WOL for Leaders
What happens after a leadership offsite or workshop is over and everyone goes back to their desks? What’s next?
In late November I got a WhatsApp message from Michael Trautmann. He and Swantje Allmers, CEO of New Work Masterskills (NWMS), are running a highly successful leadership program at a global German company. And they were looking for a way to build on the positive momentum they created.
“We can imagine offering a WOL for Leaders (10 weeks) as part of the program.
We develop it together. What do you think?”
I said yes immediately.
The concept
Way back in 2017, Katharina Krentz and I created a method for leaders while she was at Bosch. Back then, we focused on improving a leader’s digital skills and used a reverse mentoring format, pairing junior people with leaders. It was useful, but leaders had more pressing issues.
We learned that what would most benefit leaders aren’t just more specific skills, but support and advice from peers to help them face challenges and grow professionally.
Working with a truly enlightened team at the company who commissioned the work, led by Sascha Schmid, Dörte Wickenhagen, and Niko Votsos, we decided our program shouldn’t try to mold participants into being a particular kind of leader. Rather, we designed a way they could each become, through practice together with their peers, the kind of leader they aspire to be.
WOL for Leaders
This new method has a similar format as other WOL methods, though with a completely different purpose and content.
A Personal Goal: In WOL for Leaders, each participant defines their own personal leadership vision—What kind of leader do they want to be?—and works throughout their Circle to bring that vision to life.
Small Groups: Circles consist of four to five leaders, usually (but not necessarily) part of a talent development program.
A Structured Curriculum: Each week there are stories, exercises, and discussions, with weekly themes including motivation, performance management, innovation, and team management. There are also actions to take in between meetings.
Practice Over Time: Over three months, ten “leadership conversations” gradually shift from Self-Leadership to One-on-One Leadership to Team Leadership. Then we offer the Circle structured formats for continuing to meet and support each other.
By the end, each participant has worked on their personal leadership vision, practiced skills with colleagues that bring that vision to life, and created a trusted peer support network that will help them long after the leadership program has ended.
What’s next?
We just finished the materials and our first pilot is underway, looking to scale to 500 or more leaders. Two more programs are about to begin this month.
Some companies, like our first pilot, will use WOL for Leaders to complement their existing leadership programs. They want to answer “What’s next? with a practical and scalable way for leaders to support each other. Other companies will use WOL for Leaders as a replacement for individual coaching or external executive networks, or to make leadership development accessible to a much wider audience than they could reach otherwise.
In all of these cases, we customize the method for each organization, tailoring it so it includes skills that are important to them and aligns with their goals and values.
There are over 50,000 books on leadership telling you how to lead. In WOL for Leaders, you build skills and relationships to become the kind of leader you aspire to be.
