Don’t worry – we’ve been here before.
THE PROBLEM
An aviation manufacturer based in Northern Ireland, approached me in 2020 to work with some high potential leaders and their teams.
The leaders were challenged by demand – how to lead effectively in a volatile sector, faced with organisational transformation, COVID, and with the added weight of delivering business outcomes under high levels of expectation.
A key approach was an agreement on the terms of engagement where client confidentiality is maintained, while delivering on the agreed business outcomes. This requires careful planning and a mechanism of measurement to ensure the work carried out has the desired result.
“I had previously worked with Tony Walmsley in a Joint venture in Australia and subsequently followed his professional football management career. He struck me as a courageous leader, in the face of serious scrutiny and pressure, and an excellent communicator.
We discussed the Leaders Advisory and how the lessons from professional sport were being applied to business and I felt there was a fit for what we wanted to do with our emerging talent, and also with some senior people who we were looking to develop.
Tony had a unique proposition, which was to work at a deep level initially to understand the purpose of the individuals, then provide executive coaching services in the context of their specific challenges“
Gordon Cracknell – Executive Leader, Aviation
THE JOURNEY
The Leaders Advisory was engaged to undertake some team dynamics work, profiling and workshops to uncover insights to help the operation achieve performance improvements”
In phase one we captured the engagement culture by department, using our Element 8 survey and we profiled direct reports using the High Performance Teams report.
We began working remotely with 1:1 identity workshops to uncover purpose, values, potential, possibility and establish the desired outcome of the work, before commencing an intensive coaching program for each of the identified leaders identified direct reports.
“What was quickly apparent was that this was different. There was a level of depth to the work that built confidence in the value being created.
There was a genuine care and desire to understand the business and the leaders before the coaching sessions started. There was no promise of a quick fix, just a lot of transparent dialogue and a professional approach”
THE TRANSFORMATION
“Our leaders are under scrutiny to perform every day and the environment changes rapidly. They need to be at their best and Tony has been able to help them all see themselves differently, become more effective and they all speak incredibly highly of his approach and how much confidence they have built.
“Measuring the impact of coaching is challenging due to the confidentiality of the relationships, but the transparency of the team dynamics work, the three way agreement and most importantly the feedback of the leaders and their teams has been positive”
Gordon Cracknell, Executive Leader, Aviation
The Leaders Advisory recognises, with gratitude, the partnership with an organisation that embodies a model of genuine support of their people at an incredibly complex and difficult time for the sector.
Beyond The White Line is a sports-focused CIC. Founder and CEO James Chiffi undertook some Executive Coaching after an initial conversation uncovered an alignment in values and shared vision of outcomes for sportspeople.
We commenced a series of coaching conversations, and this is what James has to say.
“We all have so many wonderful people buried within our networks; I have decided to take a few moments to highlight Tony Walmsley of The Leaders Advisory, who has personally helped me in recent months with some of the challenges one can face, often in isolation as a business owner/entrepreneur.
From coaching, speaking, consulting to engaging. I am delighted to recommend Tony and The Leaders Advisory to my network”
James Chiffi – Founder and CEO Beyond the White Line
Humble Associates are a boutique business consultancy and undertook a team-dynamics experience to re-fresh their thinking, especially around how they structure and distribute work, as they focused on future planning.
We conducted a Half Day Team Dynamics Workshop using High Performance Leader Reports to surface actionable insights for the group to discuss.
“The Leaders Advisory gave our leadership team the jolt that it needed.
Tony helped us to be more vulnerable with each other, to see our differences (without judging them) and to help us to start to navigate to a better place.
The personal report we all received has become a regular point of reference in how we can optimise the way we work together.
For a team that was getting a little stuck in some of our relationships and unhelpful working patterns, we now have the tools to improve!”
Noel Warnell – Co-Founder of Humble Associates.
NEXT STEPS
and their teams to do their best work.
Testimonials
