CHALLENGE

Local government is no longer merely responsible for ‘rates, roads and rubbish.’ The sector is facing complex challenges, while delivering a broad range of services with limited resources. Employers must equip their leadership teams with the capability to respond to this complexity and meet the demands of multiple stakeholders. 

Our client is a large local government authority. It identified that leadership was key to its ability to perform to meet community needs. Davidson partnered with it to support leaders through transformational leadership initiatives and the implementation of a new leadership competency framework.

The goal was to provide senior managers with the opportunity to undertake scenario-based activities that enabled them to demonstrate leadership competency and to receive individual feedback and development. 

SOLUTION

Focus on developing leadership capability

Davidson developed a program with two components:

Experiential development centre 

Participants underwent a mix of practical and challenging exercises. These targeted core capabilities critical in promoting and preserving the client’s value-based leadership culture.

The program followed best practice principles by:

• including both individual and group-based scenario activities
• targeting each activity to assess no more than three key capabilities
• designing highly experiential and challenging real-world scenarios.

Independent observers assessed leadership abilities and effectiveness, identifying areas for development and improvement.

Debrief session

Upon completion of the Leadership Assessment Centre we invited each participant to meet with a Davidson consulting psychologist to discuss their observations and to transfer learnings.

The session provided clear feedback on their leadership competency, identified strengths, areas for improvement and suggested meaningful improvement actions to pursue. 

OUTCOMES

Alignment with leadership goals

The Executive Leadership Development Centre’s comprehensive integrated design and delivery system produced a number of outcomes aligned with the client’s goals and aspirations.

• It provided participants with clear, consistent and relevant expectations regarding leadership roles and responsibilities.
• Participants acquired new knowledge and perspectives about their own position from completing the program and debriefing their experiences. They reported a renewed sense of self-awareness as a leader.
• Participants had a better understanding of how their personal and professional development strategically impacted the council’s growth.

Executives rated their satisfaction level with the program at 93.1%. The average Net Promoter Score for participants recorded 92.8%.

As a result of attending the Executive Leadership Development Centre, many participants developed a behaviour change action plan. Applying their new knowledge and understanding would ultimately deliver real results and public value.

This outcome gave the client confidence that its workforce was led by people with the skills to balance competing priorities, manage change and develop new approaches to delivering high quality and valued services.