The Challenge
Santander wanted to strengthen leadership capability within a critical population of customer-facing managers operating across its UK network.
These individuals play a pivotal role in customer engagement, commercial performance and collaboration across teams.
Many had progressed into their roles through operational pathways and had significant experience in banking but had not previously received structured leadership and management development.
Santander recognised that improving leadership capability within this group would directly influence:
- Customer engagement and loyalty
- Collaboration across teams & specialist functions
- Uptake of key banking products and services
- Overall organisational performance
To support this ambition, Santander partnered with Raise the Bar to design and deliver a leadership development programme that would build capability at scale while driving measurable business impact.
The Solution
Raise the Bar designed and delivered a national leadership and management development programme tailored to Santander’s operating environment.
The programme was shaped through consultation with leaders and stakeholders across the business to identify the leadership behaviours required for success across Santander’s customer-facing teams.
Core development themes included:
- Leadership identity and self-awareness
- Influencing and stakeholder management
- High-impact communication
- Coaching capability
- Effective planning and organisation
- Delivering exceptional customer experiences
The programme combined several learning elements to ensure engagement, application and behavioural change.
Blended development journey
Participants completed:
- Preparatory webinars
- A series of highly interactive workshops
- Practical workplace activities designed to embed learning in day-to-day leadership practice
Digital learning environment
A mobile learning platform supported the programme with pre-session preparation, on-demand resources and a collaborative space for participants and facilitators.
Manager involvement
Senior leaders and line managers were actively involved throughout the programme, providing coaching and reinforcement to ensure development translated into real leadership behaviour within the business.
Participants also had the opportunity to achieve an ILM Award in Management, strengthening both leadership capability and professional credibility.
Scale of Delivery
The programme was delivered at significant scale across Santander’s UK operations.
- 327 leaders enrolled on the programme
- 124 workshop days delivered nationally
- A full blended development journey combining workshops, digital learning and workplace application
This enabled Santander to develop leadership capability consistently across a large, geographically dispersed leadership population.
Organisational impact
The programme delivered measurable improvements in both leadership capability and business performance.
Key outcomes included:
- Customer Engagement: 9% increase in customer meetings and appointments
- Growth in Customer Base: 10,907 new customers added
- Monthly Performance: 103% increase in the average number of new customers onboarded each month
- Customer Loyalty: 54% increase in customer loyalty metrics, representing 17,759 additional loyal
- Product Uptake: 1076% growth in adoption of a key premium banking product
- Cross-Team Collaboration: 3% increase in referrals to specialist colleagues
- Leadership Development: 76% of participants successfully completed the ILM Level 3 qualification
Leadership Impact
Beyond the commercial improvements, Santander reported clear behavioural changes among programme participants.
Leaders demonstrated:
- Greater clarity about their role and leadership responsibilities
- Increased confidence influencing colleagues and stakeholders
- Stronger organisation and prioritisation of their work
- Greater contribution to leadership discussions within teams
Senior leaders reported visible improvements in how participants led within their teams and collaborated across the wider business.
The Result
Through a large-scale leadership development initiative, Santander strengthened leadership capability across a critical leadership population.
The programme:
- Developed 327 leaders across the organisation
- Created more consistent leadership behaviours across teams
- Delivered measurable improvements in customer engagement, product adoption and loyalty
By combining leadership development with practical application, Santander was able to build leadership capability while delivering tangible business results.