Taking the IWI Leadership System Beyond Our Walls

This month marks an important milestone for the Irresistible Workplace Initiative as we kick off our first external IWI Leadership System cohort with Hywater Title.

The Leadership System didn't begin as a program we simply created and decided to sell. It grew out of the leadership development work we've been doing inside Dow Smith Contracting Company. That first cohort gave us an opportunity to learn what works, what leaders really need, and how leadership development can become more than a one-time class or seminar.

We are now taking those lessons and putting them to work with Hywater Title.

Over the next 12 months, members of the Hywater team will meet monthly to work through practical leadership topics including self-awareness, trust, communication, feedback, recognition, coaching, delegation, accountability, performance, and culture.

But the real work happens between the meetings.

Each participant will be challenged to take what we discuss at the Table and intentionally apply it in the workplace. At the next gathering, we'll talk about what worked, what didn't, and what they learned. That rhythm is central to the IWI Leadership System:

Learn → Apply → Reflect → Be Accountable → Repeat

One of the things we've learned through IWI is that organizations can't wait until someone is promoted into leadership to begin teaching them how to lead. We need to build the bench before we need the bench.

That's what Hywater Title is doing.

I'm excited to see where this group goes over the next year, but I'm equally excited about what this represents for IWI. We are taking something we have developed, tested, and refined inside Dow Smith Contracting and beginning to use it to help other organizations intentionally develop leaders who can strengthen their people, their performance, and ultimately their culture.

Better leaders help build better workplaces. That's what the IWI Leadership System is designed to do.