Enabling the scale up!? Leadership development at all levels.
In 2020 two partners started a consulting firm. Initially these entrepreneurs took on all leadership responsibilities & tasks themselves, within a small organization of 15 consultants. Fast growth demanded leadership development. Both in an organizational and a qualitative way.
First, a Management Team had to be installed. A team that was to execute the strategy. Meanwhile, two new partners joined. The partner group wanted to become a strong & united team that had to develop a growth strategy for 2025. Last, the company demanded an accelerated growth of talent, mid level roles would become available for young talented potentials, who were offered a leadership development programme to step up their game.
Parallel approach on various tracks
Initially, Jonathan Warner ran a program with the owners of the company. This was about business goals first. What was it these entrepreneurs wanted to achieve with(in) their company. And how did personal ambitions match and vary?
The owners wanted to delegate more of their tasks to a new Management Team that had to be created. They discussed and determined the role & responsibility of this new MT. Main responsibility would be the execution of the strategy in 2023/2024. As a starting point, a one page strategy was developed, as part of this program.
Subsequently all Management Team members did a Leadership Effectivess Analysis assessment. This showed how personalities within the team matched, and where team members could complement each other. During individual interviews team members shared their views on the company and the MT with Jonathan Warner.
Next, the MT went on a two day offsite, with a dual purpose. Firstly, members would get to know each other on a deeper level and thus create a united team. (As teaming requires understanding about each other’s drivers and convictions.) Secondly, during the offsite, a vast amount of time was spent on business execution. The result was an actionable plan including a clear distribution of tasks to execute the strategy.
While growth of the company was well underway, reaching 80+ consultants within a few years, a new idea emerged. Mid level management consultants appeared hard to recruit. So instead of only recruiting these consultants, the company decided to reward it’s own young potentials by offering these future leaders a 6 month leadership development program, in order to fully prepare them for promotion to mid-level within the company. This was yet another way to accelerate growth.
The result
A few years down the line, this company maintains the same approach. Simultaneous leadership development at all levels is ongoing. It is the way for this company to invest in -and care about- its people. The result? Happy employees and a company that quadrupled in size & revenue the first two years. Also, an ambitious strategy for 2025 is developed, and execution to achieve the goals of that strategy is well onits way.
