Effective leadership is more than just getting the team to complete tasks—it is about making decisive, strategic choices that keep teams focused, motivated, and productive.

In this programme, participants will be equipped with insights necessary to lead with decisiveness, clarity, purpose, and confidence. They will come to appreciate that their decision-making plays a pivotal role in determining the productivity of their team, and also a team culture that can sustain that level of performance.

One focus area is helping the participants to know their own thinking and decision-making processes. Those who understand the impact of their decisions on team productivity and morale can maintain focus even in challenging situations. They will learn how clear, intentional decision-making fosters an environment where the team thrives, ensuring everyone stays aligned with common goals despite internal and external pressures.

Participants will have to factor them in their day-to-day decisions, such as external market changes or internal organizational demands. The programme will explore how thoughtful decision-making, guided by a wider understanding of these external and internal conditions, ensures that high performance remains optimal and sustainable.

Part of being a decisive leader is giving timely and effective feedback. Participants will recognize the powerful role that feedback plays in team development. Through the use of proven models, they will practice delivering feedback that is constructive and supportive in shaping behaviour and outcomes positively

Finally, participants will come to know the importance of the role they play as a leader who coaches. Being a leader-coach enables them to elevate their team's performance gradually and sustainably by uplifting team members more towards the leader’s mindset. Doing so can unlock potential, develop skills, and empower team members to take great ownership and autonomy of their work.

Objective

At the end of this programme, participants will:

1. Appreciate why their own decision making process and thinking is essential for keeping their team focused and productive.
2. Understand why the day to day decision making has to factor internal and external conditions, to ensure the team’s high performance is sustainable and optimal.
3. Recognize the role that feedback has, and to apply it when needed with an appropriate model.
4. Know how the role of them as leader-coach can gradually elevate the team’s performance.

Outline

1 – Effective decision making
• Inspiring positive change to enhance team resilience and adaptability during changes to the business environment.
• Balancing Rational vs Intuitive decision making with various decision making tools and styles.
• Making decisions as the leader that inspires confidence, trust, and action within the team.

2 – Agile decision making
• Why the team leader has to factor in VUCA and BANI in their decision making, with the overarching aim of keeping the team productive.
• Using techniques to make quick or multiple decisions while driving communication, collaboration, and transparency within the team.
• How decision making is affected by the Pressure-Performance curve, and why employees should be involved.

3 – Giving feedback
• Helping the team learn on the job by giving positive and negative feedback. (Also known as Acknowledgements, and Constructive feedback)
• Utilising the SBIR approach vs the Feedback sandwich as a more culturally acceptable method for East Asia.
• Experiential practice on using SBIR, and peer sharing thereafter.

4 – Leader as coach
• In conjunction with feedback, be a leader coach by utilizing the GROW coaching model to ensure ongoing personal and professional development.
• Understand how the coaching of team members fits into the system of Performance management, while having a focus on action planning and accountability towards performance.
• Summary and Closing

Who should attend

• Emerging leaders who are experienced individual contributors, are already leading project teams, and are a step away from formally leading a team of their own.
• First Time Leaders who have been recently promoted to formally lead a team of their own, and need to get up to speed on what it means to lead and manage others.
• Experienced managers, Supervisors, and Team leaders looking to refresh their understand of the topic with new insights and research will also benefit.
• Experienced managers, supervisors, and team leaders who consciously want to create the team they have always wanted to lead, and have the appropriate team culture to support it.

Methodology

Interactive and experiential trainer-led workshop with participant-led small group discussions and case studies drawn from the First Time Leadership book co-authored by the trainer.

Each participant will receive a copy of Daniel’s First Time Leadership book as a post-workshop resource. The book contains 30 leadership principles revealed in stories based off real-life experiences of successful leaders from 37 countries.

Testimonial

Very knowledgeable, able to explain in simple terms. Most importantly how to do it.

Provides great content, gives sufficient examples and answers questions properly. All topics especially on trust, DISC behavior and delegation.

This course allows me to find my balance with leadership and management strategic skills in working with my team, including leaders above me. Daniel displayed professionalism in coaching through the sessions.

Daniel Lee's Profile

He Simplifies Employee Engagement for Team Leaders and Heads of Departments.

Over 20 years of working in Australia and Singapore, Daniel Lee has accumulated a vast experience and know-how in speaking, training, and coaching participants from different cultures and work backgrounds.

He started his career with the Singapore Police Force and achieved the rank of Staff Sergeant. After which he pursued his Masters in Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. During that time, Daniel started his career in Human Resources, eventually focusing on Learning and Development across the Manufacturing, Professional services, and Facilities Management industries in Australia, and with Banking and Finance in Singapore.

From 2017 onwards, Daniel did a career switch with a focus on the education industry working with youths, and later from mid-2018 onwards, to working with adult learners. Daniel has run both in-house and public programmes for Accenture, American Express, PPG Industries, Bank of Singapore, Marina Bay Sands, BNP Paribas, Daimler Trucks, Bollore Logistics, DHL, Shiseido, Standard Chartered, Telkom Indonesia, Beam Suntory, Cornerstone, Singapore Police Force, UTAC, Nexia Singapore, and many more.

Having become a published author in 2021 with his book ‘First Time Leadership’, he knows that leadership is simply an amalgamation of a range of skillsets and mindsets. The key to unleashing one’s leadership is to realise that leadership competencies are interrelated, and to know how to employ them across the various people-related situations.

Since 2022, Daniel has been interviewing Heads of Departments in his latest research, leading from the Middle, to uncover what it takes to be an effective leader of leaders.

With deep theoretical understanding on team and organization leadership and its practical real-world applications, he takes the view that learners already subconsciously know how to achieve the desired outcomes. His role is to bring awareness to the learners, so they can become intentional professionals in their own fields. Daniel has received many positive testimonials from the programmes and workshops he has conducted.