Lead | Developing leaders in a European bank

Client

A bank headquartered in Austria with operations throughout Central and Eastern Europe.

Focus

The bank had been quick to capitalise on the rapid economic growth in the Central and Eastern Europe and through M&A activity had established itself as one of the biggest players in the region. In collaboration with IEDC Bled School of Management, they had designed a development programme to equip their high potential managers with the mindset and skills to lead, as the CEO put it, “a Banking Group rather than a group of banks”.

We were asked to support participants’ development throughout the programme through providing coaching input.

Formulation

The modular programme took place in four countries across CEE over 10 months culminating in a job rotation. Modules involved input from leading academics and thinkers from around the world as well as case and project work.  Our analysis was that:

• The formal academic programme and project work would leave little time for participants to reflect on their personal style and impact
• The logistics of working with 24 people from across CEE meant that we would not be able to provide meaningful coaching input on a 1:1 basis
• Embedding the learning would require participants to make connections with their personal objectives and the real life business challenges they faced
• Following the programme participants would also benefit from an opportunity to reflect on their progress and to consider the next steps in their personal and leadership development

Intervention

There were four elements to our work:

• Selection – we helped interview participants and provided psychological insights and recommendations to the selection panel
• Peer coaching – we designed an innovative model pairing participants based on their personality style, strengths, development areas and country of residence. The pairs then coached one another on their development objectives. On each module we reviewed and supported the progress of coaching pairs.
• Facilitation and teaching – on team development and leadership skills
• 1:1 facilitator coaching – at the end of the programme we held individual coaching sessions with each individual. The output was a report profiling their style, strengths and development areas with recommendations on next steps for each individual

Outcome

While there was some scepticism at first the group soon came to appreciate the value of soft skills development and peer coaching.  This was highlighted by the need to work effectively cross-culturally with the challenge of leading their teams amidst the turmoil and uncertainty of the financial crisis and dealing with the politics at the centre of the organisation.

At the end of the programme most participants noted that the greatest value had come from the network they had formed, what they had discovered about themselves and what they had learned from their peers.  The next programme will see more time allocated to our input on team development, coaching skills, personal reflection and self management skills.