Lisa Scott, Board Chair & Chris Jones, CEOIn an interview with Manage HR, Chris Jones, CEO of LeaderSharp Group, shares his insights on how the company specializes in leadership and team development, inspired by their Purpose: The World Needs Better Leaders.
How has LeaderSharp grown over the past eight years:
LeaderSharp Group was co-founded by my wife and business partner, Lisa Scott, and I in 2014. Before starting LeaderSharp, we both had successful careers in business leadership roles before becoming leadership coaches and trainers. It was just the two of us for several years, trying to survive and grow through the challenging times. Just after we started LeaderSharp there was an oil and gas industry downturn and economic decline in western Canada, which lasted four years. Though our business was slow back then, we decided to increase the investment in our marketing efforts, such as building our fabulous website. That investment really paid off by increasing the volume of qualified leads that contacted us.
Then in 2019, COVID unfortunately started. Not only was there a global financial crisis, but the way people worked changed dramatically, especially moving to virtual platforms. And the worst part for us was that most companies cut their budgets for leadership training and coaching, and work really dropped off. This again tested our resilience. Lisa and I worked hard to diversify our client base, and we began to form a team of like-minded, high-quality coaches and trainers. By mid-2020, we began to grow again, which, over the past two years, has accelerated, and we now have more than 20 fantastic Associates from Victoria to Quebec City— all very experienced and qualified individuals—and nine staff members who support the success of our clients and our Associates. We’ve enjoyed significant growth over the 18 months in particular, with bigger clients and bigger projects. Today, we are expanding from a coaching and training company into an eLearning company specializing in designing and delivering custom, high impact leadership development programs utilizing our Docebo LMS platform for online learning.
How does LeaderSharp address the current trends in the market?
The requirement for retention and succession planning in the middle of the Great Resignation is one of the primary pain points. There is a global shortage of trained labor and an increasing need for good leadership skills. The mass exodus of baby boomers from professional and management positions creates a growing demand for Gen X and millennials to step into leadership roles. To fill these positions, there is an overarching need to develop quality leaders in great numbers. LeaderSharp is addressing this need by coaching and developing leaders from different age groups and various levels of leadership, from the C-Suite to high potentials.
Another market trend is the increased demand for leaders with a more humanistic approach to leadership. The pandemic has shone a light on the critical need for these skills, such as relationship building and communication, transparency, empathy, compassion and emotional intelligence. Organizations have begun to transition toward people-centered leaders focusing on employee wellbeing, as well as diversity and inclusion, which I think is a really positive and overdue trend.
During the pandemic, expenditure on leadership development was significantly reduced. However, postpandemic, there is a huge interest in leadership training and coaching, which we are happily responding to.
What are the services LeaderSharp provides?
Well, we offer quite a range of leadership development services and products. We provide leadership coaching to leaders at all levels, including executive teams. We provide leadership consulting in the form of executive mentoring, coaching, and business advisory. We also do a fair amount of strategic planning facilitation. A rapidly growing part of our business is leadership training, including the design of custom programs with our High Impact Leadership Development model, using our LMS for self-directed online learning.
What benefits do your services impart to clients?
As the world is becoming more unpredictable and complex every day, we are focusing on state-of-the-art leadership development methods, such as Vertical Development, to address the needs of evolving markets, businesses, and leadership. Another progressive approach we take, because traditional training methods are ineffective, is using a Blended Learning approach to increase learner engagement, improve the experience of learning, increase retention, and then implement the learning back at the workplace.
Another benefit we bring is that most of our Associates have worked in business leadership roles, including at senior levels, such as CEO, CFO, CHRO, and Executive Director. Their expertise enriches our offerings, making our services more attractive than our competitors.
We start every project with a discovery phase to gain a deep understanding of our customer’s needs, current situation, challenges, opportunities, and aspirations. This consultative approach helps us to determine and apply the most effective solutions that exactly match their needs.
I think our clients would agree that we create pretty rapid change for their leaders by using highly effective coaching, best-in-class tools and training methods. For example, one team assessment we use, called The Five Behaviors, can shift teams from dysfunctional to great very quickly. I think our clients would also say that we achieve observable and measurable change, growth and development in their leaders that is lasting.
We are making an important difference in the world, one leader, one team at a time
And one more that comes to mind is our focus on high standards of service and quality assurance. This is used in the careful selection of our Associates. Another example is our ongoing gathering of customer feedback through evaluation surveys, which are debriefed with the client and any improvements required are acted on.
Could you cite some of LeaderSharp’s customer success stories?
Our team assessments and facilitated sessions have been instrumental in helping many companies with under-performing leadership teams. Our process quickly motivates them to improve their behaviors, develop a positive team culture and get rid of old interpersonal problems that hold them back from becoming a high-performance team.
We have also had great success with an Alberta Company and a national company by implementing vertical development using the Leadership Circle Profile. Through this transformational assessment, we have coached many leaders in their organizations, helping them expand their mindset and consciousness to a higher level of development and effectiveness.
LeaderSharp is now boldly venturing into the global eLearning market. So we’re being pretty courageous, but we believe in our ability, which is pulled by our Vision and guided by our Values. In fact, we feel that this is stepping up and living right into them! We’re proud of that, and we work hard to be in service to others. We are making an important difference in the world, one leader, one team at a time.
LeaderSharp Overview
