Success Story: Leadership Transformation

The Department of Social Services (DSS) in  Alamance   County   NC  is a state supervised, locally administered agency of 170 employees who provide a wide range of human services to children, adults and the aged.

Like most government agencies, employees’ salaries are below those paid in the private sector, so the additional benefits provided to government employees and the ability to better balance personal and work life, are important in attracting and retaining talented employees.

The Challenge

As a result of the economic downturn of the past couple of years, government revenues from taxation were reduced and with that came the need to reduce expenditure. One of the areas considered for reduction was employee benefits.

Unfortunately, the outcome for DSS in  Alamance   County  was a significant increase in turnover. The interesting thing was that during the exit interviews, one of the main reasons given for leaving was not the reduction in benefits. The primary reasons given for what they would need to stay were: better leadership; a work environment where they could learn and grow; and a more satisfying career path.

The Director of DSS Alamance County, Susan Osborne, was very aware of the need to develop their leaders... there were too many examples of a lack of accountability among their supervisors. Susan was also aware that the department’s practice of promoting the best workers into supervisory roles without giving them the training or tools to do the job was a major contributing factor to the lack of leadership effectiveness.

The Process

Susan and her leadership team knew that it would take time to turn supervisors into leaders who would willingly be accountable for the environment they create and for developing their people. It could not be achieved as a result of a single training event. So in early 2003, twenty-six managers and supervisors embarked on Integro’s leadership development process.

There were a number key factors in Integro’s approach to leadership development that led the leadership team to decide on this process.  The process started with a measurement of the current level of leadership and management competencies of each manager and supervisor using a 360 degree approach.  This provided each person with a benchmark of how they were perceived and helped them focus their learning on their own individual needs.

The learning modules in Integro’s process were designed to be spread over a twelve to eighteen-month time frame, giving participants the time they needed to apply what they were learning back in the workplace before going back to learn more. The expectation of accountability was also a key factor. Each manager and supervisor was expected to complete specific application exercises with their direct reports and report back at the next session.

The one-on-one coaching provided to each manager and supervisor between each of the learning modules has also had a significant impact on the success of the p