The Leadership Sphere: Who We Are

BROCHURE

The Leadership Sphere

Who We Are

Insight. Influence. Impact.

[email protected]| www.theleadershipsphere.com

Welcome

Welcome to this company overview.

We are a solution-focused firm that has been helping organisations since 2007.

We pride ourselves on our robust partnering approach that helps to quickly identify challenges and opportunities, and then designing strategies to directly meet the current and future needs of your business.

We strive to be the most highly regarded brand in leadership development, with core services delivered through a network of highly engaged and results orientated consultants, supporting a portfolio of online services with global reach, and sustainable and profitable growth.

Our passion is developing leaders who create sustainable business growth enabled by a ‘healthy and humanistic’ workplace.

Sincerely,

Phillip Ralph, CEO / Senior Consultant

The Leadership Sphere

[email protected] | http://theleadershipsphere.com.au

What We Care About

The issues we face today in organisations and globally will require unprecedented leadership and unprecedented levels of co-operation concurrently, to mobilise communities and organisations.

A New Paradigm for the Future

To make progress on our most significant issues, we need a new paradigm—one that inspires us to:

Act constructively in a values-driven way
Empower each other to take responsibility and accountability at all levels of the organisation
Shift our focus from problem-centric to solution-centric (positive change)
Make progress on the toughest issues and challenges
Create an environment of breakthrough performance, and high levels of commitment and learning
Liberate ourselves from old ways of thinking about how to manage and lead people
Develop systems intelligence.

As the industrial age wanes, new possibilities emerge to create a different paradigm of leadership. I propose a new paradigm that draws from many sources and builds on them in an integrative way.

The mechanistic, industrial paradigm has been in existence since the latter part of the 18th century and continues to shape society and modern organisations. It is a long, slow journey, yet incredibly worthwhile.

Our Definition of Leadership

Our Purpose

Leadership is the Key Driver of Your Business.

Full stop.

We see leadership as the key driver of sustainable organisational performance and health. We have extensive experience working at the Board, CEO, Executive and middle manager levels in some of the world's largest companies as well as some just starting out.

Our Why, What and How

Our 'why' is to enable courageous leadership and cultures. This purpose statement fuels our vision to be the partner of choice in developing human-centred, courageous leaders and cultures.

Our 'how' is to mobilise people by designing and delivering evidence-based, world-class solutions.

Our 'what' is to do this through workshop facilitation, coaching and our digital courses.

We love helping organisations solve or make significant progress on tough adaptive/systemic challenges.

Creating Value Through Leadership

Our tagline 'creating value through leadership' speaks to the impact that best-in-class leadership development has on:

Individuals: Leaders who embark on a journey of becoming better leaders have a direct positive impact on the people around them, helping them to thrive and contribute in a whole new way.
Teams: Teams who are led by effective leaders and are made up of individuals who are also working on being better leaders and team members will be stronger together and will have a broader impact on the organisation and the people they serve.
Organisation: Our work with leaders and organisations can transform organisations to be healthy places that are as smart, creative, and inspired as the people inside them.
Community/World: The ripple effect of supporting leaders to be the best version of themselves has a positive impact to make our communities and the world a better place.
Leaders: The leaders we touch through our programs benefit in rich and deep ways to support them to fulfill their potential and be the best version of themselves. This has a tangible and significant ripple effect on their family and friends.

We are a high-quality, high-impact, professional services firm.

Inspired and driven by one of the most highly regarded leadership experts in Australia.
We are passionate and have a hunger to be the best at what we do.
We have been tested and proven over many years as a capable provider of leadership development and supporting services within our target market.
We deliver with impact (i.e. “what we do we do really well”).
We have high client retention and increased spend across a well-established client base.
Our clients know, like and trust us.
We are easy to deal with, professional and honest in our approach (i.e. ‘we do what we say we will do’).
We help businesses build capability and deliver results top-down, bottom-up, providing development across the full spectrum of capability development i.e. people/process/performance.

Our Approach

Integrated Leadership Development

The Integrated Leadership Development Model firstly invites consideration of the ‘field of play’ or Context in which effective leadership is required. This helps to gain clarity about the reality of the organisation, team(s) and their leaders, including strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats and an articulation of its short and long-term aspiration.

