The Challenge
A senior leadership team within a major telecommunications organisation was experiencing challenges around leadership behaviours, accountability and the quality of challenge within decision making.
These dynamics were beginning to affect how effectively the team operated as a collective leadership group.
A diagnostic review was conducted with all members of the senior leadership team and their Managing Director. This was analysed alongside findings from the organisation’s recent employee pulse survey.
Several key themes emerged:
- The need to strengthen psychological safety within the leadership team
- Greater openness to constructive challenge in decision making
- Clearer accountability for collective leadership behaviours
- The development of a shared strategic vision and approach
The organisation wanted to address these issues in a way that improved how the team worked together in practice, not simply through theoretical leadership development.
The Approach
Raise the Bar delivered a structured team coaching intervention designed to address both the behavioural and systemic issues affecting the leadership team.
Diagnostic Phase
A leadership diagnostic was conducted with all members of the senior leadership team and the Managing Director to understand the underlying dynamics within the group.
Insights from these conversations were reviewed alongside employee pulse survey data to identify the key leadership themes requiring attention.
Leadership Offsite
A two day facilitated leadership offsite brought the team together to explore the systemic issues affecting their effectiveness.
The sessions focused on:
- Exploring how the team currently operated as a leadership group
- Identifying barriers to open challenge and accountability
- Building psychological safety within the leadership environment
- Creating a clear team vision and shared leadership purpose
The team also developed a collective leadership identity, agreeing a set of behaviours and expectations they would hold each other accountable to moving forward.
Embedding Behaviour Change
To ensure the work translated into real behavioural change, the leadership team committed to a series of three further monthly half day coaching sessions.
These sessions focused on:
- Addressing live leadership challenges
- Reinforcing the behaviours agreed during the offsite
- Continuing to build trust, challenge and accountability within the group
The sessions were deliberately designed to operate in the flow of work, enabling the team to apply learning directly to real leadership decisions and interactions.
The Impact
Six months after the intervention, an online survey was conducted with the leadership team to review behavioural shifts and team effectiveness.
The review confirmed:
- Improved psychological safety within the leadership team
- Stronger and more constructive challenge in decision making
- Clearer accountability for leadership behaviours
- Greater alignment around the team’s strategic direction
The team agreed a set of next steps to continue embedding these behaviours and concluded the formal coaching engagement having established stronger foundations for collective leadership.