Luckily, as a local President, you have some leverage as to what should be happening in your chamber the year you are a president and I used this leverage to create a JCI London leadership academy. I proposed the project formally to my council, but I think they have learned that if Solveig wants something, better not go against her...so they approved it. Good council.
Friday evening we discussed what leadership is and the importance of personal branding. Throughout the academy each participant had an envelop with their name on stuck on the wall and the other participants were encouraged to leave feedback whenever a participant made an impact.
On Saturday we had sessions on communicating leadership and personal branding, trainers were Simon Bucknall from JCI London for the morning session and Tony Friende from Enos consulting for the afternoon session. We then let the participants out on the streets of London with apprentice style challenges that involved getting other people involved. One team had to find sponsors for our National Convention, another were asked to get publicity for the Nothing but Nets campaign and two teams were tasked with creating flash mobs and PR stunts for JCI. In the middle of the challenge the participants were told to also get featured in the media.
In addition, each participant were set a personal leadership challenge and had to lead an activity during the weekend, such as an ice breaker, time out or thank you speech.
Saturday evening we celebrated, the teams presented what they had done in the afternoon, we had speeches from National President Lesley Young and Past EVP Joe Dilger. We also had the honour to witness National President Lesley Young receive a senatorship, a lifelong honourary membership of JCI. The participants got to hear about leadership on different levels of the organisation, and also see how we reward leadership.
Sunday was the last day of a long weekend, Tony came back with his colleague Joe Howard and trained us in creativity and leadership. At the very last JCI member Oxana Andreeva led a personal coaching session for all participants.
Afterwards we had drinks, certificates (where each participant had to choose what kind of leader they wanted to be), and some participants went for dinner.
I loved the weekend, I loved the participants, I loved that the participants want to organise another one next year, it spurred me to sign up to an improvisation course, JCI London is planning to organise improvisation evenings next year, and I think we have an amazing team for next year's council.
Quotes from the participants:
"The Academy was a great weekend that not only made me think greatly about my own Leadership style, but the fantastic speakers and Sessions equipped me with new skills to take my Leadership to the next level in all aspects of my life. "
Callum Waddell
"We can learn by reading a book or watching how others do it, but nothing stands even close to personal experience. This training allowed me to learn and experience different concepts of interpersonal skills and to learn not only from my experience but from the experience of other Academy members.
By exploring ourselves we not only understand ourselves better, but also other people around us which allows us to act and communicate more successfully.Sometimes we need to be reminded of what we can do and sometimes we need a push to get out of our comfort zone. The satisfaction of pushing boundaries creates momentum - I can still feel the immense energy boost I received at the Academy."
Imants Krezins
"With the Leadership Academy being the first JCI course I have been on, I didn't really know what to expect. Having completed it, I now want to do every course there is!
It was a fantastic combination of highly-skilled trainers imparting knowledge on a diverse range of leadership skills, with a huge amount of hands on learning from the attendees. This allowed for you to work with a large number of different people and to learn from them, as well as from yourself.
Through the weekend I came to realise that leadership needs to start from self awareness, and we had so many opportunities to try out ways of being, of communicating, of interacting and to see the impact that has.
A fantastic course that I would highly recommend to anyone and everyone."
Robyn Peel
"JCI leadership academy - a supercharged course, by outstanding trainers, that pushes you out of your comfort zone and provides you with tools to make you a better leader."
Faisal Mooraby
