Excellence to Eminence

The Leader’s Role

As a leader, you will play an important role in the success of the retreat and of the overall change process - during the unfreezing retreat, as well as during the numerous follow-up activities. Here are some tips to help you serve as a strong leader and role model during your team's unfreezing retreat.

At the opening of the unfreezing retreat: Please be prepared to offer opening comments, and immediately following your comments, introduce the facilitators. This will communicate a positive endorsement from you as the leader.

During the unfreezing retreat: It's important you actively participate as a team member, rather than sit back and observe or evaluate. The more you can be actively involved in all the interactions, exercises and discussion as a peer, the more open the environment will become for learning and candid discussions. Here are some specific suggested guidelines to follow:

• Shadow of the leader: Be aware people will be watching you and your level of involvement and openness as clues to how they should behave during the session. In other words, your actions will speak louder than your words. We call this your leadership shadow.
• Participation: Actively volunteer during the discussions and interactions. The facilitators may not always call on you, but your early and eager involvement will be a positive signal for others to jump in.
• Vulnerability: Actively share your personal insights and learning during the times when the group is sharing and discussing the concepts of leadership and teambuilding. The more you are willing to share from your own personal learning, the quicker the group will open up and be more vulnerable and introspective.
• Coaching and feedback: Take every opportunity to give positive feedback and appreciation to the team. They are starving for it and it will help develop a positive and hopeful momentum for the session. Also, be sure to deliver constructive feedback during the session that calls for this kind of feedback.

After the unfreezing retreat: Incorporate our values and the tools and mindsets covered in the retreat. Reinforce them with your team, and recognize team members who are demonstrating the behaviors. There are resources to help with this.

• Web site resources: View the Supervisor and Leader sections of the Resources tab.
• Reinforcement Ideas: Activities to reinforce our values, and the tools and mindsets covered in the unfreezing retreat.
• What Success Looks Like: Examples of our values in action.

There are many people on your support team - your facilitators, your culture strategist, your leadership, and the core team. Please do not hesitate to let us know how we can best support you.

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