Job Details:
Business Advisor – Leadership Specialist

Job Description

The Growth Company (GC) Business Support team has several vacancies open for a Leadership Specialist/Advisor to support business leaders through experience and knowledge, within all areas of strategic and personal leadership development.

As a leadership specialist in GM Business Growth Hub, this role requires in-depth experience and understanding of leadership tools/techniques, to develop a leadership strategy for all sizes of business across the Greater Manchester area.

GM Business Growth Hub is a community of specialists with a passion to help businesses across GM to realise their ambitions. Since 2011, GM Business Growth Hub has supported more than 15,000 businesses including start-ups, scale-ups and established businesses, providing finance guidance, creating international links, and paving the way for innovation and people development across the region. We work with the best of public and private partners, offering expert one-to-one and peer-to-peer business support, events, specialist programmes, funding and much more.

There will be an assessment day in Manchester for this post scheduled Wednesday 22^nd May. 

Key Responsibilities:

• Establish and maintain effective relations with business owners/leaders and internal and external key contacts to promote the work of the Leadership Service and help facilitate high-quality referrals.
• Work with a specialist range of procured suppliers to design and run bespoke leadership support for diverse-led businesses, e.g. diverse ethnic communities, females, over 50's, and/or disability-led businesses.
• Design, develop, and lead the delivery of a range of workshop/cohort programmes aimed at leaders across one organisation, or to individual leaders from a range of businesses.
• Develop and maintain a high-level network of business/professional contacts that generate personal referrals.
• Handling client enquiries face-to-face, via phone, and email, to assess growth potential, leadership, and business needs using appropriate tools, processes, and systems where required, and establishing and maintaining effective relationships and key client contacts.
• Ensure client enquiries and partner referrals are correctly recorded on the Business Growth Hub’s client relationship management system (CRM), updating progress against agreed actions as plans progress, and ensuring all administration is checked for accuracy, and completed on time against deadlines.
• Ensure that the monitoring and collection of output and impact data is undertaken throughout the project and after each project, in line with funders’ requirements.
• Work with the relevant businesses closely to monitor any outputs including new jobs created, any productivity increases, and other service-specific outputs and outcomes that result from activities undertaken.
• Undertake detailed diagnostics face-to-face at client premises to identify the appropriate starting point of support, followed by a detailed leadership diagnostic of the individual leader/leadership team. This diagnostic should use various tools and methods to capture baseline data and identify client-specific needs. This will involve the analysis and interpretation of business and market data/intelligence to provide recommendations to senior management teams, boards, and shareholders.
• Undertake detailed discussions with clients around complex leadership issues to understand their leadership challenges, make sound recommendations for appropriate actions that will lead to the development of leadership skills and manage the project/intervention to a successful conclusion.
• Deliver bespoke leadership development support through a multi-disciplinary approach, which will involve one-to-one and one-to-many support, utilising a range of modern and traditional leadership and management tools and techniques.

About you:

• Proven critical thinking and problem-solving skills.
• Ability to identify opportunities and be innovative.
• Superb communicator who can network effectively.
• Excellent planner and, organiser.
• Ability to work at a senior strategic level, work within tight deadlines and handle challenging situations that leaders may experience.
• Able to challenge leaders of all levels to enable them to develop their personal leadership styles.

Skills required:

• Account & time management skills are essential.
• Expertise in coaching, change management, performance analysis and people management are essential.
• Experience of working with and developing the personal skills of SME business leaders.
• In-depth understanding of the leadership development arena across GM is a must.
• Significant and demonstrable experience in completing leadership behavioural assessments.
• At least degree level business education, or degree level qualification with a management body or the relevant business experience to match those.
• Proven track record in managing a range of leadership issues.
• Has technical knowledge in the key leadership developmental areas.
• Excellent presentation skills both written and oral.
• Well-developed IT skills, including an understanding of computerised management information systems, spreadsheets, diary management, e-mail, and CRM databases.

We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of everyone including vulnerable adults and young people, we expect all staff to share this commitment. All appointments will be subject to Safer Recruitment Procedures which include a DBS check. This will be conducted by Due Diligence Limited (DDC Ltd) on behalf of GC. Please note that the successful candidate will not be required to pay for this.

If you are on the Barred List, it is against the law to apply and to be hired for a role that includes regulated activity with the concerned group.

We are committed to increasing the diversity of our workforce, we provide a guaranteed interview to applicants who meet the essential requirements for a role. This commitment applies to candidates who have a disability or are from a diverse ethnic community.

As part of our application process, you can ask to be considered under this scheme if you are from an ethnic community or have a physical or mental impairment that has a substantial and long-term negative effect on your ability to do normal daily activities. Providing that you meet the essential criteria for the role, you will then be invited for an interview. Your guaranteed interview application will only be shared with the Hiring Manager and our Internal Recruitment Team.

We are a member of the national campaign Ban the Box; this campaign aims to open opportunities for people with convictions to compete for jobs. We’re supporting the campaign by removing conviction questions at the applications stage.

GC aims to promote a culture of flexibility and agile working. Going forward we will be transitioning to a culture where full agile working will be a feature of many of our roles. We also recognise that there may be a need for more permanent flexibility in your working arrangements and in such cases, we encourage you to have these discussions at the interview stage, to enable your flexible working request to be considered as early as possible.

If you require support with the recruitment process, please contact or Internal Recruitment Team at [email protected] or call us on 0161 237 4447.

All GC colleagues will work inline with the Health & Safety at work act and the GC Health & Safety Policy.

• Our annual leave entitlement starts at 25 days, plus bank holidays which increases with length of service with the opportunity to purchase up to 10 additional days leave each year.
• Access to counselling via our Employee Assistance Programme.
• We have 8 EDI steering group to make sure we value our differences and enable an environment of fairness, dignity and respect.
• We offer up to two days’ paid leave to volunteer at a charity of choice through our Volunteer2Day scheme. 
• We offer travel loans, discounted seasonal travel tickets for public transport and a great cycle to work scheme promoting opportunities to reduce environmental pollution and a healthier lifestyle. 
• We have an enhanced learning and development offer for all staff and managers with opportunities for mentoring, undertaking apprenticeships and continuous professional development. 
• Paid for eye test and contributions towards glasses for VDU users, helping improve overall health and wellbeing in the workplace.