Leadership Training – A Case Study On A Successful Intervention

Situation:

The CEO of a multi-national Fortune 500 company reached out to MMM Training Solutions for Executive Coaching and Leadership Training because of the dissention that existed between him and his executive team of 12 people.

Profile of the Company:

This company caters to providing organizations with data that would help them to mitigate risk and increase their insight about customer performance.

STEP 1: Understand ‘What Is’ and ‘What Should Be’

 Two assessment tools were used:

1. MBTI

2. 360 degree feedback

For the Executive Leadership Training program, the situation was dealt with from both the coachee’s perspective as well as the key stakeholders. The ‘What Is’ and ‘What Should Be’ was clearly established.

STEP 2: Understand the gap between ‘What Is’ and ‘What Should Be’

1. The gap was understood and goals were established that would bridge the gap. Through brainstorming and talking about prior instances a wide spectrum of options were identified.
2. The coachee’s strengths and weaknesses were explored and as much as possible, we aimed at using a strength-based approach.

STEP 3: Create an ‘Action Plan’ to bridge the gap

As Executive Coaching Consultants, we understood that the areas of weakness were identified through Leadership Coaching and action steps to enhance these steps were laid out. It was clear to both the coachee and the coach that the main contributing reasons for the problem were:

1. Unrealistic expectations by the coachee of the executive team in terms of productivity and timelines
2. Self-fulfilling prophesy – the coachee did not trust the capabilities of numerous people on his team and so they always performed at the level he expected them to perform
3. Impatient and emotional behaviour of the coachee stopped him from being able to establish the level of trust and rapport that was needed to establish a strong relationship with the team
4. Over-communicating caused the team to be confused with the present-day happenings

STEP 4: Hone strengths and skills to effectively implement the ‘Action Plan’

• After our Leadership Training Program, the coachee was able to recognize and accept these problems. This stage was reached through numerous discussions about incidents and repeatedly observing the result of his actions.
• He was then intensely coached in the areas of Communication, Interpersonal Relationships, Persuasion and Negotiation Skills, Developing and Motivating Others.
• He was also encouraged to take a good look at his core team and figure out the basis of the lack of trust that he had regarding their capabilities. If he felt that they could not improve, then he was encouraged to replace them. If he felt that he had unrealistic expectations of them then he had to consciously work with his expectations which led to the self-fulfilling prophecy.

Step 5: Sustain momentum through focused application

The coachee after several months of leadership coaching started to show significant progress in the way he interacted with the team. He was able to control his emotions and started to build healthy relationships with his team. He replaced the people that he thought was not capable to handle the work and had more realistic expectations. He took great care not to over-communicate and micro-manage his team. All these actions started to pay significantly when there was a visible difference in the dissention in the team. The impact on productivity was significant.

The leadership training and coaching is on-going as the coachee feels that some of the changes in behaviour have yet to become natural – he does not want to fall back to the old habits.