BRAVE Leadership: Advanced certificate program

The BRAVE Leadership Toolkit

At the heart of the program are three fundamentals that are explored and applied throughout the modules of the program, supporting leaders to create their own BRAVE Leadership Toolkit.

The toolkit has three areas of leadership skills that are built throughout the program in the individual, team, and organizational context:  emotional agility, compassion and courage.

Leaders who participate in this training will cultivate knowledge and skills that will enable them to respond effectively to challenges and crises and to support themselves, their teams and their organizations to be successful through the transformations needed in our changing world of work.

Module 1: The BRAVE Leader

Description:

In module 1, people leaders will explore the importance of mental health and wellbeing as essential to organizational success. Using experiential adult learning methodologies that build on their experiences navigating challenges and change at work, Module 1 guides people leaders through applying the BRAVE Leadership approach as a key business strategy in the volatile and changing 21st century global context. It centers the leader as the foundation for building organizational wellbeing.

Topics include:

• Cultivating mental health and wellbeing during times of challenge and ongoing change: From reactionary leadership to BRAVE leadership
• Your BRAVE Leadership toolkit: Emotional agility and leadership self-care
• What factors impact mental health and wellbeing?
• Courageous leadership: Building self-awareness & assessing your leadership values

After this module, leaders will be better able to…

1. Identify challenges to workplace mental health and wellbeing arising during times of uncertainty and change, including reactionary leadership.
2. Determine why organizational success requires mental health support at work.
3. Recognize the factors that can influence an individual’s mental health and wellbeing.
4. Identify and take action to address biases and stigma at work, starting with themselves.
5. Utilize BRAVE Leadership toolkit skills to support their own wellbeing:

• Regulate their own emotions, behaviours and reactionary thought patterns in times of stress.
• Use tools to improve self-awareness and self-care, which also serve as the foundation for supporting the wellbeing of others at work.
• Determine the values that motivate them as a leader, and how to apply them in the workplace.

Module 2: The team climate

Description:

Module 2 focuses on the “how” of building a culture of kindness, compassion, inclusion and mental wellbeing amongst teams, including addressing stigma, bias and workplace exclusion. Leaders will explore common workplace practices that erode wellbeing and strategize proactive steps to address these workplace challenges.

Topics include:

• The leader’s role in creating a culture of team wellbeing.
• Workplace practices that impact mental health and wellbeing: The 3 “traps” that erode wellbeing (behavioural, cognitive and emotional patterns) & how to create psychological safety.
• BRAVE leadership skills to support your team: Compassion, courageous communication & courageous action

After this module, leaders will be better able to…

1. Foster positive team environments through cultivating kindness and humanistic leadership values
2. Uncover and address hidden factors that undermine workplace wellbeing, including:

• Common and habitual ways of thinking, feeling or behaving that erode wellbeing (such as constant connectivity, culture of urgency, unresolved anger, and more.)
• The impacts of bias, exclusion and discrimination.

4. Recognize characteristics of psychological safety and utilize tools to create supportive and inclusive team cultures
5. Utilize BRAVE Leadership skills to support their team’s wellbeing:

• Communicate with compassion when a team member is struggling
• Balance leadership responsibilities with a values-based approach that prioritizes the team’s mental health and wellbeing

Module 3: The ecosystem of organizational wellbeing

Description:

Module 3 equips leaders to address organizational challenges affecting mental health, wellbeing, and performance outcomes. It empowers them to leverage organizational values and BRAVE Leadership skills to drive positive change and create conditions for success for individuals, teams and the organizational whole.

Topics include:

• Organizational factors that impact mental health and wellbeing: Strategy, authority & power, and culture
• Leaders’ role in influencing organizational wellbeing: Acting as an ally and advocate
• Scenario discussion: Applying BRAVE leadership skills in real world situations involving crisis, change, and uncertainty
• BRAVE Leadership action planning

After this module, leaders will be better able to…

1. Unlock the power of a clearly defined strategy, awareness of power and an organizational culture that promotes civility and respect to drive organizational wellbeing and success.
2. Build their awareness of the experiences of others at work, especially during times of challenge and change.
3. Leverage organizational values to support the implementation of BRAVE strategies that address workplace challenges.
4. Engage in big picture thinking that explores the interconnections between individual, team and organizational outcomes.
5. Utilize BRAVE Leadership skills to improve wellbeing across the organizational ecosystem:

• Collaborate as allies and advocates for wellbeing in the organization
• Problem-solve workplace situations using the BRAVE leadership toolkit
• Integrate their BRAVE Leadership action plan into their own development goals

Module 4: eLearning, action plan and exam

Module 4 begins with an eLearning program (60 min) that guides participants to review key ideas explored in Modules 1-3, guides them through finalizing their BRAVE Leadership action plan (30-45 min), and helps them prepare for the exam (20 questions).

Upon successful completion of all program components, including a passing grade on the exam, participants will be awarded a Certificate of Completion recognized by Queen’s University.