Online Tool Kit ... empowering you

We'll do for your leadership what an iPod does for your music

We'll help you develop your leadership to make it ...

Personal

Finding actions that add unique value - responding to the current needs of those you lead. Avoiding default responses that worked elsewhere but might not be relevant today. Similarly, not copying what Jack Welch did or some expert advised. As with an iPod, you make your own choices. Creating your personal play list.

Comprehensive

Addressing both "hard" and "soft" issues - covering market and technical issues as well as people and cultural ones. Different notes for different folks.

Flexible

Updating as you move ahead. What was right this week, may not be the next. You can define new actions to establish the right harmony for your team’s new challenges. There's no single chord for all occasions.

Mobile

Accessing your plans and our support material from anywhere, 24x7. On this site, you have a personal page, which records your plans and other information. It's your private resource centre.

Shared

Emailing your action lists to anyone you wish - whether a boss, peer or other colleague. Ensuring they know what you're doing and how they can support you. It will keep everyone on key.

Economical

Not wasting energy on low priorities or tasks others should do. Increasing revenue and profits by inspiring people to work effectively. Driving business-plan implementation. V|E|C|T|O|R offers you big-business tools at a small-business price ... going for a song, you might say!

Online Tool Kit in detail

V|E|C|T|O|R offers two online leadership-action-planning
tools ... and a no-questions, money-back guarantee

Our online Action Planner

Starting from $99

This well-regarded, top-end online tool allows you to develop a personal Leadership Action List via your web browser for the coming months. It takes about an hour. You choose an appropriate time horizon depending on your current situation and challenges. The key aspects and stages of this tool are described below – and you can see a sample action list lower down this page.

Health  Warning

• Some leaders find this planning process confronting
• Some start but don't have the courage to complete

So, breathe deeply and please remember that self-leadership is the first step to leadership of others

Our online Problem Solver

Just $67 for a Problem Solver six pack

Which is shorter and helps you think through some pressing issues and how to deal with them. It takes about 20 minutes. It’s described further on but follows the same three-stage process as the Action Planner but focusing solely on a single problem that needs urgent attention. It also produces an action list – but briefer and sharply focused. A Fast Fix.

The V|E|C|T|O|R process
... assumptions and what to expect

Let's start with some general points and then
link these to the V|E|C|T|O|R process

The follower imperative

As a leader, what’s the only thing you absolutely must have? Followers: team members and colleagues committed to coming on a journey with you. Without them you’re nothing.

So, the only “right way” to lead is the way that builds commitment – their followership. Let’s consider three hypothetical leaders: Bill turning around a loss-making zipper business; Sue-Ling launching a new service offering; and, Ahmed driving productivity in a low-performing food plant.

What are the steps? First, identifying your followers’ concerns – the issues holding back their performance. Second, taking leadership actions that communicate and model the answers to their questions thus making them feel confident, competent and included.

Third, turning this into a personal action list. In most organisations, leadership is a “missing link” in business planning. There’ll be business plans for Bill’s turnaround, Sue-Ling’s launch and Ahmed’s productivity program. Similarly, a plan for whatever project or area you’re leading. But NOT for what you, as leader, need to do. And, even if you have some ideas on all this, they’re seldom in a coherent plan with details, deadlines, etc. The basics for any plan!

That’s where V|E|C|T|O|R Leadership® helps you close that “missing link”.

Follower concerns

My career over the last 40 years has involved both hands-on leadership of both local and national operations. Also, many years of C-suite consulting on strategy, governance and leadership across a wide range of industries – from financial services to manufacturing, from executive search to mining, from politics to agriculture For sample client list click here. From this experience, I’ve codified six archetypal follower questions – not an exhaustive list but covering quite a lot of ground. In the turnaround, Bill’s people may not know exactly what the end-game and outcomes are. If so, their question is: where are we going? For Ahmed’s productivity improvement, the targets and destination may be clear, but his people’s concerns may be organisational: where and how do we all fit in – particularly once these changes are all done?

Identifying your followers’ priority question (or questions) is the first step in developing your Leadership Action Plan. And, each archetypal question has an associated organisational outcome. If Bill answers the question “where are we going?” he generates “goal alignment”. Everyone can get on with their job (and decisions) knowing where the team’s headed. And, if Ahmed answers “where do we all fit in?” it will generate “teams and relationships” – the glue binding his people together, and to the colleagues they support or rely on elsewhere in the organisation.

Action opportunities

Now let’s move to the second step in the V|E|C|T|O|R process. For each of the six archetypal questions, V|E|C|T|O|R offers six high-leverage leadership action areas. Again not exhaustive but adequate to start any leader’s thinking.

For Sue-Ling’s new service launch, people may be clear on the outcomes and timelines, and how to work together. However, they may have a question about: can we do it? Particularly in the current market and with a freeze on resourcing and recruitment. Also, with Sue-Ling being distracted by a series of corporate cost-reduction initiatives. So, they may need to see evidence of her “taking charge and encouraging others to do the same” or “recognising resource limitations” and “providing back-up, where needed”. This builds confidence and organisational will.

Your personal action list

With these first two steps (of follower concerns and possible action areas), you’ve selected the bones and framed the structure of your Leadership Action Plan. Your third step is to flesh it out with specific action commitments – what you’re going to do to address the selected action areas, which in turn address your followers’ questions, and deliver required organisational outcomes.

With V|E|C|T|O|R, you can do all this online. And, it’s not about generalisations; nor what I or some other guru advises; nor what some theory says. It’s about creating your action list, for leading your people, on a particular journey, at a specific time. Bill’s plan is different from Sue-Ling’s; and, both are different to Ahmed’s. And each will need to change as the their business situations and team members change. This is the real world: your world, not a text-book one.