Once Clarity has been established, Capability must be built to fit. Finally, Contribution means the leader(s) and team(s) contribute in a meaningful and constructive way towards the strategy, the achievement of business results and a focus on people.

The three 'Cs' in more detail

1.Clarity of the context, strategy, aspiration, and leadership behaviours (current and future) which then allows purposeful…
2.Capability building of leaders and their teams to achieve results (people, customer, financial), including the right mindsets and behaviours which then allows…
3.Contribution from leaders to the new state through alignment, execution and renewal and role modelling the new way; build a healthy high performing culture; drive impact.

What happens if one of the three domains is missing?

Benign Impact = Clarity x Capability – Contribution (nothing happens)
Blind Impact = Capability x Contribution – Clarity (hit and miss results)
Blundering Impact = Clarity x Contribution – Capability (human and resource cost)

Three Stages of Growth

Our DiagnosticConnect™ process helps teams and organisations identify which phase they presently are in and which phase they would like to be in. The table below maps the areas of Clarity, Capability and Contribution to the three phases of Realign, Sustain Success and Accelerated Growth. Our programs help ensure that there is insight, influence and impact in the right areas. Sometimes the stages are planned, while at other times organisations find themselves there unexpectedly. This is particularly true of the Realign stage where the organisation must gain better clarity (the 'what') on its future aspiration, the capability (the 'vehicle') required to get there and a pathway to get there (the 'how' to achieve it).

Focus on the right thing at the right time

Our Levels of Leadership model creates a focus on the development needs of managers and leaders at various levels in the organisation and individual development pathways. It is also common for a program designed for an organisation's needs will incorporate multiple levels, usually beginning with Level 1 leadership and moving outwards to Levels 2, 3 etc. over time.

Five Levels of Leadership and the Integrated Leadership Model

Finally, by mapping the Five Levels of Leadership against the 3Cs, we can easily identify the key areas of focus.

Programs

Customised from experience

We have been designing and delivering impactful, results-driven programs for more than two decades. We know what works.

We have a broad and deep library of modules and impactful programs that can run from a few 5 minutes (microlearning) to long-term programs over three years (or a blend of both). All of our programs focus on creating meaningful, yet practical learning that can be translated immediately to learner's real-world challenges and aspirations. To achieve this, we use a number of different methodologies including an online portal (TLSLearning), the Actionable Habit Builder platform, workshops, peer-to-peer learning, workshops and coaching.

Our key areas of focus for programs are based on the Five Levels of Leadership Development described above.

Signature Programs

Our signature programs form the core of our work with leaders and organisations around the world and include:

Dare to Lead™ program which has been created by Brenè Brown. We will be offering this program both for in-house groups and via public courses. Read more here.
Leadership Excellence (6-12 month program) depending on your needs. The core components include orientation and set-up and a series of workshops supported by online coaching and support mechanisms such as peer-to-peer learning. We are also skilled at creating hybrid programs that are 'leader-led'. Learn more.
High-Performance Team Program (includes our proprietary DiagnosticConnect methodology and workshops) that have been demonstrated to significantly improve the functioning, dynamic and performance of senior teams. Learn more.
Actionable Conversations - a platform to support leadership and team habit formation. Learn more.
Executive Coaching Program - a six-month coaching program that focuses on your specific development areas and aspirations. Learn more.
Leader as Coach & High Impact Conversations - a leading-edge program that shatters the myths surrounding organisational coaching and provides a powerful way to empower and lead others as well as amplifying the skills and confidence of managers and leaders to have difficult conversations, including performance conversations with skill and conficdence. Learn more.

Support Mechanisms

We strongly believe that appropriate support mechanisms are at the heart of effective programs. The biggest challenge for any development program is creating behaviour change, not just for the sake of behaviour change, but behaviour that makes a difference to the organisation and its stakeholders.

TLS Community Hub: Blended Learning at Its Best

We have created an online space called the TLS Community Hub which now serves as a 'container' for all of our courses, including coaching. The Hub is a place where people can access relevant materials, communication, messages, videos and logistics.

The purpose of the Hub is to bring together a community of growth-minded leaders who inspire each other to embrace positive and effective leadership habits and practices so that we can be more purpose-driven, can navigate and create meaningful change, and support the development of today's leaders and the next generation of leaders.

