Developing a Leadership Team: A Business Case Study

This article was originally published in Portuguese in Líder Magazine, in the June 2023 issue.

The online version was later published on the magazine’s website. The original article can be consulted here link.

Currently, organisations perceive the need to develop shared and more humanized leadership that, at the same time, reinforces trust, collaborative work and mutual responsibility for performance, well-being and learning. Team coaching has emerged as one of the best ways to drive this transformation. But how does it happen?

As an example of the value that team coaching can create in the context of new leadership trends, we share a project developed with a management team.

The leadership team, made up of the CEO and five managers, faced several starting challenges:

· Those of the general context, such as the economic slowdown and changes in business and work models associated with the pandemic and the global crisis.

· Those of the team and organisational dynamics, since three of its six members had been on the team and in the organisation for less than a year, including the CEO himself.

During the process, the team faced other challenges, such as the departure of the CEO, changes in internal teams, and the need to restructure processes to respond to changes in the internal and business environment.

Development work with the leadership team was conducted virtually between March and November 2021, in five main phases:

1. Scope and agreement;

2. Research on the team and its context through 360° interviews with the team and identified internal and external stakeholders;

3. Joint creation of the team development agenda, based on the desired future and taking into account the results of the 360° interviews;

4. Execution of the team’s agenda through coaching meetings, participation in its work meetings and a continuous monitoring structure with its members, its leader and the sponsor (shareholder and administrator); and finally,

5. Review of the process and integration of learning.

The team exceeded the performance objectives for the year, despite facing challenges derived from changes in the team itself, in the organisation and in the context.

In the transfer of the coaching process to the team, some of the main results identified were:

· Improving team performance;

· The increase in individual and collective self-knowledge;

· Greater awareness of the impact of their actions and behaviours on other stakeholders, both internal and external; and

· Greater team alignment.

The team itself also identified opportunities to continue its development, maintain co-responsibility and alignment, and be more connected to creating value with and for other stakeholders.

In April 2022, almost six months after completing the team’s systemic coaching process, the sponsor and team members were asked to submit a testimonial. The testimonies collected remained consistent with the main results identified during the transfer of the coaching process to the team, demonstrating the sustainability of the benefits of the developed process.

We invite you to explore this methodology in your organisations.

Authors: Fátima Ribeiro and Susana Azevedo