19 Oct Standardizing Leadership Skills Across Teams to Lead Employees Through Change
Spark EQ helped three Executive Directors and 11 leaders successfully lead their employees through change and adopt a shared set of leadership skills in four months.
Many organizations face this situation: a major change, leaders who aren’t yet aligned, and several sites to bring along. Here, three independently governed regional affiliates of one national nonprofit, each with its own board, leadership team, and balance sheets, all operating under a shared national model, worked through it together.
The Challenge
All three affiliates were adopting a new revenue stream to support their services. It succeeded only if leaders could guide their employees through the change and lead in new ways.
- Directors and managers were skeptical of the proposed funding changes as many preferred the old way of working.
- The change required a new mindset, new ways of working and refining leadership skills.
- Leadership practices were not consistently documented across teams, and many leaders had limited prior exposure to leadership frameworks and coaching support.
The Approach
A four-month leadership engagement, delivered through a train-the-trainer model, in which leaders learn the skills and then teach them to their teams.
- Assess each leadership team, leadership frameworks and its culture.
- Launch with an offsite for all three affiliates to build key skills and set expectations. Each affiliate defined its respective North Star values and behavior norms.
- Equip leaders with one shared Leader Toolkit of 16 practical tools, including feedback, accountability, role expectations, 1:1 meetings, coaching framework and responding to resistance to change.
- Coach executive directors, operations directors, program directors and managers.
The Outcome
Spark EQ coached 14 leaders across the three affiliates: 3 executive directors, 3 operations directors, 3 program directors, and 5 program managers. Check-ins and client confirmation showed that leaders fully adopted all 16 leadership tools, and executive directors and operations directors met monthly to learn from one another.
- Leaders in all three affiliates were better able to support their staff through the change. One affiliate had already adopted the new funding model, and its leaders were better equipped to guide staff through it.
- Each affiliate now has documented values, behavior norms, role expectations, and role success metrics.
- Leaders across all three affiliates now share one standardized approach to feedback, coaching staff, and accountability.
- Practices that lived in disparate locations are now documented, consistent across teams, and used for both day-to-day management and onboarding new managers and staff.
- Communication across affiliates improved among all three Executive Directors and three Operations Directors, who compared wins and challenges to support each other.