Increasing Leadership Effectiveness in a Regional Office
Situation: A regional office of a national financial services company was experiencing a leadership crisis. The productivity and the profitability of the office were not meeting goal. Complaints about the two leaders’ interpersonal style and the office culture had reached the level that the CEO and the VP of HR were concerned about legal exposure. It was critical that the company’s corporate leaders demonstrate their responsiveness to the concerns they were hearing. If the office could not become more financially profitable and less tumultuous, the company was considering shutting it down.
Action:Gail Golden Consulting provided a consultant who visited the office together with the CEO. They spent a day interviewing the leaders and their team members. GGC also administered a confidential, on-line 360 survey to assess the leaders’ effectiveness. That assessment process identified key concerns, and the CEO decided to provide six months of individual coaching to the two leaders, with the clear understanding that their tenure in that leadership role depended on their demonstrating improvement in several clearly defined leadership competencies.Each leader met with his own coach monthly. In addition, the two leaders and the two coaches met together monthly to discuss leadership alignment and office culture issues. The coaching was tightly focused on the identified leadership gaps.
Outcome:A second online 360 Feedback Survey was administered several months after the termination of coaching to measure progress. Both leaders showed improvement on every item in the survey, with significant improvements in the areas of leader involvement and accessibility, fostering an atmosphere of respect, holding themselves accountable, delegating effectively, thinking proactively, and establishing rapport with others in the office. In addition, the productivity and profitability of the office surpassed goal and staff turnover decreased. The two leaders remained in their roles and took on additional responsibilities at the national level. The office remained open.
