Balanced Leadership™: Leveraging Strategic and Interpersonal Skills

Learn the importance of building a Balanced Leadership™ skillset and the tools and approaches that other organizations have used to help their leaders grow and succeed as holistic leaders.

Leaders are increasingly challenged to be both technical experts and strategic thinkers; to be both empathetic and inspirational leaders; to think big-picture and make rapid execution choices. The list of “ands” goes on and on. No one is born with strengths in all the skills that complex corporate leadership requires today.

Balanced leadership is essential. Business acumen skills and interpersonal skills are important for setting direction and aligning an organization. The most effective leaders can flex their perspective on multiple dimensions. Sometimes, as leaders, we realize we have patterns and can get stuck in behaviors. We realize we are unable to flex. Strong leaders balance the information they take in; the criteria they consider; and the actions they take.

In 2015, Amanda Young Hickman and Nick Noyes, founding partners of Insight Experience, collaborated with HCI, the Human Capital Institute, to present this webinar on balanced leadership and what is necessary to leverage both strategic and interpersonal skills.

To read more about Balanced Leadership™, visit the following posts here at Insight's blog:

This 2014 post from Amanda about the "great balancing act" that leadership is: "Leadership is a great balancing act. It involves balancine the short-term and long-term; investment and return; innovation and efficiency; and head and heart. Leaders relentlessly live F. Scott Fitzgerald’s famous quote: "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function."
This 2015 post from Amanda about how simulations can help leaders find their balance: "We see it all too often: top-level leaders who have all the strategic skills they need to make complicated business decisions but lack the interpersonal skills required to gain them buy-in for those big ideas. For many, this lack of balance creates a real barrier to success. So, how do we ensure leaders have the balance of skills they need?"
This 2015 post from Nick, all about howBalanced Leadership™ starts with strengths: "The value of Balanced Leadership™ is clear: Balancing your Orientation (organizational vs market), your Approach (analytical vs interpersonal), and your Horizon (tactical vs vision) makes you and the organization you lead more effective. Balance is good. Or is it?"

Amanda Young Hickman

Amanda Young Hickman has more than 20 years of experience advising and leading clients on the design and implementation of strategic change initiatives and leadership development experiences. She is an expert facilitator and a seasoned program designer who works in all phases of learning experience design and delivery. Amanda is a founding partner of Insight Experience and believes in the impact a leader has on an organization and its results.