As part of JCI Birmingham's personal development programme for 2013, a session was delivered of "Inspiring Leadership" by the fantastic Jo Kehoe. Jo returned for a second month running to take the helm and provided an interactive and informative session on just how members can develop their leadership and management skills and how important "leadership branding" can be.

Jo kicked off our session by asking us to think about who we see as great leaders and why. The group came up with many names ranging from Richard Branson, Duncan Bannatyne, Peter Jones to Margaret Thatcher and Boris Johnson. It was a good chance to reflect on just why we see them as good leaders, and also to draw up a list of leadership qualities we thought a "good" leader should display.

Jo took the members through just what leadership branding is, all about creating a strong personal brand to showcase who you are and what you can do.  Leadership branding is a fairly new area of leadership and definitely an area that young professionals need to be aware of as they move through their careers and develop their own identities in the working world.

Jo took us through the various styles of leadership, giving examples of autocratic, democratic and laissez faire. I think we could all identify with different bosses and work colleagues we have and which styles they use. Jo reminded us of the need to use these different styles with different people in order to keep them motivated, and how important it is to be able to adopt each of these very different styles dependent on the situation and person involved.

Jo's style of training left us all enthused about creating our own leadership brand and looking forward to the next and very different personal development session in June about what you can get out of volunteering.