A BOLD leadership expedition will provide many learning opportunities for personal growth as you share complex situations in the wilderness, leading to strong connections with your peers, and grow to know yourself better.
KEY BENEFITS
During the program participants enter a leadership assessment and development exercise unlike anything they will have encountered before – enjoying deep conversation with coaches to assess their strengths and weaknesses.
While using an actual compass to navigate the wilderness, they will also learn to navigate leadership challenges using the RSM-leadership compass – a tool based on recent academic and practical insights about what constitutes effective leadership.
Mental and physical health are enhanced through the seven day intense expedition and by personal coaching received from the instructors in preparation for the expedition. The result is an increased resilience that helps participants navigate more easily the stresses of daily life.
Crucially the program allows participants to relate to or discuss specific challenges they face at work and in their careers. “While many outward-bound courses focus on adventure activities, the RSM program is full-on development work,” says Leroy. “It’s one big assessment. With coaches spending four to six hours with each participant going over their ‘leadership compass’.”
The key development objectives of the program are for participants to:
• Learn how to lead without subject-matter-expertise. Many of them have never been in this particular situation but they will nevertheless be asked to lead the expedition and to focus on the human side of leadership.
• Develop self-awareness of their strengths but especially of their own limitations as a leader. The extreme outdoor, physically and emotionally demanding context can reveal dysfunctional behavioural patterns and encourage participants to experiment with new behaviour.
• Experience how mindfulness, by stepping completely out of your normal life for seven days, with no access to internet or mobile phones, in wild nature, can help improve your decision-making.
• Finally, the outdoor environment allows many opportunities to talk and really connect with others. Instructors use this as an opportunity for intense coaching and gradually, over the week, to teach participants to coach each other.