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Example Case Studies
Learn valuable lessons from these organisations:
Property Management Association
Custom-built leadership development programme
The Property Management Association (PMA), a service organisation for property professionals in Washington, USA, developed its own leadership programme to enhance business and personal leadership skills. The programme is delivered by a select group of industry professionals and participants are selected under character trait criteria including having a passion for the profession and the desire, intelligence, and experience to convert emotion into accomplishment. The programme is delivered through a series of education programmes, networking opportunities, and monthly mentoring sessions. The mentors serve as sounding boards to enable participants to grow personally and professionally. Participants self-direct the training by identifying the most meaningful topics and discussion issues.
The programme has three main components:
- Monthly seminars focussed on business topics ranging from personal business plans to balancing work-life pressures;
- Monthly half-day discussions on business challenges and issues where input is received from peers in a confidential environment. Participants explore personal issues such as `why I think the way I do`, `why I react in a particular manner` and ` why I do the things I do;
- Monthly meetings between each participant and mentor. Most mentors are Fellows of the Association and hold positions such as President or Senior Vice-President of their organisations. Mentors recognised their own need for training and guidance and so every mentor has attended an intensive two-day mentor training programme to make them effective in the role.
Vodafone New Zealand
Experiential learning and real-life coaching used to train leaders
Vodafone NZ developed a `Leadership In Action` (LIA) course targeting 400 leadership candidates. The modular course, focused on the company's values and culture, involved a live-in training component, and took approximately nine months to complete. The focus was face-to-face experiential learning and real-life coaching. LIA comprised four core areas for development:
- Personal leadership - (a) Individual core values/skills and how these were perceived by others and (b) alignment of personal values versus the organisation's values.
- Team leadership - both interpersonal and results oriented styles.
- Strategic leadership - (a) developing business strategy, and (b) translating this into a team level context.
- Coaching and mentoring - leaders helping others fulfil their own best potential. While still early days Vodafone noticed a marked change in the way staff were interacting.
Metropolitan Police Service
Identification of weakness prompts leadership development programme
The Metropolitan Police Service (the Met), of London, UK, faced with a situation where middle ranks (Chief Inspectors, Superintendents and Chief Superintendents) received no particular training or leadership development, introduced a leadership development programme shortly after a 1998 enquiry which had highlighted the Met's leadership failure.
The programme was designed to strengthen leadership and ensure a more effective response in the community and covered four major areas:
- Awareness of current leadership style
- Development of new leadership styles and skills
- Presentation to senior managers or key partners
The programme was supplemented by mentors from the business community, secondments to other organisations, and the use of interactive learning materials. Since its introduction, the programme has been extended to include other ranks and formal measures to gauge the programme's effect are planned. The programme has helped the Met move towards a transformational style to enable officers to make decisions and lead for themselves.
Best practice recommendations from the Met relating to this area include:
- Be bold in implementing leadership programmes;
- Be professional and attend to little details that make things go well;
- Ensure complete buy-in from the top;
- Avoid tokenism at all costs.
March Incorporated
A balanced scorecard leadership framework
In 2002, Marsh Incorporated, a leading risk and insurance services, wanting to have staff motivated by freedom to lead while being well led, introduced an accelerated leadership programme for graduate to senior level managers. The aims were to ensure that staff were good at their jobs, good with people, good leaders, to produce a talented pipeline of successors, and to provide leaders prepared to lead new business development and influence strategic thinking. A balanced scorecard leadership framework was introduced which identified the competencies, behaviours and attitudes that leaders should display. The framework had four headings, each with up to four behaviours/actions categories, with each category having up to eight different behavioural descriptors: Headings were determined as:
- Financial Success - drives for results;
- Client satisfaction - maintains client focus; demonstrates industry expertise; and leads complex transactions;
- Colleague capability - manages talent; leads people; demonstrates learning agility; and partners across the firm;
- Business process - improves business processes; and fosters new initiatives.
Development programmes instituted included:
- Leadership Launch pad for junior/middle managers
- A 36-month Accelerated Leadership Programme for high-performing, high-potential managers.
Best practice recommendations from Marsh are:
- Link leadership programmes directly with business objectives
- Follow up by seeking evidence of how the experience helped individuals tackle situations more effectively, or changed how things are done
- Leadership is personal - keep trying until something works for you, your team, and your organisation.
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