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.

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.