The organisation is highly engineering-centric, operating in a secure, regulated, and sensitive environment, with growing domestic and export demand.
At the time of engagement, the organisation faced a major demographic shift, with an ageing workforce and a requirement to recruit and integrate a significant proportion of younger engineering talent while maintaining operational excellence, safety, and delivery performance.
Business need
- To upskill large management populations to better engage, motivate, and develop their people in the face of rapid organisational change.
- To support knowledge transfer, succession planning, and IP retention as experienced engineers exited the business.
- To attract, retain, and engage millennial and early-career talent in a competitive labour market.
- To enable leaders to meet increasing client and export demands while navigating significant changes to manufacturing operations.
- To create consistent leadership capability and behaviour across multiple management layers, aligned to organisational values and performance expectations.
- To deliver leadership development at scale, within strict security constraints, while maintaining quality, rigour, and credibility.
The brief from the client was clear:
“Upskill our management populations to engage, motivate and develop the employee base, so that we can deliver on our commitments and adapt to the ongoing changes required to maintain the success of the business.”
What was delivered
A long-term, multi-programme leadership development partnership delivered over seven years, designed to build leadership capability progressively across three management populations.Key elements included:
- 800+ managers trained across three leadership levels (Introduction, Foundation, Advanced).
- Three structured leadership programmes covering:
- Managing Self
- Managing Others
- Managing Managers
- 10+ bespoke modules, delivered in cohorts of 12–16 participants across three UK sites.
- Delivery aligned to the Drotter & Charan Leadership Pipeline, ensuring clear progression, role clarity, and accountability at each leadership passage.
- ILM Level 3 and Level 5 certification, quality-assured internally.
- Use of psychometric profiling (SDI and EQ-i 2.0), a bespoke 360 aligned to organisational values, and targeted e-learning support.
- Experiential reinforcement, including bespoke case studies and practical task-based learning in partnership with Royal Naval facilities.
- A delivery model explicitly designed to sustain behaviour change, informed by neuroscience research and the 70:20:10 learning principle, drawing on Mission Performance’s partnership with the Centre for Creative Leadership (CCL).
Outcomes
- IIP Gold accreditation retained for a second cycle, with specific commendation for Learning & Development.
- Measurable increases in positive leadership behaviours, as evidenced through the bespoke leadership 360.
- Ranked Top 15 in the Sunday Times Best Large Companies to Work For, and 1st place for Learning & Development.
- Successfully supported significant export growth while continuing to meet rising domestic demand.
- Sustained success in recruiting and retaining large volumes of high-calibre young engineers.
- Achieved a demographic shift to a younger workforce within five years, without loss of operational performance or delivery capability.
- Established a credible, scalable, and sustainable leadership pipeline, capable of supporting ongoing organisational change in a highly sensitive defence environment.
