Building Leadership Capability to Support Growth, Succession and Scale

Some problems are good ones to have – but they are still problems to be solved!

This is the case for many growing organisations, where success often creates new challenges.

As businesses expand into new markets, increase operational complexity and evolve their leadership structures, the capabilities and practices that supported their earlier success are unlikely to be sufficient to sustain future growth.

While strategy often receives significant attention, leadership capability, succession planning and team effectiveness are equally critical enablers of long-term, sustained performance.

When a mature but growing technology business entered a new phase of international expansion, its shareholders and CEO recognised the need to better understand if its leadership capability, effectiveness and depth of talent were sufficient for the organisation's future ambitions.

That is where Rutherford HR came in.

The Challenge

A change in ownership had accelerated the organisation’s evolution from a founder-led, family-operated business into a more corporate and commercially focused enterprise. At the same time, the business strategy saw it expanding into international markets, a change that increased organisational complexity and challenged the operating model in new and significant ways.

Alongside these changes, the organisation had deliberately transitioned - guided by its latest CEO - from a traditional top-down leadership approach to one that encouraged greater individual accountability, empowerment and decision-making across the leadership team.

Several positives arising from this change were quickly apparent:

·      The formation of a capable but relatively inexperienced Senior Leadership Team (SLT)

·      Increased delegation and individual ownership of business wide accountabilities

·      Expansion into new markets and pursuing new growth opportunities

·      Greater focus on strategic planning and rigorous performance assessment of the business

Inevitably, challenges also emerged. First, the CEO and COO - both with long tenures and highly respected within the firm and its client base - had signalled their intention to leave the business within the following 12 months, having successfully navigated the change of ownership.

This created an immediate need to assess succession options and determine whether the remaining senior team had sufficient capacity and capability to drive continued business success, especially in the following areas:

·      Strategic thinking and vision

·      Commercial acumen

·      Operational execution

·      People leadership and talent development

·      Stakeholder influence and relationship management

·      Change leadership and adaptability

Second, there were emerging tensions within parts of the leadership team, driven by differing perspectives on priorities, accountability and ways of working. While not uncommon in rapidly changing organisations, these dynamics had started to limit collaboration and could not be left unaddressed with the pending leadership change.

As a result, the challenge was deeper that it would appear.

Our Approach

Recognising the strategic importance of the work, we adopted a multi-stage assessment and development process designed to evaluate both individual leadership capability and overall team effectiveness.

1. Understanding the Business Context

We began with a comprehensive review of the organisation’s strategic and operational environment.

This included analysis of:

• Strategic plans and growth objectives
• Headcount forecasts and workforce plans
• Budget assumptions
• Existing organisational structures
• Role profiles and leadership accountabilities
• Product roadmaps and investment priorities

Through a series of discussions with the CEO and key stakeholders, we explored the organisation’s future operating model, expected changes over one and three year horizons, and the leadership behaviours required to successfully execute the strategy.

2. Leadership Assessment

We conducted detailed interviews with each member of the Senior Leadership Team, including the CEO.

These discussions explored:

• Career history and leadership experience
• Key achievements and responsibilities
• Understanding of organisational strategy
• Self-identified challenges and development priorities
• Leadership aspirations and succession potential

To provide a deeper evidence base, and to expand their self-awareness, each leader completed the Hogan Leadership Suite, assessing leadership strengths, potential derailers and motivational drivers.

We also designed and administered a bespoke 360-degree feedback process aligned to the organisation’s leadership standards and future capability requirements.

This combination of qualitative and quantitative assessment provided a comprehensive view of both individual capacity, preferred working style, impact and aspirations and a collective view of the team’s alignment and potential derailers when working together.

3. Individual Development and Succession Planning

Each leader received a detailed assessment report incorporating Hogan results, 360 feedback and interview insights.

Through individual debrief and development planning sessions, we worked with leaders to:

• Expand their self-awareness of their motivational drivers, instinctive responses under pressure and the impact that had on their peers and teams
• Identify capability gaps
• Create clear and measurable development plans
• Establish practical actions for the following 12 months to increase individual contributions and embed changed behaviours and approaches

These conversations also informed broader succession planning discussions, highlighting potential future leaders, identifying critical capability risks and clarifying where external recruitment was likely to be required.

4. Executive Review and Recommendations

The engagement concluded with a detailed review with the CEO, consolidating findings across their own and their direct reports succession readiness and development plans.

Particular emphasis was given to how the CEO – in their remaining time - could work with their direct reports to ensure improved team effectiveness and support the achievement of their individual development goals and therefore support their career aspirations aligned to the business’s growth strategy.

To support further impact from the investment we engaged with the CEO to ‘coach’ them to adapt their working style in ways that reinforced and encouraged change with their direct reports.

This included:

• Tactical goal setting and monitoring
• More rigorous feedback and recognition approaches aligned to development plans
• Evolving team meeting structures and decision making style

The Result

The work delivered significantly greater clarity regarding the organisation’s leadership capability and readiness for growth.

1. Stronger Individual Leadership Capability

Leaders gained meaningful insight into their strengths, leadership style and development priorities.

Development plans were tailored to each individual and focused on practical, business-relevant outcomes.

Examples included:

• Building strategic thinking capability beyond operational execution
• Strengthening stakeholder management and influencing skills
• Small behavioural changes to ‘de-escalate’ moments of friction with peers
• Improving delegation, coaching and people leadership practices
• Agreed development plans to build new areas of ‘technical skill’ for key individuals – especially the identified COO successor

2. Improved Collaboration Across Critical Functions

The assessment process identified opportunities to strengthen collaboration across several interconnected areas of the business, particularly between Product Management, Software Development and Customer Support functions.

By clarifying expectations, decision rights and communication practices, leaders were able to address sources of friction that had developed as the business scaled.

This improved alignment enabled improved decision making and collaboration and (in turn) improved customer outcomes

3. A More Effective Leadership Team

The leadership assessment work created a shared understanding of how the team needed to operate to support future growth.

Outcomes included:

• Improved understanding of individual leadership styles
• Clearer and mutually agreed behavioural expectations
• Stronger accountability and feedback practices
• Increased trust and collaboration across the team

The team reported a significant improvement in the way that they worked together, which was most obvious in the focus, tone and decision making in their regular forums.

4. Enhanced Succession Readiness

With the planned departure of two key executives, succession planning became a critical business priority.

The insights and data we gathered through the development activity enabled shareholders and the CEO to make more informed decisions regarding future leadership appointments and organisational capability investment.

It was decided that an external CEO appointment would be necessary.  We supported the development of a detailed role and person specification that was used in hiring the new CEO.

Looking Ahead

Our work has continued in a targeted and pragmatic way with Rutherford HR effectively providing fractional HR consulting support the organisation across a range of strategic and operational initiatives, including:

• Reviewing people practices and recommending improvements across policy, capability and organisational effectiveness
• Advising the CEO and shareholders on a complex performance management matter
• Supporting emerging leaders through a challenging employee relations issue involving health-related considerations
• Activating our executive network to support CEO search and recruitment activities
• Providing ongoing and ad hoc advice on reward, performance management and leadership effectiveness

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