Projects
Customized Leadership Development Program
The Problem
An organization of 200 employees experienced rapid growth to a 1,000-employee organization in a five-year period. Several of the leaders were hired from outside the organization while many others were promoted into leadership positions with little or no formal training. This resulted in large variance in leadership philosophies, approaches, techniques and effectiveness. There were also inconsistencies throughout the organization, conflicts, miscommunication and/or lack of communication, and generally low employee morale and engagement.
The Solution
An eight-module Leadership Development Program was created based on interviews with the leadership team, strategy documents and employee satisfaction surveys. The program included pre-training goal setting with participants, application assignments during training and post-training reinforcement. An additional component included a “buddy” system so that there was peer support and encouragement before and after the training.
Managers of participants were coached on methods to reinforce the learning between training sessions. Also, the company’s performance review system was revised to incorporate the desired leadership behaviors and goals. The content included assessments, readings, presentations, experiential exercises, case studies, videos and action planning.
The Outcome
Over 200 leaders participated in this program over a two-year period. Each participant was able to effectively explain the company’s strategy to his or her team and discuss how it supported the company’s success. The teamwork within and across departments increased, both in frequency and effectiveness, due to enhanced synergy in the organization. Based on pre-training and post-training evaluations, the participants and their managers reported measurable learning and growth in leadership effectiveness.
Participants reported improvement in positive scores on their performance evaluations in leadership categories. There was also a significant increase in positive scores on the employee satisfaction surveys. The Leadership Development Program was credited with developing a robust leadership team and establishing and fostering a culture of cross-functional teams and employee engagement.