Alumni Profiles - Developing Leadership Talent: Strategies and Tools

Inspired by her CCL^® experience, psychologist and entrepreneur Camille Preston discovers her true calling.

Dr. Camille Preston has created "the perfect niche" for herself, as principal and founder of a company devoted to helping emerging executives reach their leadership potential through coaching and training. As a psychologist, she is passionate about helping people. The inspiration for launching AIM Leadership, she said, came from her experiences at CCL^®.

"CCL was one of the best things that has happened to me in my life," said Preston, who attended the leadership Development Program (LDP)^® in late 2003 and then returned within the year for Developing Leadership Talent. With its emphasis on self-awareness and concrete, tangible feedback, LDP marked a quantum shift in how the young entrepreneur understood individual leadership development. "Getting the hard data combined with supportive coaching was important to me," Preston said. "That is one of the things that CCL does exceptionally well."

In Developing Leadership Talent, Preston learned how to extend CCL's research-based leadership development methods to the organizational level. Participants of this program review and discuss case studies and examples of best practices from their own organizations, as well as others CCL has studied, and are introduced to a variety of assessment instruments. At the conclusion of this three-day core program, Preston took advantage of the opportunity to become certified in Benchmarks^®, 360 BY DESIGN^®, Executive Dimensions^™ and other 360-degree instruments at an optional two-day Assessment Certification Workshop.

"I've taken a lot of what I've learned from all three CCL programs in terms of 360 assessments and used that qualitatively with my clients to help them develop their unique leadership style from the inside out," said Preston. "Some of the people I work with have been promoted so rapidly they haven't necessarily stopped to look at what they value, how they define their priorities, or how they make their decisions. I focus on helping them get clear on their inner purpose and authentic leadership style, and then build congruence and consistency in how they embody this within their organization."

Alumni of Developing Leadership Talent take away a wealth of support materials. "I like the fact that CCL provides a number of different resources," Preston said, "so I can sort through them and find what works best for each individual client." She shares many resources with clients, including CCL's pocket-sized "Ideas into Action" guidebooks, which give specific advice on completing a developmental task or solving a leadership problem. "I find my clients have limited time to read," she said, "but these are just right."

Preston's work with rising middle managers builds on what she learned on a personal level at CCL. "One of the things I took away from Developing Leadership Talent was an awakening of what I'm fully capable of." she said. "I really believe everyone is capable of more than they're actually manifesting. Leadership has to start internally before it can manifest externally."

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