You will have access to TLS facilitators and coaches in the Hub - and more importantly, continue to connect and learn from each other and colleagues from other industries and sectors. You will have access to the main community space where past participants of other courses, coaching or people who want to continue to learn about leadership can be found. With future courses that we conduct, there will be a specific private space for you.

Figure: The TLS Community Hub Application

In Summary:

Our signature LMS and community hub
Private spaces for client organisations, teams and coaching clients
Broader rich community space of other TLS clients and people wanting to improve their leadership
Mobile-friendly (as well as desktop)
Online resources (e.g. workbooks, agendas, articles, etc.)
Goal setting and online feedback from stakeholders
A rich community of like-minded leaders

We invite you to join the Hub and have a look around (if you're not already a member) by clicking here.

Actionable

Leader-led conversations for one hour per month
Mobile-friendly (as well as desktop)
Accountability Buddy
Individual behaviour change with enterprise-level impact
Measurable change outcomes, in every possible learning scenario
Change integrated into individual work
Enterprise-level dashboards
Embed, sustain, strategy implementation

Case Studies & Testimonials

What Do Our Clients Say?

We are proud of the work we do with some of Australia's largest and most iconic organisations as well as the small, niche organisations.

I have worked with a TLS Executive Coach for the last 1.5 years. This has been part of an Executive Team development program that he facilitated. Whilst I enjoy the team based sessions and find these to be really valuable, the facilitator's particular combination of wisdom, practical experience and empathy allows him to be an exceptional coach. With his coaching and guidance I have evolved as both a manager and a leader. This experience has allowed me to deepen my self-reflective practice, refine my system level diagnostic skills, strengthen my influencing tactics and evolve my understanding of the work of leadership to new levels. This work has allowed me focus on what is core to my purpose, of enabling and empowering others and creating the conditions that allow them flourish whilst I continue taking the steps up to be a high impact authentic leader.

Rebecca Lovitt, General Manager, Marketing

This was an excellent course. The coaching was tailored to my individual needs, and the teaching material in our group sessions was also highly specific to the challenges facing our organisation and our group of leaders. We also learned general principles which I have already found invaluable in the other areas of leadership outside my organisation. They were respectful, entertaining facilitators and coaches, and after just four group sessions I feel we have developed further both as a team and as individuals than I thought possible. I would highly recommend this course to others who are facing leadership roles, organisational change, and who acknowledge that we can all grow further and learn more about leadership.

Dr Kirsten Herbert MBBS BMedSci FRACP PhD, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre

“We have worked with the Leadership Sphere for the last two years to help lift the skills of our partners, lawyers and other professionals in the areas of effective conversations, feedback and coaching. The aim of the training is to help us deliver our firm and people strategies of building an energised and highly engaged workplace where people’s own personal values and the firm’s values work together in a way that motivates and inspires. We see effective conversations and relationships as critical foundation capabilities for creating a culture where high performance is expected and recognised and our values observed and promoted. TLS have been an outstanding thought partner for our firm and through their innovative and thoughtful delivery have helped fundamental”

Susan Ferrier, Director, People and Development, Allens Linklaters

I have recently had the opportunity to participate in an Executive coaching program with The Leadership Sphere. I was very enthusiastic about participating in the program and upon commencing I quickly realized that this was no ordinary leadership program. The differentiator between The Leadership Sphere and other organizations is clearly the skill and integrity of the coaches, depth of information and tools and the impactful one on one coaching sessions. The coaching sessions provided me with thorough diagnostics and then challenged me to analyse my leadership strengths rather than just focusing on my perceived development opportunities. I was encouraged to ‘let go’ of some long held negative behaviors and beliefs, no mean feat! I was energized and engaged by the empathetic, humanistic style and structure of the one on one coaching sessions and looked forward to my sessions with enthusiasm. The program had a profoundly positive impact on me and as a result, I have sharpened my approach to goal setting, increased my self-awareness and rediscovered the importance of positive internal dialogue. I highly recommend The Leadership Sphere to any company that wants to transform into a high performing organisation and realize the full potential of its leaders through a program that is inspiring, motivating and above all gets results.

