Last week I had the honor of conducting a 5-day leadership, communication and presentation skills course for 25 senior managers at Bank Islam Brunei Darussalam. The group was fabulous. They were hungry for information to be better leaders and communicators. They embraced every exercise I asked them to do, no matter how uncomfortable it felt.

I wove the concept of leadership throughout the content and practice around presentation skills and communication styles. Before the workshop I asked them to take the Inscape Personal Profile online to determine their dominant communication style. Then in the session I explained each style in more detail and how to interact with each. We applied this information to their leadership style in exercises, video scenarios, role plays, case studies and even a board game. By the end of the 5 days they were much more adept at understanding their own style and how to adapt to their team members’ styles.

We spent half of each day discussing and practicing presentation skills. They gave a brief talk describing their leadership style. Each person received feedback as well as video taping. They had the opportunity to do it again a few days later so they could work on improving their presentations. All showed marked improvement!

Included were other fun exercises — even going outside for one process. They all enjoyed themselves and had some major epiphanies about how to be a better leader.

At the end of the fifth day, they walked out with the skills and motivation to be more effective leaders.

Here’s what participants said:

• “It was a wonderful and unforgettable training with you. It helped me to improve and build my confidence. I would like to thank you for the valuable training, sharing your expertise and experience with us especially me. You are my inspiration.”
• “Thank you for spending a memorable week and sharing your wisdom. I hope we will have a continued learning process with you soon.”
• “Thanks so much for a wonderful 5 days.”
• “I had such a great time last week with you and the rest of the colleagues. Every day after our session I shared all the activities that we covered with my wife since she is works in the same bank. She is hoping that she could be the next to participate in the training.”
• “I have been raving on and on about the workshop/course to just about anyone who will listen. My husband even commented that you’d think that this is the only course I’ve ever attended as I talk SO much about it! I thoroughly enjoyed my five days with you as I am sure the others did as well. You have enriched our lives in so more ways than one and for that I am personally truly grateful. I look forward to that other opportunity to meet you hopefully in July.”
• “Thank you again for the great training. It was a true experience for me that I could not believe that we all can stretched beyond our thoughts. It has been wonderful.”
• “By far one of the best trainings I’ve been to. Not only did I enjoy the course but also it kept me engaged and it really enhanced our spirit, teamwork and relationship further with fellow colleagues as well as you. It was really a truly enthralling experience for us.
  “Thanks you for the marvelous course.”
  “I really enjoyed the training and consider myself lucky to have you as my  trainer. Everyone was still excited about it at work. I just want to say thank you so much for your wonderful presentation.”
  “It was a very perfect training for me and I am very grateful I was there.”
• “Thanks you for the marvelous course.”
• “I really enjoyed the training and consider myself lucky to have you as my  trainer. Everyone was still excited about it at work. I just want to say thank you so much for your wonderful presentation.”
• “It was a very perfect training for me and I am very grateful I was there.”

We’ll be doing Part 2 in a few months to review the skills they learned and add to them.

Several newspapers wrote about the program:

Brunei Times, 5/2/09 and 5/3/09

Borneo Bulletin

Brudirect

If you’d like information on how I could customize a program for your leaders, please contact me. Read the description/outline.