Senior Leadership Revolt
Obstacle
The organization had been acquired. It was expected to run autonomously, but during the acquisition, a new senior leader was brought in. Her command-and-control style wreaked havoc on the company culture, damaging morale and the team’s ability to produce high-quality product. In fewer than 12 months, six highly visible senior leaders had quit. The new leader’s style did not resonate with the remaining leaders, so they formed a coup to revolt against her by demanding certain changes from the CEO.
Solution
Starting with a series of leadership team crisis interventions to stabilize the organization we helped instill a sense of trust and safety first on the leadership team before working with the broader organization. Simultaneously, we worked very closely with the new leader in our patented self-awareness upgrade system that allowed her to see, and effectively communicate an understanding of the impact of her style on the organization by sharing what she was learning about herself and what others needed from her in the process. Her thoughtful self-disclosure paved the way for rebuilding trust in ways that ultimately resulted in much greater satisfaction for her and the people she was leading. She was able to transform her leadership style and invite and sustain an enduring sense of partnership.
Impact
Through the crisis intervention and psychologically intensive work with the leader, she moved from command and control to becoming an inspirational and empowering leader who could build strong followership. The leader enlisted some of her trusted advisors on the leadership team to “call her out” when they saw old behaviors emerging. This broke through their negative patterns and increased their sense of inclusion, cultivating greater team loyalty, ownership, accountability, and productivity.