Introduction
This leading Nordic energy company, committed to a sustainable future, embarked on a journey of transformation and growth for their European business. To support the implementation of their new strategy, the business partnered with 6 Group to drive professional growth in their team and support their cultural transformation. 6 Group designed and executed a tailored Leadership Assessment and Development Program for the company’s leadership team, enabling them to enhance their leadership capabilities through an enjoyable and interactive experience.
The Program Objective
Some short-term uncertainties resulting from the sector and regulatory changes weighed an opportunity to strengthen their growth culture. This strategy focused on delivering clean energy, driving decarbonization, and transforming and developing the business and the leadership team. The last strategic priority emphasized the importance of people by focusing the leadership team on a customer-oriented approach, a one-company mindset, value creation, performance management, and efficiency improvement.
6 Group Leadership Assessment and Development Program with Coaching
6 Group, drawing on their extensive experience in leadership advisory, crafted a customized Leadership Assessment and Development Program to drive professional growth. The program aimed to provide participants with a deep understanding of their leadership capabilities, leadership styles, and preferred ways of working whilst providing practical advice on developing their leadership style. A critical element is the follow-up coaching based on the behaviour or area likely to drive the most positive transformation.
Program Structure and Components
The Leadership Assessment and Development Program consisted of 4 key components:
Initial Workshop
A workshop facilitated by 6 Group with the leadership team was held to establish priorities and expectations. During this session, a comprehensive overview of the organization was provided, including participants' positions within the organization. The desired outcome of the assessment program was defined, along with the functional skills to be assessed, considering the wider change process and the current roles. Most importantly it was important to discuss how the program would meet their values. The program was delivered with this in mind.
Assessment & Development Session with Participants
The participants took a detailed behavioural psychometric. This report explored 109 behaviors crucial to performance in organizations and provided insights into the participants' leadership impact and potential risks. Subsequently, an in-depth session was conducted with each participant.
- Career review
- Insights into their leadership style
- Psychometric assessment findings
- Functional and behavioral competency assessment
- Conclusions and action
The session is aimed to gather evidence and provide a holistic assessment of each participant's leadership capabilities and areas for development. This provided the basis for this interactive session, allowing the participants to self-reflect, and explore and understand their own leadership capabilities in the context of the business. The ability to hold a mirror up to themselves in an objective and enjoyable session provides unique insights.
Individual Assessment Report
Following the assessment and development session, we prepared a comprehensive report summarizing all discussions, assessments, and agreed-upon next steps. This report served as a valuable reference and provided participants with a clear understanding of their leadership strengths, development areas, preferences, and their impact on the business and others. The report is constant reference point for their personal growth over the short term and over the coming years.
Coaching Session
The Leadership Assessment and Development Program concluded with a one-hour coaching session held one month later. This session allowed participants to reflect on the assessment outcomes, explore 1 or 2 areas for behavioral change that could drive performance. The session was designed to align with each participant's specific goals identified during the Assessment and Development session. It was also designed to be simple and actionable – paramount to any effective change.
The coaching session provided participants with a structured framework to further develop their leadership capabilities in line with the organization's strategic objectives. By reviewing assessment outcomes, clarifying objectives, establishing development priorities, creating action plans, and providing ongoing support, the session empowers the participants to be their own coach and drive their own change.
Establishing Development Priorities:
The Coaching session began by reviewing the outcomes of the program and the key development areas which had been collaboratively established during the assessment session. What makes the sessions more powerful is to put them within the context of their own strategy.
Action Planning:
Subsequently, through a series of questions, the participants were guided through gaining an understanding of what incremental changes they could make in their leadership behaviour to achieve better outcomes. The participants were helped in creating action plans that outlined specific steps for developing their identified leadership areas.
Skill-Building and Resources:
Participants were provided with resources, tools, and recommendations to support their skill-building efforts. Relevant books, articles, online courses, or workshops were recommended to help them develop further. We also encouraged further research into suitable mentors, groups or articles to support and motivate their journey.
Accountability and Follow-up:
A system for accountability was established by setting follow-up dates or periodic check-ins to monitor participants' progress. This could be through ourselves, their managers, peers or mentors.
Outcomes of the 6 Group Leadership Assessment and Development Program
The Leadership Program delivered several key outcomes:
- Enhanced Self-Awareness: a deeper understanding of individual leadership styles, dominant behaviours, and their impact on the organization and interactions with others.
- Targeted Leadership Skills Development and Actionable Development Plan
- Greater collaboration across the leadership team as well as top-down and bottom-up; greater flow of information and knowledge sharing.
- Shared Understanding of what is required from each Leadership Team member in terms of behaviours and Strategic Delivery.
- Shared knowledge on what ‘Customer-centric’ and ‘Innovative’ really means in terms of each member’s behaviours as well as processes and KPIs to be implemented across their respective teams.
- The Group’s Leadership Team received a report with a current state audit of their leadership team members including the strengths, greatest areas of impact and potential leadership risks for each member, allowing the Group to create a plan on how to deploy, re-deploy, develop and complement the skills needed to achieve the Group’s strategic objectives.
Conclusion
The Leadership Assessment and Development Program provided the Leadership Team with support on empowering their leaders to make their own changes through coaching and reflection. This is not a training session. The conclusions were reached through own discovery embedding a lasting change. Feedback and ongoing engagement with the team are showing anecdotally how this has worked. In particular, the culture of psychological safety that has allowed open discussion between the executives on their personal development journeys.
We're people development specialists
From graduates to senior leadership, 6 Group builds assessment and development programmes around your desired outcomes. If you're interested in building a highly effective development programme, get in touch:
- enquiries@6-group.com
- +44 (0)161 926 4320
