Executive Coaching Case Studies

Facilitating Leadership Development Through Executive Coaching

An asset management client of ours was keen to develop their Executive team so that they could be true role models of inclusive leadership. 

The team were already familiar with the business case for diversity and inclusion and understood at an intellectual level how important inclusive behaviour was. However, there is a difference between understanding the need to be inclusive and recognising when a behaviour may not be appropriate. Furthermore, knowing how to intervene when non-inclusive or discriminatory behaviours are taking place and giving feedback to others about the impact of their behaviour on others, is not so easy.  

We collaborated with our client to develop an experiential behavioural change programme for their Executive team. Using actors, we developed several scenarios together with the client based on feedback they had received from employees and created characters and scripts so that we could produce a fictional, but life-like, realistic experience for the Executive team.

Delivered via Zoom (although it could also have been in-person) we portrayed different scenarios of behaviour that was either inappropriate, exclusionary, or discriminatory and engaged the Executive team in discussions about what they had observed. We then deepened the learning using a forum theatre technique in which the participants were invited to contribute to the scene development, offering feedback and suggestions for behaviour for the actors to try out live and in the moment.

The great thing about this approach is that it requires the leaders to actively engage and try out different approaches and see how they look and sound as the actors put it into action. The final part of the session involved practicing giving feedback. This is often a tricky topic for leaders as most worry about how the feedback will land with the other person. Again, the actors were key here as they role played different feedback scenarios with each Executive who experimented with offering feedback to the actor’s character. They worked in small groups, so they were supported by their peers, and the actors helped by making suggestions and encouraging the participants to try again using a different approach. 

100% of the participants said that the workshop was valuable learning and would recommend it to others. The challenge with any kind of learning intervention of this kind is how to keep it live and facilitate the transfer of the learning back into the workplace. To facilitate this, we developed a bespoke digital toolkit for each participant which offered phrases they could use, videos and learning resources they could access. 

We also ran peer-to-peer coaching circles. The first of these circles took place approximately 6 weeks after the workshop had taken place. Comprised of 3-4 participants and facilitated by an executive coach, the peer-to-peer coaching circles offered the opportunity for each participant to reflect on what they had put into practice since the workshop and to share an example of a live situation they had either dealt with already or knew that they needed to prepare for. Utilising the wisdom of their peers, they received coaching and support from the group in addition to taking away actions and new learning. 

The client has been delighted with this programme and plans are now underway to roll out the programme to the rest of the organisation. If you’d like to find out more about how we can support your business with this kind of work, please get in touch.