"The AHL Sustainability Leadership Development and Coaching Programme was a truly transformational experience for me – I feel my leadership capacity has grown significantly as a result, and it has definitely emboldened me to raise my leadership ambitions for our organisation, and also for the greater good of society and the planet"
Lucy Kendall, Head of Resourcing, Diversity & Inclusion - Europe
Laing O'Rourke
LOR is a leading global construction company, which had recently restated its mission and purpose as "pushing the boundaries of what's possible in service to humanity". This 12 month Sustainability Leadership Development Programme was designed and delivered to enable a first cohort of 35 high potential future leaders of the business to explore and discover what this mission meant for them. It was about clarifying their leadership legacy, purpose and intentions, and integrating this into their leadership thinking, being and acting - including the definition and leadership of 5 key sustainability innovation challenges. As part of a wider and longer running conventional leadership development programme (GUNS), this was the first sustainability leadership programme in the company.
The programme kicked off with a deep dive into purpose, followed by extended time spent in ancient woodland with a Regenerative Leadership expert, connecting with nature, learning about "living systems" theory and "biomimicry", and experimenting with some systems thinking tools. This was followed by an immersion workshop with young people of colour from disadvantaged backgrounds in East London, learning in practice how diversity can transform innovation capacity, and learning more about the impact of marginalisation of people at work and in society. The programme then moved into the innovation phase, learning and putting into practice how radical innovation and wider collaboration can unleash transformational change at scale. The conclusion was about bringing all the learning together and integrating/translating into action, including moving to implementation of the key innovation challenges.
The programme was supported with 1:1 coaching sessions throughout the programme, and a sustainability competency questionnaire, which was commissioned before and after the programme, demonstrated a significant upward shift in sustainability leadership competencies of the participants.