Case Study: International Organisation

Inspiring Participative Leadership

Aspiration

A clear need was identified to strengthen the leadership culture at this international organisation, and to create greater awareness of how business responsibilities and leadership responsibilities are equally important to being an effective leader here.

The Blue Ocean  Company was selected to design and deliver a comprehensive leadership development programme for senior management, an extremely diverse population in terms of nationality, function, managerial experience, organisational structure and location.

Approach

One of the challenges in designing this programme was that historically, interest in development initiatives was a very low priority with this target group. So it was imperative that every single activity would be linked back to the real world issues facing these leaders, making the learning real and relevant.

The Blue Ocean Company’s design followed its five principles that maximises classroom learning (face-to-face and virtual) through high impact, highly memorable activities such as juggling and drumming. Most importantly, the participants are put in the driver’s seat of their own personal development through face-to-face modular events, individual application coaching, and virtual forums on leadership topics chosen by the participants.

Action

The result has been overwhelmingly positive. Anectodal evidence from participants confirms that the experience is stimulating, leads to new insights to the leadership challenges these participants face, while offering a chance for self-discovery and opportunities for networking. Participants cite greater self-confidence through greater awareness of personal leadership style and the impact on others, plus an enhanced ability to work with and lead people in a very diverse work environment.

Of all the senior leaders interviewed two months after attending a module/forum, 95% said that they applied a newly learned skill or behaviour, and had a positive impact.