Case studies : Leadership development

Facilitation of executive team of a city housing department

The organisation was being privatised and split up. The organisation felt itself to be under serious pressure. The senior team tasked with driving through such a major change was itself experiencing difficulties in how it worked, getting side-tracked by fire-fighting and having difficulty having focused discussions. After initial meetings, a leadership development programme was agreed to help them face their challenges; they were less willing however to look directly at what was happening in their organisation. The consultant quickly identified a major cause of the team’s difficulty in the poor contact and listening skills within the team and an inability to come together to discuss major issues and allowed itself to be side-tracked by crises. At one point he interrupted a discussion to point out the body language of participants and gently encourage ownership of their in-the-moment experiencing, which surprised everybody but produced major discussions about what was happening in the team. In effect by facilitating some team building work under the guise of some leadership development sessions, he was able bring the team’s awareness to their contact style and take joint ownership of it, and thus to help the team develop a smooth and effective collaborative style. As a result, the team became much more capable of driving through a major change initiative while being in a high-profile political situation. This also involved supporting the new Chief Executive in establishing himself in role and building his team round his vision.

Coaching the leader of the London operation of a US commercial property-related company

The US parent company executive with responsibility for Europe had tasked the leader, who was from the States, with setting up and developing a London-based operation. They were keen for him to have coaching in his leadership style, particularly his presentation style and how he developed his team. It was agreed that the consultant would first observe him in action, leading a team meeting and then hold exploratory discussions with both him and his manager, a US Parent company Board-level executive.

The initial observation threw up a number of areas of development, which when fed back formed the basis for the initial proposition, along with the leader’s own perceptions and those of his manager. What was particularly clear was that the leader lacked personal presence and impact and did not give a clear steer and influence in his interactions with his direct reports. He was a successful leader in achieving sales and now needed to upscale and transform his style to that of his new role. Until he did that, his manager did not see him as being a potential truly senior level operator in the organisation.

The coaching initially focused on how he organised himself, since he was swamped by his worked, and then on how he managed and led his team. However, the really Impactful part of the coaching was when the coach and the leader worked together in some live presentational practice sessions, involving him in making deliveries and then taking part in “in-the-moment” replays of what was happening to heighten his awareness. Very quickly he saw how he was working and what he needed to change. The consultant then went on to observe him in action in team meetings and then a whole-company presentation at an annual “kick-off”, with immediate feedback. The leader was very focused on implementing what he was learning.

When the coach later caught up with his client, he heard that the leader had been recalled to the States to take over leadership of the US Eastern region. He had succeeded in meeting his manager’s expectations and seen the results. 

Leadership development for a high profile major trade association

The group were senior managers reporting in to the 3-person exec. team. They had done limited previous development work. The organisation was going through major change, needing to become much more commercial and profitable. They needed much more leadership from their managers in driving through the new strategy and in changing the silo culture. The consultant was asked to plan the programme for a series of workshops, write the materials, deliver a 9 month development programme, and provide coaching 1-to1’s. The first module on Leadership Style challenged delegates’ thinking about Emotional Intelligence, since it became very clear that this area was outside their current comfort zone, and it initiated a process of development for each participant that resulted in significant progress. As a result the CEO commented on noticing a much more proactive lead being given by these people and that communication between functional areas had become much less silo-like. It was apparent that this improved communication had filtered down to lower levels of the organisation.

Coaching for performance with a UK manufacturing company

The head of the Supply Chain function, with a Board role, asked the consultant to help in an area that was impeding his enhancement of the operation. A manager in the Supply Chain function was referred to the consultant due to his demonstrating severe adverse anger management behaviour. He had previously been moved sideways from another area of the business due to the issue and yet was still losing his self-control and expressing himself inappropriately both with those he led and with peers. People were avoiding him, working round him or, in the case of direct reports, complaining about him to his manager. It had become a matter of either he improves or other action would have to be taken.

The consultant first held meetings with the head of the function and the HR Manager to get their in-put and then an exploratory meeting with the person concerned to hear his perspective, outline what was needed and gain his commitment. The manager was a single person with two unsuccessful long-term relationships, a weight and stress problem, and was turning 40. He was very keen on the work and a series of 8 sessions, with 3 follow-ups was agreed. In the work, it became clear very quickly what was behind the anger and the manager was keen to understand this more clearly and to take responsibility for dealing with it. He learnt skills for managing his feelings and to express himself more appropriately, in a way that took people with him rather than antagonising them. A lot of time was given on how he could lead his team and develop them, which he enthusiastically took on board and applied. He also attended to how he could build a positive profile in the organisation, repair relationships with key stakeholders and build new positive working partnerships. He also reflected on his own career vision and changed his mind-set about his self-esteem and his capabilities. He improved his quality of life generally, better managed stress and became a lot happier in himself, such that he found a new purpose in life, with new interests.

The improvement in his behaviour astonished others, who found a new, much more likeable side to him. He started to collaborate closely with others on project management situations and showed a particular capacity to identify significant cost savings to the business through greater efficiencies. These were achieved through his enhanced collaboration with others. His team also found themselves enjoying his new positive, encouraging and supportive style and appreciated the time he was giving to giving them more responsibility and more scope to give a lead themselves and coaching them in how to take advantage of it. The feedback given to him at appraisal time was glowing.

Building a high performing team with a US IT company

The Manufacturing Director initially asked us to coach a promising leader in the engineering function within manufacturing in this expanding young organisation, where computer engineering was performed in the UK but actual manufacturing occurred overseas. A key requirement was that he (and others later) would be able to manage a flexible, fast-moving, matrix, influential, high-profile leadership role environment and drive forward rapid growth, from a typical background experience in engineering. He initially had 5 people under him and was in the process of taking over another team of 5. Such was the benefit of the coaching, and the growth of the business, that the leader rapidly progressed to Engineering Manufacturing Manager and to leading a functional area of 50-plus engineers and a team of 6 managers reporting in to him.

The manager then asked us to coach his team and help him build the whole team’s effectiveness. The consultant initially observed a team session and had introductory 1-to-1’s with each team member. The data obtained provided the material for exploratory meetings and the joint development of a broad intervention in which a two-phase series of coaching for each person was implemented along with facilitated team-building events. These initiatives involved working with the relevant manager to design the work, the workshops and 1-on-1 coaching to resolve differences, improve performance and to enhance focus and motivation and commitment to the vision.

There were two crucial workshops that occurred, one in each phase, in which the team:
 
(1) Learned to work together in meetings and with each other, rather than be dependent on direction from the team leader, be open about issues and work together to resolve them and be proactive in articulating vision and goals and supporting each other and the team leader in achieving them

(2) Articulated where and why it was failing to deliver, work together to explore the reasons and develop a more effective response which would get a result. This included giving each other honest feedback in open session, which brought the team to a much higher level of trust and ability to collaborate, as well as facilitating a much higher level of ownership of behaviours that needed resolution.

What was particularly notable in the work was not only how much the members grew as leaders but also how they became highly effective in their team working, so much so that they could work without their team leader’s direct involvement and support each other in responding to business needs. The business continued to expand, the engineering function grew to over 100, the team members grew in their levels of responsibility and the team leader was promoted to Director. Other people in Manufacturing then started to ask for help from the consultancy, having seen the benefit of the work.