I have been actively involved in leadership and team building skills training since 1989, initially as an external Course Tutor with the Leadership Trust; more recently with Foundation on their "Open Teambuilding" course, and following Foundation's reincarnation, on the The Leadership Art Masterclass.
Building and leading teams is not something that anyone can "teach" as an intellectual exercise. It is a process that involves each individual in getting to grips with their own (and others') emotional responses to the situations that they find themselves in, and in doing so, developing the combination of self awareness, mutual respect, and trust that is essential in order for a team to perform effectively. A central core to effective leadership training is the realisation that it is essential for an individual to know and control him/her self before attempting to lead others.
The Leadership Trust course is designed to present the delegates with a series of exercises and models that gradually introduce them to the emotional realities of learning and handling these skills, and to recognize and value their own preferred leadership style. Perhaps most importantly, the course offers the delegates a unique opportunity to "look in the mirror" and receive honest feedback from their peers as to their capabilities and their future development potential.
An extremely powerful aspect of the Leadership Trust course is that it provide the delegates with a means of connecting the learning they have had during the course back into the very personal challenges that they face in the workplace or in their personal lives. Too often, personal development courses can simply provide their delegates with a "life experience", and then leave them to figure out how that experience can be connected to their current challenges and future development, with varying degrees of success. In contrast, The Leadership Trust has designed a course that is not only a very powerful "life experience" that gives the delegates deep insights into their own motivations and behaviours, but also uses the shared experiences of the group to allow each individual to apply what they have learned to their own personal realities.