Now, the organisation was having a “command and control” leadership culture. To be successful, the board of the company needed to show new rolemodelling during this major cultural transformation. The new leadership style should be about giving trust and support having in mind: “Don’t ask for permission, ask for forgiveness.” Forgiveness would be granted if the employees would be ready to learn from less successful actions or decisions.

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Not all members of the board were convinced this should be the way forward. Next to that, some resisted the transformation as they were not sure they would fit the new leadership requirements.

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The intervention  

The first stage was to understand the reluctancy of some boardmembers. Individual intakes provided the following insights: doubts whether the people in field were capable of taking more responsibility and decision-making power, uncertainty how to carry final responsibility towards donors and other stakeholders when giving up a directive leadership style, and questions about how to authentically apply a more servant leadership style.  An interesting observation was that nearly all members of the board had been fieldworkers themselves in their early careers. Another finding was that most found it difficult to share their concerns to the full extent with the new president as he was perceived as a dominant powerhouse, seeing them as representatives of an outdated culture.

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The first stage was having a courageous conversation about the transformation and the role of the (members of) the board therein. An off-site session was held during which the boardmembers got to know each other better by sharing belief systems and drivers.  Next, a facilitated fishbowl exercise was held whereby all elephants in the room were brought to the surface and talked through. No decisions were taken, only an inventory of topics and opinions was made. Before doing so, we had a dialogue on trust according to the insights of David Maister. Also, they exercised with giving and receiving constructive feedback. Finally, the team also decided on so called “rules of the house”, in behavioural terms, to facilitate mutual co-operation.

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“They decided to first experiment with delegation in one geographical area.”

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Now that the board was literally on speaking terms, during session 3 all topics identified previously were discussed again. They concluded that concerns about capabilities down the line were basically untested perceptions. Even stronger, most of them shared frustrations from the time they were in the field and had to deal with a slowly operating headquarters with staff not always understanding their reality. There was indeed a lot to win in case “the right people in the area” would get more autonomy. However, it was considered imperative to define new rules of engagement. The real concern was about their own role in leading the transformation. They decided to first experiment with delegation in one geographical area. Conditions to be met were defined. The boardmember most involved would meet with the senior staff of that area to discuss a transition program and process.

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Fourteen months later, the board concluded that the experiment was a huge success by all means, and that the transformation would be rolled out in the whole organisation. The rules of engagement were co-designed and subsequently modified with representatives of the area. The main learning from the experiment was that the organisation should train the colleagues in the field to be able to successfully accept delegation. To that end, a leadership program was designed and implemented.