The shift away from internal combustion engines and towards electric vehicles has been a huge challenge for the entire automotive industry. At the same time, the supply chain challenges created by the pandemic and global events continue to pressure companies to be more innovative and efficient as technology and consumer sentiment don’t always match up.
General Motors has led automotive manufacturers in this transition and understands that it must continue to innovate and evolve as a provider of transportation solutions and a global employer. One prime method to ensure that it continues to move forward is by hiring and developing leaders who can create the vision and inspire their teams to execute it effectively.
With a recent voluntary rightsizing of the organization, some GM leaders were promoted into larger roles, and others were asked to lead more diverse teams with unique business problems to solve. These leaders were typically highly skilled technicians in their areas of expertise (e.g., product, engineering, or finance) but often lacked the skills to assess and build effective teams or adequately lead and empower them to be their best. Old behaviors had to be unlearned, and new ones built in their place.
The Global Talent Center of Excellence (COE; a function of Human Resources) responded by providing a development framework for these leaders, which included executive coaching. The COE partnered with GM’s HR Business Partners and their preferred coaching providers, like Connect the Dots, to offer rapid and targeted development through coaching.
Connect the Dots’ on-target leadership coaching model was a perfect fit for GM leaders and their competency building. Beginning with assessments and interviews, the leaders quickly got a sense of how they were perceived in the organization by their teams, their manager, and their stakeholders; they got insights into their own personalities and leadership styles. Next, building on both their own development goals and the organization’s goals, coaches worked with leaders to craft specific desired outcomes for the coaching work and a plan to achieve them.
Through bi-monthly coaching meetings and intake, mid-point, and wrap-up conversations with managers and HR partners, GM leaders could clearly outline their strengths, opportunities, and challenges, and practice new behaviors in a safe, controlled environment.
Key areas of development included:
These represented a few of the most common themes for coaching goals, and many were unique to a leader and specific role. The power of executive coaching is that it can meet each leader where they are and build a custom development experience to maximize the results.
From both the quantitative and qualitative data collected, the GM leaders who engaged in on-target leadership coaching got the results they expected and more.
“He has been transformed!” was one statement from an HR Director about one of the coachees after his engagement ended. Another coachee stated, “I knew I needed to do things differently, and you provided the frameworks so I could actually do them with purpose.”
Connect the Dots uncovered that leadership development objectives improved by more than 40% during a 6-month engagement. Other indicators that positively impacted a leader’s results were increased self-awareness and a higher engagement level of the manager in the coaching process.
The big-picture statistics continue to support the business case for leadership coaching, as 86% of companies feel that they recouped value greater than the investment made in coaching. (Harvard Medical School)
GM now has more leaders who are ready to take the organization into the next chapter with better leadership skills and tools to help them navigate an increasingly complex business environment.
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