Happy Workplace CEO and Senior Leadership Programme

Course Overview

What you will learn

Based upon our own practical experience at Happy and learning from some of the world’s great workplaces (like Google and WL Gore) it will enable you to become a leader that people would choose to be led by.

The programme is underpinned by two coaching sessions focused on your impact and developing a culture of people taking responsibility and feeling motivated. We also ask you to work with other delegates between days to reflect on and develop the learning from the programme.

This programme is aimed at CEOs, Directors and senior leaders of organisations. Our Happy Workplace Leadership Programme is designed for those with line management responsibility.

Key outcomes

Happy's Senior Leadership programme will help you become the best leader you can be within the context of your professional role. It will increase your ability to lead through others with confidence, and extend your range of capabilities, through a deeper understanding of yourself and your impact on others.

• Become a credible leader that inspires trust
• Establish the strategy and vision that your business needs
• Create an agile and responsive team working within clear values and principles
• Build greater trust and autonomy for your managers and through them, for your people
• Build high performing teams working to their strengths and to a common goal
• A culture with high levels of accountability within the team, enabling people to deliver high quality on time

A Menu of Key Themes to be Included

This programme is all about maximising your leadership scope of influence and progression — gaining the confidence, knowledge and sustainable skills to make the transition to greater professional impact.

Your programme can be tailored to your needs, but can include some of the following areas.

You may also want to consider our Level 7 Senior Leadership programme — the equivalent of a 'Happy MBA'. This 26-month Level 7 programme is for Senior Leaders who want a cultural transformation of their workplace. To apply, you must be ready to apply the concepts you learn in your organisation, and be ready to create a workplace based on trust and freedom for your people.

Pre-programme Preparation

• Complete an online self-reflection questionnaire around your current leadership style
• Complete an online questionnaire to identify your communication style

Day One: All about You as a Leader and the Impact You Have

Day one of the programme is all about you and your leadership style. It is about how to bring out the best in yourself and others, whilst being authentic. You will be excited about your role as a leader, and will have the space and opportunity to self-reflect in order to create the culture you want for your business.

• The core of an effective culture: why put people at the heart of what you do?
• Understand the difference between someone who truly leads as opposed to someone who manages
• Identify who you are as a leader, your leadership attitudes and skills, and how these can shape the culture of your business
• Learn the key secrets of how to create a happy successful workplace from Happy's CEO Henry Stewart, author of the Happy Manifesto
• Using your pre-programme preparation, understand your communication style and the impact it can have on your team and their teams
• Learn the skills to become a multiplier of your people's talents
• We also provide the Happy Workplace Planner and online portal to support you in building a positive culture that embeds these practices into your business.

Preparation and eLearning plus Connection Between Days One and Two

• Discover how to be more productive and less 'busy' by identifying and changing your reflection, prioritising, email and meeting habits
• Reflect on and develop a clear statement of your purpose as a leader
• Connect with your buddy - review your insights from the programme and plan your actions
• Optional: meet and review your learning with fellow delegates from the programme

Day Two: All About Valuing Self and Others

Day two of the programme is all about learning and applying the tools you need to help your people feel resilient, empowered and valued. You will achieve this by focusing on understanding and nurturing resilience for yourself and others, understanding what can create interpersonal conflicts using the TA model, practical exercises based around active listening and coaching your people to success.

• The three resilience energies – physical, mental and emotional and how you can harness these to support and develop your own resilience and that of your team
• Use Transactional Analysis to understand some of the interpersonal dynamics in your business
• The core of great leadership: coaching your team to success by empowering them to discover their own solutions
• Your role as coach and understanding what works and what doesn't
• Why, and how, to use TED invitations and the GROW model to develop your coaching skills
• Practice coaching and being coached
• Create a culture that puts valuing people at its heart

Online Questionnaire and Connection Between Days Two and Three

• Discover your top five strengths through a robust on-line questionnaire developed by Gallup, StrengthsFinder.
• Connect with your buddy - review your insights from the programme and plan your actions
• Optional: meet and review your learning with fellow delegates from the programme

Day Three: Motivation in a High-Trust Culture

Day three of the programme is all about understanding and applying a culture of autonomy and job ownership enabling and empowering your team to be the best they can be. A key part of this is learning about your strengths and how they enable you as a leader, as well as giving you a tool to discover the strengths of your people.

• Discover the three key elements that research shows are the real motivators for high performance
• Learn the power of purpose and the potential for positive change when this is paired with people setting their own targets
• Discover the four domains of leadership strength
• Review how well you know your team’s strengths and how much they are using them in their roles
• Re-imagine you team’s potential when you are all working to your strengths
• Enable trust and autonomy, within clear guidelines to create true job ownership
• Pre-approval — what is it, what are the benefits of it and how to implement it?
• Who makes the decisions currently and what might you change about this?
• Work on specific motivation challenges you and fellow delegates face

Preparation and Online Questionnaires Between Days Three (after two months) and Four

• Prepare a two-minute presentation on your leadership purpose and who you are now as a leader based on what you have learnt and the culture you want to create
• Complete a second online self-reflection questionnaire around your leadership style now
• Connect with your buddy — review your insights from the programme and plan your actions
• Optional: meet and review your learning with fellow delegates from the programme

Day Four: Setting You and Your Business up to Succeed

The fourth and final day of the programme is all about preparing for the future. You will review the progress you have already made and create a vision for where you want your business to be in the future. It will enable you to recruit the right people for the culture you want and ensure that you build constructive working relationship with them. You will present back your leadership purpose and learning journey to the group and make plans for how you will bring your vision to life.

• A reflective journey — recap and summary of what has been covered, what you have applied and transformed, and what your challenges are
• An overview of the key to recruiting the right team members and ensuring their induction is a motivating experience
• Learn the basic building blocks for developing a winning strategy
• What makes change successful? Understand the key elements of implementing change that sticks.
• Identify what you might adapt so it works for you, your team and your business
• Understand and learn the process of building sustainable habits and changing behaviours long term, to embed the learning and create real action
• Present back your leadership purpose and vision for yourself and your business
• Draw up a personal, practical action plan beyond the programme
• Optional: discuss any plans to maintain contact/connect with each other beyond the programme

About your facilitator: Cathy Busani

At Happy since March 1995, Cathy originally started as an IT trainer. Although having little experience in the industry, within just six months she was voted in by the training team as their manager. Shortly after, she took over the role of Managing Director.

Since 2003, Cathy’s focus has been on helping others to feel joyful at work. Through consultancy, a wide range of training programmes, conflict management, executive coaching, and as an impassioned conference speaker, she enables people to be the best version of themselves. She delivers positive organisational change, enabling those she works with to create great workplaces which are happier, more productive and financially secure.