Senior Vice President of a fast moving U.S. consumer goods company needing to turn around the sales organization.
The SVP believed he needed to replace 50% of the people in the organization to restore it to health.
Feedback received was that his leadership style was perceived as intimidating.
We commenced the coaching process with a 360-feedback diagnostic and a quantitative survey. We mapped his behavior patterns in difficult situations, identifying constructive and defensive patterns, which revealed he had a predominantly defensive profile. The impact of this was his team weren’t speaking up and significant issues were being hidden from him.
During a six-month coaching process we examined and analyzed specific challenges he was facing, which further highlighted a command and control leadership style. During this time we emerged deeply engrained beliefs that were contributing to this leadership style. With the client we brainstormed new behaviors for him use with his team, leading to a realization that he could be a more effective leader using a new leadership style which ultimately contributed to increased team performance.
At the end of the six months we remapped his behavior patterns and discovered the coachee’s profile had transformed to one which followed constructive patterns.
The
Impact
The sales team’s productivity increased by 40%
Zero job losses on the team
The leader was more energized and connected to a sense of purpose
A year after this assignment the SVP was promoted to lead the division, with one of his direct reports taking over the sales team, who attributed his promotion, in part, to the SVP’s new style of coaching and leadership
