Leadership in action at the Zurich Academy

A group of 16 ZurichAustralia clients and seven business development managers are the first to enter The Zurich Academy, a three-day leadership program that is being piloted this week.

The Zurich Academy is described by Zurich as a program that has been customised for emerging leaders and potential business successors of small to medium enterprise (SME) firms.

The program targets future leadership challenges faced by small financial services companies, by plugging the holes left by the impending retirement of baby boomers.

“Through discussions with intermediaries and from our own research, we identified a capability gap in the area of people leadership. SMEs have strong business management and sales expertise, but current business owners recognise the need to build leadership capability among their subordinates. Mostly, SME intermediaries within the industry do not have the resources or capabilities to implement formalised succession plans and leadership training that larger organisations have access to,” Barry Tomkinson, general manager of investment management and life, Zurich Australia, said.

The three-day program, which is being facilitated by leadership development specialist Dr Connie Henson, has three key objectives.

The first is to inspire personal commitment to develop as a leader.

The program aims to provide attendees with some clarity and insight into different leadership styles. Attendees will also be encouraged to practise their own leaderships skills through coaching, measuring their emotional intelligence, communication skills, influence and strategic thinking.

Finally, the program aims to give people the skills they need to develop and incorporate their own leadership behaviour into their day-to-day work.

At this stage, there are no plans to offer more programs in 2006 outside of the pilot program this month. But a Zurich spokesperson said The Zurich Academy was likely to be reviewed in early 2007.