CLICK HERE to see a Personal Action List

What comes next

The most important thing is implementation: executing your plan. That’s the way to get leadership traction. However, to assist you in this hands-on work and to keep your thinking fresh, here are five things we’ll send you at no extra cost, once you’ve completed a personal action list using our Action Planner:

• Resource material: each day following completion of your plan, we email you information relating to one of the four or so action areas, around which you built your action list. This material is accessible during planning, but many people value seeing it again afterwards. They can thus keep things front-of-mind and explore other action possibilities. Also, learn from the real-life mini-cases the benefits of taking particular actions or ignoring them.

  Neil Weeks, CEO

  Australian Reinsurance Pool Corporation

  "Resource material is best I've seen"

  www.arpc.treasury.gov.au

• Pascoe’s Potshots: each Monday you’ll receive a one-pager I write dealing with a general leadership topic, something that’s in the news or in response to a leading journal article.

  David Norman

  Founder, BNB Resources & former chair Royal Ballet School, UK

  "The best weekly reading ... and eminently practical"

• Reminder emails: when your plan has run for a while or is getting towards its end date (the horizon you set), we email suggesting you update or replan. And, as with the original, you can print the new action list and/or email it to colleagues.

Are you serious?

If you’ve got the courage to think critically and creatively about your leadership – and the objectivity to put yourself in your follower’s shoes – then you’re on the way to giving yourself the best chance of success. It takes about an hour – in one or more visits, as you choose.

Creating a Leadership Action Plan is a winner’s strategy. Pretty obvious really. But, only possible if you’re a serious player, committed not only to survive but to excel. Determined to gain the rewards of personal satisfaction, performance bonuses and career promotion.

Who's it for and what’s the payoff?

• Any leader, including those up and coming, who’s concerned for their career, can sign up and reap the benefits of improved leadership traction – driven by stronger follower alignment and buy-in. It’s about runs on the board and builds a case for wider responsibility and promotion.
• An owner will immediately see the bankable benefits of increased business performance and profitability. And, the tool’s simple language and process make it usable by front-line supervisors as well by senior business unit heads and others.

• For HR executives there’s the advantage (and line acceptance) of an integrative tool driven by both business imperatives and people concerns. That produces an on-the-record blueprint for action – not just an evaluation or profile. The plan allows you to monitor progress and outcomes. The tool is also budget-friendly and affordable across a wide range of leaders – opening the way to a common leadership language.

The Problem Solver

Earlier, I mentioned that the Problem Solver uses a similar three-step approach to the Action Planner. But, it’s sharply focused on a single issue: a leadership challenge of immediate and pressing concern to you. The process is quick and practical. It takes about 20 minutes and gives you a couple of Fast-Fix action points. You can click below to see a sample output from a Problem Solver. As for the Action Planner, this is a true situation but with changed names.

CLICK HERE for sample Problem Solver action list

Sample of Personal Action List

The following is a real plan but with the identities of the leader and company changed. To read about the leader’s role, situation and experience both in creating and implementing his plan - and what it delivered CLICK HERE

Guarantee of Value-Add - or Your Money Back

I believe deeply in the value-add of effective leadership. It's the key differentiator between mediocre and outstanding business performance. My experience over 40 years has shown this time and again - both when working as a CEO myself and as a consultant to others, early on with McKinsey & Company and later in my own firm.

My personal client list over the last twenty five years has included:

ABN Amro, AMP, ANZ Funds Management, Australian Agricultural Company, Australian Reinsurance Pool Corporation, Barclays Capital (in Asia), Blackwells Publishing , Bridge Oil, Business Council of Australia, BZW (in Aust., UK, US) , Capitaland Residential (in Singapore), Citibank (Aust. and Japan), Darrel Lea, Columbia Pelican, E*Trade, Department of Public Works and Services, Ernst & Young, Freehills, George Weston Foods, Health Services Australia, Heller International, Henderson Engineering, Howard Smith, IAG, Investec, Independent Tyre, InTech Ltd., Johnson & Johnson, Knight Frank, Korn Ferry, Liberal Party of Australia, Lighting Corporation, Macquarie Bank, Macraes Mining, Martin Randall Travel (in UK), Meat and Livestock Corp., Medical Imaging Australia, Medina Apartments, Mirvac, Morgan Stanley, NSW Police Force, N M Rothschild (Aust., Asia, UK), Oroton, Prudential, Rail Access Corporation, Ridley, Securities Institute, South East Water, South Pacific Seeds, Supertex, SP Ausnet, Sydney Opera House, Tatts Group, Ten Network, Tenix, Territory Insurance, TNT (Aust. and Europe), TXU, Wattyl, WHK, Wotif.com and WSN Environmental Services.

Working with the CEOs and senior teams of these clients has been a privilege. And, I share what I've learnt with you in my Leadership Action Packs and also in our Action-Planning and Problem-Solver tools - via the leadership action suggestions as well as the illustrative mini-cases and the check-up questions.

Money-back guarantee: If for any reason, you're not satisfied with what you experience, we offer a 7-day money-back guarantee. Just contact langdon@vectorleadership.com and your money will be refunded. We will ask no questions. However, we would certainly welcome your feedback, so we can improve things for other users.

Dr. Timothy Pascoe AM
PhD (Cambridge), MBA (Harvard), BE & BEc (Adelaide)
Creator, V|E|C|T|O|R Leadership^®