 KB)
The Intercultural Conflict Style Inventory (33 KB)
The Intercultural Development Inventory (30 KB)
The Kolb Learning Style Inventory (32 KB)
DiSC (35 KB)
The Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument (43 KB)
Leadership Practices Inventory 360° Feedback Tool (33 KB)

Leadership Facts & Figures

In this section, you’ll find new, interesting and useful facts & figures about leadership from latest research on various leadership topics, selected studies and publications. Please note, however, that the facts stated below are not always empirically proven facts.

The CEO's Pay Cut

373 U.S. public companies reduced their chief executives' base salaries between June 1, 2008 and June 18, 2009.

373 U.S. public companies reduced their chief executives' base salaries between June 1, 2008 and June 18, 2009. 68 companies in the Fortune 1000 index have reduced executive officers' base salaries in the past year.
Here are the 3 largest (by revenue) U.S. public companies where CEO pay cuts took place:

General Motors (reduced to $1)
Ford Motor (reduced by 30%)
Sears (reduced by $50K)

Harvard Business Review, September 2009.

Learning and Learning Styles

Generation Y managers are greatly self-directed when it comes to their learning and personal development, with 68% initiating most of their learning themselves.

Generation Y managers are greatly self-directed when it comes to their learning and personal development, with 68% initiating most of their learning themselves. Only 16% agreed that their development had been suggested by their line manager and still less (12%) agreed that their HR department played a significant role.
The findings strongly support the idea that young managers take substantial responsibility for their own learning.
Coaching and mentoring were minority experiences, and were experienced by significantly more male managers (27%) than female managers (17%), but had fairly high levels of perceived effectiveness. The experience of coaching and/or mentoring was associated with job satisfaction, with those who had experienced either form of development reporting significantly higher levels of job satisfaction.

Chartered Management Institute, June 2008.

Talent Shortages Influence Corporate Culture

43% of respondents in a business survey said talent shortages influence their organization’s culture to a high or very high extent, and that number jumps to 66% when respondents were asked to look 10 years into the future. It’s likely that companies are looking toward certain demographic shifts—including the retirement of the Baby Boomer generation—and foreseeing talent shortages.

Forty-three percent of respondents said talent shortages influence their organization’s culture to a high or very high extent, and that number jumps to 66% when respondents were asked to look 10 years into the future. It’s likely that companies are looking toward certain demographic shifts—including the retirement of the Baby Boomer generation—and foreseeing talent shortages. This is understandable. Without talent, it’s hard, if not impossible, to be innovative and to produce quality products. It’s clear that organizations will modify their cultures in order to attract talent.
Talent attraction and retention may be the most important influence on how engaged employees become in their jobs. Highly engaged employees are less likely to quit their jobs and are more likely to perform better than workers who are more disengaged. On the other hand, a bad culture can push employees into burnout and contribute to high turnover.

American Management Association, 2008.