I was introduced to Insights Discovery, a psychometric profiling tool, when I was working as a lecturer in leadership and management at Northumbria University. It’s worth saying at this point that I’ve been generally sceptical about such tools. My previous experiences have been problematic in the sense that I often felt ‘boxed in’ when completing some of the other psychometric profiling frameworks. However, now working with undergraduate and postgraduate students at Northumbria who were using Insights Discovery to explore such things as self-awareness, interactions with others, career planning, and leadership behaviours, I quickly recognised the holistic nature of the Insights framework – it really seemed to work against the idea of boxing people into a restricted space. I undertook the training to become an Insights practitioner, and began using the tool throughout my teaching and coaching practice.
In my subsequent role as Professional Advisor for Leadership at the Royal College of Midwives, I introduced Insights as a core element in our leadership offer, utilising it in our work with midwives, maternity support workers and students, as well as in my role within the Each Baby Counts Learn & Support Programme with midwives and obstetricians. The feedback in workshop and programme evaluations gives a sense of the potential we were seeing for both personal and team development:
‘Will really use my Insights profile going forward and enhance my leadership skills in the workplace and personal life‘
‘Very good to explore our leadership styles and how we can influence each other for the better‘
‘Very informative into all the different aspects of personalities and how people work and interact with each other‘
‘It’s been a wonderful insight into not only the differences but also the incredible strength of our team‘
If you’d like to find out more about the Insights Discovery model, have a look at these introductory documents:
Interested in how Insights Discovery can support your personal, career, leadership or team development? Contact us to find out more, or have a look at the Workshops page to explore what a typical whole day event looks like.