A Sampling of Case Studies and Customized Solutions

Case Studies of Having Helped Leaders and Organizations

LeadershipTraction® offers an array of one-on-one, group, and assessment-based solutions for your leadership development needs. Each is fully customized to the needs of the leader and organization. Here are some examples that may be relevant to you and those you work with:

↠ ‘Power and Presence’ Coaching and Mentoring ↞

Introverted Leaders Learned to Enjoy Communicating More Confidently and Decisively

• CLIENT: Smart, capable leaders across a variety of companies, industries and functional responsibilities.
• PROBLEM: These kind, caring leaders were just too passive and reluctant to constructively ‘push’ their direct reports to further important projects and programs because they weren’t sure how to do it, effectively, as validated by prior efforts to do so going awry.
• APPROACH: Deep talk about the whys and wherefores of business priorities; extensive role play; developing their assertiveness in keeping with their core values and personal style.
• RESULTS: Greater personal power; increased confidence and decisiveness; finding their true leadership ‘voice’. These leaders felt much more ready for the important conversations they knew they needed to have, stared having them more proactively, prepared for them more readily, and better managed the inevitable in-meeting twists and turns, without losing the thrust of their messages or their respect for those they were conversing with.

↠ ‘Tone and Tenor’ Coaching and Mentoring ↞

Helping Leaders Who Tend to Be Too Much Of ‘A Bull in a China Shop’

• CLIENT: Operations and manufacturing leaders across a variety of industries
• PROBLEM: Strong, technical experts who’ve taken a top-down no-nonsense approach to leadership resulting in employees feeling disrespected, demotivated, and unready (or unwilling) to step up their productivity and level of engagement.
• APPROACH: A combination of before/after 360° assessments, agreed-upon success criteria and personalized development plans, in-person and virtual coaching, 3-way interactions with bosses and Human Resources, post-engagement support.
• RESULTS: Significantly improved results in follow-up feedback, support, communications, collegiality, respect, and enthusiasm.

↠ ‘Executive Intelligence’ Coaching and Mentoring ↞

Engagement Soared as Leaders Learned to Keep Things Moving Constructively Forward

• CLIENT: Auto claims processing division of a major full-service insurance provider.
• PROBLEM: High-potential leaders were identified as needing to accelerate their growth and development so they could have a more positive and powerful impact up, down, and across their organizations sooner than their trajectory indicated they would.
• APPROACH: Each leader was coached, 1-on-1, for six months, focusing, specifically on improving their understanding of, and work within, the three contexts of Executive Intelligence: (1) Getting Things Done; (2) Working With and through Other People; (3) Recognizing Your Impact, Taking Responsibility for It, and Modifying Your Behaviors Accordingly. Additional elements of the engagement included: by phone and in-person coaching/mentoring; shadowing; 360°- and a battery of self-assessments; role-playing; and an unmitigated focus on driving key business results.
• RESULTS: Each leader was recognized by supervisors, downstream employees, customers and vendors, and friends and families, for marked improvements in their leadership style and impact; all operational metric goals were met or exceeded; employee morale and productivity improved; customer/vendor satisfaction ratings improved; and it became “significantly easier to do better work.”

↠ ‘Perception Management’ Coaching and Mentoring ↞

Helping High-Potential Managers Focus More Effectively on their Leadership ‘Brand’

For next-gen leaders who often lack the gravitas and executive presence expected from them.

↠ ‘Coach-on-Call’ Retainer Program ↞

ad Hoc Coaching and Mentoring of Middle Managers, Staff, and Front-Line Operatives

• CLIENT: A leading worldwide manufacturer and provider of medical technologies and related services for the health care industry.
• PROBLEM: Due to a series of layoffs and a significantly flattened hierarchy – and the “chasm of leadership continuity” created by relatively inexperienced managers now reporting directly to senior-level executives – the company’s Global Learning and Development (GLD) group, with my assistance, created a “fast-track” program whereby the need for short-term, coaching and mentoring calls could be immediately approved and scheduled to improve employee hardiness.
• APPROACH: GLD would pre-purchase a bulk number of coaching calls that a designated liaison would then allocate, on an as-needed basis, to functional managers across the company needing assistance. (Allocations were then “billed back” to user departments so the entire initiative was cost-neutral to GLD.) As the call inventory depleted, bulk re-orders were processed and paid for, which helped GLD manage program pre-buys on a quarterly basis. A typical engagement lasted 2 or 3 calls, provided company managers with a confidential sounding board for such things as: performance management discussions; interviewing and selection; planning and forecasting; presentation dry runs; and such. In an unrelated assignment, I facilitated the morning of Day Two of an off-site department retreat, integrating the learning from their “high ropes” experience the day before and segueing that into a readiness for the planning and goal-setting activities scheduled for later in the day.
• RESULTS: Numerous manager/employee difficulties and misunderstandings were quickly mitigated or avoided entirely.

