*Alan Kelly, manager, Shannon Chamber Skillnet, Noelle Foley Coughlan and Derek McGourty, Career Decisions, programme tutors (front centre), pictured with participants: Diane Hassett, Aerogen; Monika Zimonyi, Corporate Catering Services Ltd; Emma Griffin, Oshima; John Vaughan, Corporate Catering Services Ltd; Stuart Carey, Careline Moving & Storage; Kim Collopy, Northern Trust; Brendan McGann, AMQ Accountants & Auditors; Richard Thackery, Tierney’s Office Automation; Mike Mulhall, Aerogen; Denise Hehir and Claire Daly, EI Electronics; and Mark Murray, Tierney’s Office Automation. Photograph by Eamon Ward
EIGHT Shannon Chamber member companies are set to gain a new set of skills for their organisations when the employees they have registered to partake in Shannon Chamber Skillnet’s Diploma in High-Performance Leadership programme complete their studies in March 2025.
Not held since pre-Covid, due to the interactive, interpersonal nature of its delivery, this Level 8, eight-day programme, which commenced in September, is spread over seven months. It is noted for equipping attendees with highly effective leadership and coaching skills, enabling them to lead and motivate their teams, maximising performance and results in an organisation.
The programme content addresses the day-to-day challenges faced by managers. The return to the participating companies, Aerogen, Corporate Catering Services Ltd., Oshima, Careline Moving and Storage, Northern Trust, AMQ Accountants and Auditors, Tierney’s Office Automation and Ei Electronics is that their ‘student’ employees will return to their desks with new knowledge and skills on how to motivate and mobilise their teams around a shared vision and clear goals.
Their ability to lead will be greatly enhanced and they will have acquired coaching skills to motive their teams to higher performance and to lead strategic planning for transformational results.
Shannon Chamber Skillnet manager, Alan Kelly explained, “This programme has a unique structure as it includes individual coaching sessions as well as theory. Participants learn how to lead themselves as well as a team, how to plan strategically and manage change, how to coach for peak performance but most importantly, they partake in three individual coaching sessions with a highly professional executive coach. This helps them to address their own leadership challenges and opportunities. The payback to companies for enabling their executives to acquire these skills is that it enhances the leadership skills of their managers and leaders across the organisation through enabling them to be more competent, motivated and committed leader”.
This is the fourth time that Shannon Chamber Skillnet has delivered this high-performance leadership programme. With 30 previous graduates, soon to reach 40, the mix of companies registering their employees on the programme highlights the strength and diversity of companies within the region and their commitment to upskilling their employees.
Feedback from past participants on the content and delivery has been highly complimentary with students stating that they have benefited greatly from the practical workshops and team exercises, have learnt about different leadership styles and team dynamics. They also welcomed the interaction during group learning sessions.
This Shannon Chamber Skillnet programme is co-funded by the Government of Ireland, the European Union (ESF+ fund), and network companies.
