Case Study: Reframing Leadership in a FTSE10 Environment
The client was a senior leader in a FTSE10 multinational Oil & Gas firm.
Following a successful commercial career leading high caliber teams he had been promoted into a large leadership role with 1,000+ employees, $1bn+ turnover, full ‘P&L’ responsibility and an ambitious ‘recovery and growth’ mandate for the business. The business environment was challenging and some key performance metrics (e.g. safety) were well below expectations. He was increasingly discovering that his previous leadership style was not effective in this new role. This left him discouraged and doubting his ability to succeed in this role.
I conducted an extensive 360 feedback process using an online 360 tool and individual feedback interviews with senior colleagues. This provided detailed feedback which the client found insightful and challenging. ‘This is the most profound feedback I’ve ever had in my career’ was his reaction to my report. Although in parts uncomfortable the feedback clearly identified where his leadership style was ineffective and the directions in which he needed to change and develop.
Specifically, the client was seen to be an assertive leader who didn’t build effective and inclusive teams but relied on his own knowledge and skills to drive performance. In this new, broad, general management role this was not an effective approach and his team were frustrated and discouraged. His manager saw this developing and knew that the client needed to significantly re-frame his leadership model.
“‘This is the most profound feedback I’ve ever had in my career’”
Based on the 360 insights he started work on a Personal Development Plan which linked the feedback insights to clear areas for change and specific actions he committed to take to evolve his approach to leadership. This included a more inclusive leadership style, more effective 1-on-1 engagements, better use of his leadership team, greater use of coaching skills and a more selective use of deep dive interventions.
I worked with him to design specific new interventions in each of these areas so he could experiment and learn new approaches. In some areas his new insights and experience of other good leaders was enough for the client to quickly grasp the change that was required. In other areas I introduced him to new approaches that he could adopt (eg Nancy Kline’s ‘Thinking Environment’ approach to team meetings). In other areas I was able to share my own experiences from leading similar size businesses and teams which helped the client reflect on alternative approaches and think through the likely consequences of his actions. This work enabled the client to make significant changes to his leadership approach over the next few months.
In parallel with this work I also conducted an introspection exercise to help the client understand the origins of his underlying assumptions and beliefs about himself and his approach to leadership. I helped him identify a series of defining mental models that had shaped his leadership, identify where they had become unhelpful, and help him re-frame them to more constructive models of leadership. This also created real insights and motivation for him to grow and change. The client was able to build a new model of leadership he wanted to follow: ‘Servant Leadership’ and researched the key attributes he wanted to develop. He was able to envision how this approach would be more effective and also enable him to flourish as a leader.
“‘The client was able to build a new model of leadership he wanted to follow: Servant Leadership’”
In subsequent coaching sessions we would review each new approach and I would help the client distill the key learnings so that he could evolve his new approach to be most effective and fit with his personal style. Over the next three–four months the client was able to develop a new suite of leadership tools and approaches that empowered and inspired his team and brought a new level of energy to his organisation and himself.
Six months into the program he was receiving very positive feedback from his manager and his team on how his leadership effectiveness had improved. We reinforced this with a further set of 360 interviews. This provided encouragement for where he’d made successful changes and also helpful insights into further changes that would be useful.
After nine months in a close out review with the client and his manager he received very positive feedback about the visible changes he’d made to his leadership approach and the impact his manager had seen from this. The team was visibly energised, safety performance was improving and the leadership team had been able to take on several new transformation projects from Corporate HQ. A visit to his business from the CEO reinforced the positive change he’d achieved.
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