Leadership Development Case Study
NeuroLeadership Institute has been helping leading organizations transform their entire leadership development strategy. Watch Microsoft share its story:
“When our executives speak externally, you will hear clarity, energy and success throughout all their talks, and it’s not because we’re coaching them. It’s because it’s just working so well.”
Leaders of this Initiative
General Manager, Talent, Learning, Insights
Microsoft
Director
NeuroLeadership Institute
Microsoft’s Leadership Development Transformation
What is it like to go from overwhelming complexity to something much simpler?
Seeking to reinvigorate performance and innovation, Microsoft knew they had to dramatically simplify their outdated and complex leadership development process. The company had to go from “being a series of doers, to a series of learners”, Joe Whittinghill recounted at the 2016 NeuroLeadership Summit.
Having had “big success” transforming performance management with the help of NeuroLeadership Institute in the past, Microsoft enlisted NLI to help them completely rethink and dramatically simplify their leadership development platform. The aim was to create a leadership model informed by neuroscience, that would be simple, cohesive, sticky, and brief.
What Microsoft’s New Leadership Principles Look Like
The final product was a framework that laid out three leadership principles, which underscored the company’s vision across every level – individuals, leaders, teams, and the broader organization:
Create Clarity
- Synthesize the complex
- Define a course of action
- Ensure shared understanding
Generate Energy
- Inspire optimism, creativity, and growth
- Create an environment where everyone does their best work
- Build organizations that are stronger tomorrow than today
Deliver Success
- Drive innovation people love
- Be boundary-less in seeking solutions
- Tenaciously pursue the right outcomes
“In the end we weren’t sure if we were going to get laughed out of the room. But quite frankly, this has exploded like wildfire across the company.”
Joe Whittinghill
Learn more about NLI’s perspective on Leadership Development, and discover the underlying science that informed this strategy.
Watch Dr. David Rock go into detail in this webinar: