Faced with meeting the challenge of ongoing change in the industry, international plastics manufacturers, Borealis recognised a need to prepare aspirant leaders to manage complex problems and lead the organisation with confidence.
Borealis wanted to equip their leaders with the skills needed to address change in their industry. It was also vitally important that at the heart of the programme were their core values of being a good corporate citizen.
Making a Difference was an intensive five-day leadership development experience designed to meet these two objectives.
The experiential programme included a blend of business projects, a community action project, leadership theory and in-depth feedback on participants’ emotional intelligence.
In keeping with Borealis’ core values of being a good corporate citizen, the leaders were tasked with delivering a challenging one-day community action project. Working with a local business education consortium, participants offered coaching and mentoring to young people at risk of exclusion from school, in a unique leadership development opportunity.
With leaders coming from all over Europe, there were many cultural and language differences to navigate. However, the participants had to rapidly establish a relationship of trust to provide the young people with a plan for re-entry to education or prepare them for work. The exercise provided a challenging practical summary of leadership learning, including coaching skills, listening, engaging and inspiring.
Crucially, Borealis benefited from an organisation-wide enhancement of leadership capability, coupled with a significant overall impact to the bottom line.
"To develop senior middle managers into real leaders requires a journey that takes them out of their personal comfort zone to unleash their potential. At Borealis, we are convinced that the return on this investment is contributing to our successful achievement of strategy."
Jaap de Vries, Vice President of Human Resources
