High Involvement Leadership: Sponsoring and Championing Skills
Course Description
Organizational initiatives are launched with the expectation of making significant and lasting improvement. The success of these initiatives is dependent on the sponsoring and championing skills of the assigned leader.

The sponsor and champion roles require leaders to develop a style to form teams, communicate clear expectations, advocate for initiatives, influence change acceptance with peers and other stakeholders, and remove barriers the team is unable to address. This course will provide the process, tools and techniques to help leaders apply these valuable skills and improve the success of key initiatives.

Objectives
Upon completion of this course, participants will be able to:

Scope the initiative by defining and communicating the charter, objectives, deliverables, outcomes, timetables, and boundaries.

Establish the structure with assignments, accountability, resource allocation, and role definitions of key lead personnel.

Launch the project by effectively communicating the background, purpose, outcomes, and deliverables from the charter.

Plan and execute a stakeholder influence strategy to rally support and address resistance to the implementation of the initiative.

Establish a communication plan to stay current as the initiative is being implemented.

Provide effective rewards to those individuals and teams that drive the initiative forward.

Target Audience
Executives and managers who launch and oversee strategic initiatives and projects/programs are excellent candidates for this training.

Learning Methods
This is a facilitator-led workshop that uses presentation, industry and non-industry examples, simulation, and application exercises to practice sponsor/champion skills. Other learning activities include full group and small group discussion and problem-solving sessions. Materials are provided for each participant with models, checklists, and application aides to help transfer learned skills to the workplace.