Michelle Redfern, Executive General Manager

He (the TLS facilitator) comes from a space that is anchored in strong conceptual and process and delivery skills. He has very strong diagnostic and facilitation capability, brings insight, integrity, and humanity to all his work.

Executive Director, People Capital, major global bank.

The Dare to Lead program not only changed the way that I work and interact with my team, but also how I conduct myself in my personal life: leaning into my values, setting and enforcing boundaries, and ensuring I'm not listening to those in the cheap seats of my arena. I am a braver, kinder, more courageous leaders, mum, partner and human having participated in this program.

Sarah Louise, Associate, Semann & Slattery.

The Dare to Lead program was one of the best I have attended given it was very timely. From the rich and "real" content to the great facilitation of Phil, Felicity, Andrew, Ash and Roderick it was one course that stays with you. I would recommend this program for those who want to create a more human organisation where people want to come to work. Dare to Lead is a great experience.

Simone Wright, VP HR Asia Pacific, Pearson.

The team at The Leadership Sphere delivered a high quality offering with their Dare to Lead program. Skilled and experienced facilitators made the program a pleasure to participate in and the content kept me both engaged and challenged. If you’re looking for a leadership development program this is the one to go on the top of your list.

David Mills, Pilot, Qantas.

The Dare to Lead program provides such in-depth consideration of Brene Brown's work. It gave perspective to the content but also drives you to continue to consider other ways and concepts that you may not have considered before. The group size means that you have opportunity to share and learn from others whilst also being able to work independently on the areas you want to. Highly recommend it!

Carrie Rose, Approved Provider, Rosies Early Learning.

Want to Read More?

Read more case studies online or you can download a PDF document here that has a focus at the Executive & Board levels.

Our Values

Our values are important to us. These are the non-negotiable minimum standards to which all our work and dealings apply. These values are not a high aspiration we strive for, but rather the way we do business. When we are true to our values, our clients know it.

What's in a Name?

Our business name – The Leadership Sphere – was chosen to represent a number of things that were meaningful to us. First and foremost, our focus was leadership – as it remains today. We see leadership as a key driver of sustainable organisational performance and just as importantly, the experience people have when they turn up to work day-after-day. People are the heart of any organisation. If our companies are run well, then they will have a positive impact on our communities and society at large.

While ‘sphere’ was a play on words in terms of our ‘scope’ or what we did, the word aimed to represent a core principle of our practice. A sphere is connected, whole and inherently interdependent. A change in form in one part of a circle always influences and impacts the rest of the circle. Organisations work in much the same way in that our aspiration was that each and every person should be able to exercise leadership. A sphere also represents a unique form in nature (think of the moon, sun, earth) which captures our desire to think about, and remind ourselves about the difference we are seeking to make in every contact we have with people.

While we initially focused on three industry sectors (banking and finance; professional service firms and healthcare), we were grateful that our clients advocated for us because of the results achieved. This meant that we were soon working in diverse areas such as government, mining, infrastructure and utilities to name a few. Today, we work hard to understand the unique context of every organisation we work with. Over 10 years, we have ‘stuck with out knitting’. Creating more effective leaders, teams and cultures drives performance as well as people’s sense of fulfilment and self-worth. Today, we remain 100% committed to this notion.

About The Leadership Sphere

The Leadership Sphere is a solution-focused firm that has been helping organisations since 2007.

We pride ourselves on identifying your challenges quickly and designing strategies to address them, always keeping top of mind your business's need for minimal disruption.

We see leadership as a key driver of sustainable organisational performance and health. We have extensive experience working at the Board, CEO, Executive and middle manager levels in some of the world's largest companies. We have several case studies and testimonials available as an attachment.

Watch our introductory video (2 mins).

In the last 12 months, we've completed major projects for:

Ashurst	MLC Life Insurance	Monash Health	APT Travel Group
Deloitte	Melbourne & Olympic Parks	The Executive Connection (TEC)	Evolution Mining
ESTA	Victoria Police	RMIT University	Westpac
MyDNA	SGS Economics & Planning	Servier	St Vincent's Health
PeterMac Cancer Centre	Mercy Health	Leadership Victoria	Ethos Urban

Contact

The Leadership Sphere

Level 2, 350 Bourke Street

Melbourne Vic 3000

1300 100 857 | [email protected]