Who we are
Dr Ronald Forbes and Dylan Forbes are Co-directors of Leaderskill Group.
Dr Ronald Forbes
BSc, Diplôme, PhD, CAHRI, AFAIM, AINLP MPr.
Ronald Forbes has led projects in scientific and educational research and systems consulting in Australia, the USA and Latin America. His degrees are from London, Paris and UCLA.
As Director of the Leaderskill Group, he has dedicated the company to the development of people, and of society-friendly organizations. 360
With Dylan Forbes, he presented 'Planning the Future with Shared Values' at the 2003 Conference of ISPI Sydney and is co-author of Start-up Mega Planning.
Dylan Forbes B. Sc. Psych (Hon.), Pr. AINLP
Dylan Forbes combines a high level of interpersonal skills with strong analytical ability. His experience includes management, education and coaching.
Dylan has developed Leaderskill Group’s applications of Positive Psychology and Appreciative Inquiry (AI) to facilitation.
Dylan co-presented with Ronald 'Planning the Future with Shared Values' at the 2003 Conference of ISPI Sydney, and is the prime developer and co-author of Start-up Mega Planning.
Delivery Partners
Leaderskill Group has an extensive network of associates and accredited consultants.
Our Philosophy
Leaderskill's Mission is about bringing people together in every walk of life in the pursuit of organisational goals that are ethical and sustainable. This translates to 'Engagement' – the organisation where everyone loves their work, cooperation is endemic, and performance is always high. All this while pursuing an ethical and sustainable endeavour.
The Leaderskill Story
Leaderskill's birth actually took place in 1978 with the formation of Leadership Effectiveness Training led by Dr Ronald Forbes, based on the work of Thomas Gordon. In 1979, he helped bring Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) to Australia, and was one of the first group to be accredited.
Drawing on the 'positive' approach in these programs, he developed the key program Facilitative Leadership and Teamskills and ran public and in-house programs, accrediting many trainers in Australia and abroad. Programs extended as far as China. He designed supporting surveys for Hitachi, NCR, Visionhire, Unisys and many other organisations. During this period, he pioneered the application of Accelerated Learning in every area of leadership and management – techniques that are better known today.
In 1982 he founded Leaderskill (Group) and his programs were often called 'Leaderskills' by clients. In 1993 he discovered with great admiration Peter R. Farey's Upward Feedback®, a holistic model of leader-manager practices with a true feedback (non-judgemental scale) and a manager-team facilitation process. Joined by his son, Dylan Forbes, they Accredited the first Facilitators and began programs at once.
In February 1999, they created the Upward Feedback® website which we believe was the first public website on the Internet to offer the complete 360 degree survey process from input through to direct printing of profiles.
From there, the story has continued with a growing network of Accredited Consultants, reaching to Canada, the USA, South Africa and Saudi Arabia. At the same time Leaderskill developed an astonishingly powerful survey engine capable of handling the most demanding client requirements – from dynamically generated graphics to multiple scales and drop down menus, to bilingual surveys and double surveys!
Clients have ranged from Universities and higher education colleges in many countries, to business, manufacturing, telecommunications, health and consultancies, around the globe. Pro bono activities have included community groups from scouts to schools to churches to city missions and more.
Along the way, Leaderskill Group became totally committed to Appreciative Inquiry as the most powerful change methodology of our time – whether for child raising or organisational culture change.
It's a good story, we love it – join us for the better!