Client: Global Financial Services Firm

The context

Our client has a non-hierarchical, entrepreneurial culture with many leaders serving as “player coaches.” As each leader progresses, he or she is given more responsibilities. However, most have never had any formal leadership development, which leads to significant stress and underperformance. In addition, these leaders had significant time constraints and pressures, which further limited their capacity for self-development. To address this, our client sought an expert leadership development/coaching partner in ZRG to create, build, and facilitate a custom leadership development program for 16 of its senior Investment Management leaders.

Our approach

• We started the program with a 360-degree assessment to gain the perspectives of each of the 16 leaders, their bosses, peers, and any direct reports on the leaders’ current strengths and developmental areas.
• Leaders were debriefed on the results, and the thematic group results were used to design and tailor the program.
• Six monthly, half-day, in-person sessions were conducted to improve the leaders’ ability to coach, provide difficult feedback, influence, and collaborate.
• The 16 leaders were split into two diverse groups for greater flexibility, smaller group discussions, increased openness, and an opportunity to learn from difference colleagues.
• A “flipped learning” approach was used with content and readings sent ahead of time to maximize time and impact.

Results

• Executives were “thrilled” with the “wildly successful program,” which “significantly exceeded” expectations.
• Colleagues of the leaders have cited positive and noticeable improvements.
• The program will be launched in other functions and regions to build a culture of learning and growth.

Our expertise

Assessment, Leadership Development, Instructional Design, Facilitation, Coaching

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