Centre opens to boost leadership skills in Jersey

Friday 29 July 2016

A new development centre has launched this week to help local executives and managers improve their leadership skills.

It's part of ASL Executive Services, which is a new division of the local recruitment agency, ASL.

Accredited by the Institute of Leadership and Management, the new development centre will offer courses for groups of managers looking for a new qualification from a Level 2 award in team leading skills, all the way through to a diploma. 

The idea is to provide a pipeline of future leaders for local businesses who will be better able to motivate, communicate with and inspire their colleagues.

Edith Coleman is a Senior Consultant at ASL Executive Services, having commenced her career with Standard Chartered  in Jersey, and now has over 30 years experience working in banking, and in HR and training:

"Leadership development is something we have been discussing in Jersey for the last eighteen months. A lot of business leaders and respected entrepreneurs have been talking about the lack of leadership skills in the Island. I personally feel that there are a lot of good leaders in the Island who need to refresh, reinvent and develop further their leadership skills."

Her view was echoed by Olivia Cleland, who specialises in the design, development and delivery of ILM accredited leadership and coaching courses, ensuring that organisations can develop the capability of individuals, and create high performing teams.

She is an Associate with ASL Executive Services, and explains what a typical program might look like:

"We like to open the program with a session of contracting to ensure that people feel really safe and there is a level of confidentiality so that the participants can open up and share their experiences. All the sessions are short workshops which are spread across the day to make the most of the learning experience, and maximise the time. 

"A lot of the time we use real-life case-studies, nothing is role-played or made up, everything is real life, we make sure we have lots of action planning so there is a good transfer of learning; of course we have fun throughout it, and there's lots of story-telling done in a very specific way so that people can learn from it. We like to finish off the session with an evaluation, as they are our customers, and we want to make sure it has been really useful."

The Centre opened at a special launch event at ASL's offices in town last night, with the first group of students coming through the doors in September.