↠ ‘Directional Leadership’ Coaching and Mentoring ↞

How to Better Manage Up, Down, and Across the Organization to Improve Employee Morale and Productivity

For newly promoted, first-level executives needing to improve their visibility, reputation, and ability to influence others.

↠ ‘Conflict-Competency’ Coaching and Mentoring ↞

Record-Breaking Sales Resulted from Leaders NOT Avoiding Difficult Conversations

• CLIENT: Sales Directors of a Fortune 100 financial services organization and leading retirement provider.
• PROBLEM: Assessing and improving the “conflict competency” of sales directors, across the country, with respect to their increasing the use of constructive responses to conflict, decreasing the use of destructive responses to conflict, and better managing the “hot buttons” that trigger them into real – or perceived – interpersonal conflicts.
• APPROACH: Baseline conflict competency levels were identified through the use of the Conflict Dynamic Profile – Individual (CDP-I) self-assessment and personalized debriefings/coaching, thereafter.
• RESULTS: Observable improvements were recognized in those who have not always handled conflict as effectively as they might; those who typically have failed to anticipate, recognize, and recover from, what “triggers” feelings of conflict, in themselves and others; those who tended to avoid certain interactions because of their inherent potential for conflict; and those who wanted to become more agile and effective in conflict situations.

↠ ‘Strength-Based’ Assessments, Evaluations, and Debriefings ↞

Perspectives, and Best Practices that Better Leverage One’s Talents, Interests, and Skills

For leaders who are stuck, have seemingly peaked in their abilities, or are feeling the negative effects of burnout.

↠ ‘Impact and Influence’ Coaching and Mentoring ↞

Improving One’s Business Rigor Through More Impactful Questions and Follow-Through

• CLIENT: A global leader in commercial real estate services and building management.
• PROBLEM: Aging facilities infrastructure, insufficiently skilled operatives, deprecated preventative maintenance routines, and increased tenant customization requests had created significant building infrastructure risk and exposure for this Class-A facility. But prior requests for additional personnel and project funding were rejected as unnecessary and expensive.
• APPROACH: Assisted Director of Infrastructure, and staff, in how to identify and properly articulate – in specific business terms – current operational risks, and their short- and long-term impact; near-term operational risks, and their short- and long-term impact; optimal, and minimally-required, mitigation needs; related department restructuring with recommended personnel-change timeline; financial implications with options for funding; and a thorough assessment of the business and operational risks and financial implications of inaction or deferring the decision to proceed.
• RESULTS: Increased ability to crisply articulate the business justifications for their requests, think more quickly in real-time, and ask meaningful and important follow-up questions, in the moment.

↠ ‘Micro Leadership Lessons’ and ‘Deep Dive’ Q&A Sessions ↞

Interactive Forums for Leaders Who Aren’t Getting What They Need from Other Leadership Training Programs

For smart, capable technical leaders who all-too-often struggle with ‘people’ issues and need to ‘push back’ in order to learn.

↠ Customized Conference Breakout Sessions and Department Retreats ↞

Relevant, Timely, and Interactive Presentations about Essential Leadership Dynamics

• CLIENT: Niche industry Associations wanting to add a leadership-focused breakout sessions to their annual member conferences.
• PROBLEM: While attendees typically have extensive expertise in their functional responsibilities, they tend to be far less confident and capable when dealing with the ‘people’ side of the business and wanted to add some immediately usable techniques and approaches to their leadership tool kits.
• APPROACH: A combination of micro-training modules, visual takeaways, practice, small-group discussions, debriefings, and Q&A.
• RESULTS: Attendees not only learned how to upgrade their leadership skills, they also had the opportunity to practice and discuss several of these elements so that they could: (a) actually apply them to real-world scenarios of their own choosing; (b) benefit from hearing other attendees share their insights and lessons learned from the materials presented; and (c) return to work with a clear sense and purpose as to how, when, and where to improve their leadership impact.

Outcomes, Measures, and Results

Curious about the outcomes, measures, and results derived from working with LeadershipTraction? Just follow any of the following links:

• How LeadershipTraction Benefits Leaders
• How LeadershipTraction Benefits Organizations
• LeadershipTraction ‘Rapid’ Return on Investment Numbers
• Client Endorsements and Testimonials

Become a More Confident, Capable, Credible Leader.

If you think a brief conversation about your leadership development needs – or those of others in your organization – could be useful, call or connect to coordinate calendars.

"Improve your skills. Find your voice. Build your reputation. Make good things happen sooner."

- Barry Zweibel, MCC-Master Certified Coach and Mentor