LEARN THE ART OF DIRECT CONVERSATIONS

Start partaking in constructively direct dialogue – those conversations that need to happen sooner rather than later, where you express what has gone wrong from your own perspective.

The UCT GSB Leadership Conversations – Confronting with Courage, is a joint course with the Centre for Coaching to equip participants with key knowledge on how to engage in direct conversations that give rise to constructive, powerful and enhanced possibilities. It is one of a series of six short courses which are based on Integral theory and practice. Learn how to face people head on, equipped with the right tools.

CFC - Confronting with courage

Key Benefits

You will benefit from this course if you are an Executive, Manager, or Emerging Leader seeking to develop and grow yourself and others through proven principles of saying what needs to be said during conversations.

Participants of the Leading with a Coaching Style – Confronting with Courage course will gain:

  • How having direct conversations can be constructive and not necessarily lead to conflict
  • A better understanding of other individuals and how to resolve issues that have impacted you
  • The know-how on engaging in direct conversations even with those outside your direct reporting line
  • Skills that allow you to handle complex encounters with team-mates, peers, subordinates, bosses and customers
  • A base competence practice for participating in direct conversations


Gain Successful Coaching Outcomes

The Centre for Coaching takes an integral coaching approach to help individuals arrive at deep insights about themselves – which can then lead to lasting and meaningful development. The integral approach explores all the constitutive elements of being human: spiritual; cognitive; emotional; relational and somatic.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

The UCT GSB takes pride in building future leaders and guiding the leaders of today toward sustainable impact in African business and society.

Our degree programmes and short courses deliver learning experiences that are personally transformative because better people make better leaders.

Whilst theory is interesting, leadership is in fact best learned through practice. For that reason, this course is run in an experiential way, using a live-virtual approach on Zoom. Participants are asked to be willing to be fully themselves, fully engaged, open to being honest about themselves and their relationship to giving or receiving feedback in their life (no role plays), and to be prepared to find out more about themselves as leaders and human beings. 

Own experience: Adults learn through their own experience – we therefore insist that we focus on real issues, not role play
Safe environment: We take the time to create a safe, non-judgmental/ confidential space to facilitate exploration and open curiosity
Anchor learning: Participants anchor their learning in what really happens to them and their organisation (i.e. apply to themselves and to each other, not told) Accountability: We ensure the framework is in place for participants to hold one another accountable

The following key elements are necessary in order to keep our workshops focused, interactive and dynamic, and still meet the desired outcomes.

Theory:

  • We ask participants to read course material, where possible, beforehand. We then deepen in dialogue
  • In the workshop, we keep to a maximum of 15-minute theory bursts with minimal use of PowerPoint
  • Regular breakouts in small groups keep a high level of interaction and deepen understanding of the theory. Where possible, we have a member of faculty present to facilitate the discussion or answer questions

“Zoom fatigue”:

Regular breaks: In order to keep the energy and engagement high, we have found that a short 5–10-minute break every hour including a body exercise (stretching, breathing, standing) works. This replaces coffee/tea breaks. We take an hour for lunch.

High faculty to participant ratio:

In order to ensure an optimum online learning experience, the ratio of faculty to participant is usually around 1:5.

We are able to offer this ratio by making use of the Centre for Coaching’s large international faculty of professional integral coaches who have all trained with us and who have been supporting our academic and/or organisational programmes for a number of years.

Find out more: https://www.gsb.uct.ac.za/student-experience