Meet the Team
An Interview with Sondra Jenkins
An organization development consultant, trainer and executive coach, Sondra Jenkins has been helping Detroit-area organizations achieve their strategic goals for 25 years. She has lent her extensive experience to Executive & Professional Development (EPD) through comprehensive training programs and course development, including a course on business process improvement that is central to EPD's corporate leadership curriculum. Here, Sondra answers some frequently asked questions about EPD.
Why should an organization invest in executive and professional development?
Executive and professional development is an investment in the engine that makes the organization run. Organizations don’t succeed – people do. This is the heart of the value proposition for any type of professional development for any level of employee. In today’s business environment, organizations are challenged not just to carry out activities, but to deliver outcomes and results. For different organizations, those expected outcomes may take on a variety of formats, but no organization has the luxury of routine performance without achievement of some kind of results. It’s probably also fair to say that there are no longer any organizations with excess staff. All organizations have been through some sort of rightsizing or reorganization over the past few years and are operating as leanly as possible. That means that there is no room for employees to be operating at less than maximum personal effectiveness.
Are executives receptive to training?
Absolutely. Most organizational leaders are acutely aware of the pressure and demands being placed on them, but they don’t feel equipped to deliver everything that they are tasked to deliver. Most organizations are prepared to help its executives acquire technical skills, but it’s not the technical skills where the executives lack confidence. Most executives don’t feel well-equipped with the leadership skills, tools, and competencies they need for their teams and organizations.
Are people born leaders or do they become leaders?
That’s an artificial debate. It makes a catchy title to a magazine article, and it provides a comfortable hiding place for people who don’t want to invest the effort to be good leaders. If I’m not a strong leader, it’s easy for me to hide behind the excuse that I’m just not born that way. It’s easy for me to say I’m just not a people person; I’m action-oriented; or I don’t have time to coddle employees. But in fact, leadership is a collection of behaviors – and behaviors are learned. And while it’s true that people may have innate preferences or personal experiences that make positive leadership behaviors more easy or less easy to adopt, it’s still the case that productive leadership behaviors can be taught.
How does organizational culture impact leadership?
An organization’s culture can make it easier or more difficult for good leaders to demonstrate good leadership. Even in a difficult or toxic culture, good leaders will carry out leadership behaviors; however, the impact will only be experienced by the team of people that they directly influence. The rest of the organization is going to miss out. When CEOs and senior executives understand the value of positive leadership and how it impacts the productivity of their organization, they will be intentional about creating an environment that supports, encourages and rewards good leadership.
CEOs have to budget carefully in a weak economy. Can EPD wait until money is less tight?
On the contrary: lean times are the times to make this investment, because it allows for higher performance from a smaller workforce with fewer resources. When an organization doesn’t have the luxury of more staff or resources, it needs greater creativity and engagement from its people. Great leadership is the secret to unleashing personal motivation for high performance.
How is an EDP program developed?
One size doesn’t fit all. The list of possible EPD training topics is quite long, so we begin by working with an organization’s leadership to understand the business needs and the current strengths and challenges of its professionals. Based on that assessment, we determine the leadership competencies that are needed and the best learning experience through which to develop those competencies. That said, almost all leadership training includes certain fundamental components: a reinforcement of the vision and goals of the organization, a self-awareness module that will help leaders understand their own styles and preferences, an exploration of the dynamics of effective communication, and a look at tools for process improvement and problem solving. Once we’ve laid this foundation, we’ve equipped a leadership team to attack a wide range of problems and influence a wide range of organizational improvements.
Are there pratfalls to avoid when selecting training topics?
It’s important to look past trending topics. Often someone will ask about a topic that is getting a lot of press in popular or trade media – the “flavor of the month,” so to speak. The topic might be very interesting, but the questions to ask are: Is it seminal? Will I get a ripple effect from this training? If your organization has a robust training and development program and is well-grounded in the fundamentals, you can afford to explore a “trendy” topic because you’ve covered all the basics and you want to build deeper understanding or more highly refined leadership skills. But if your organization is just getting started, or if it has specific performance challenges that require attention, you want to invest in the training that will achieve the greatest impact. The goal of EPD and our facilitators is transformation, not merely information.
Can EPD work within various budgets and timeframes?
Yes. The EPD project manager, instructional designer and facilitator will work closely with each client to create an excellent experience that achieves the desired learning objectives within the available budget and delivered within the required timeframe.
What are the strengths of Executive & Professional Development at Wayne State?
When an organization partners with Wayne State, they receive the facilitation support of an outstanding community of trainers and consultants with deep expertise and experience from a wide range of industries. They also benefit from affiliation with the academic excellence of a nationally recognized research university.