Project examples

Below you will find an excerpt
of our past projects:


Leadership training

We designed a leadership training for newly appointed executives for a large charitable organisation. One of the managers’ main tasks was to reflect on the individual leadership role and leadership actions, and to enhance these in a targeted way.

Therefore, as a first step, the newly appointed executives carried out a self-assessment of the leadership styles applied by them by means of XLNC_s. In the analysis of the results, they learned about the model of the six leadership styles, and how it helps evaluate their own leadership behaviour. In the second step, the perspective of the managers was compared to the external assessment conducted by their employees in order to identify the differences in the managers’ self-image and the image of others.

The results of the self-assessment and external assessment clearly showed, which leadership styles are preferably used and if these styles are perceived as appropriate to the situation by the employees. This analysis helped determine individual and target-oriented development activities that will broaden the managers’ repertoire of active leadership styles.


Team development

The division manager of a major German car manufacturer carried out a multi-day team development activity with the objective of reflecting on the performance orientation and commitment of his team as well as his influence on it. The manager had been looking for a ›lean‹ survey tool to reflect the status quo.

As a basis for a customised and highly demand-oriented team development, an anonymous online assessment was scheduled previous to the team event to assess the initial situation. Here, XLNC_c and XLNC_s were used as online survey tools.

Already in advance to the team workshop, the survey provided first valuable approaches to the topic of ›high performance‹. This allowed to effectively start a constructive discourse between the division manager’s standards and the reality perceived by the team with regard to the underlying environmental conditions which had been considered by the team as critical to success.


Development of the corporate culture

This project revolves around the development of a modern and future-oriented leadership and corporate culture in order to support or even force the fulfillment of the goals of a major medium-sized company.

The first step was to use XLNC as a diagnostic tool to assess the corporate culture through the XLNC climate dimensions and the correlating leadership styles. Concluding this process, we carried out evaluation interviews with the individual managers as well as various workshops with the feedback providers.

On this basis, a future-conference was held, where approx. 240 participants passed through 10 experiential spaces and collectively worked out a variety of cultural development measures. After a year of intense development of all employees and various structural and procedural changes, the XLNC diagnostics went into action again to assess the developed corporate culture and its positive influences on the corporate success and the achievement of the strategic goals as well as to generate further approaches regarding the cultural development.

In this case, XLNC set sustainable impulses and supported a development towards an agile, innovative and future-oriented corporate culture.

Development of a leadership culture

A medium-sized globally active hidden champion has an impressive success story to report in recent years, although combined with explosive growth and the associated natural pain of growth, especially in the area of leadership development. The managers focus on the operative business to the extent that seems necessary to them. And the fast-growing team is not receiving enough targeted leadership work. This creates its own dynamics, which are unhealthy in many aspects. Fluctuation is on the rise despite promising business development.

In order to sensitize managers to the necessary focus on ›people leadership‹ and to make them aware of the relevance of leadership as a critical success factor, it was first necessary to ascertain the current state of leadership work. How (i.e. with which styles and typical leadership behaviour) is leadership conducted and which effect does it have on the climate (i.e. how performance motivating, confidence building, cohesion promoting is leadership)? For this purpose, a Leadership Excellence Initiative was started, which found its diagnostic starting point with XLNC_s and XLNC_c.

As a result, by using the two XLNC tools, a starting point was found for a specific package of measures to strengthen the focus of activities on leadership work and the targeted development of necessary methodological competence for the ongoing growth phase.


Development program for top managers of a financial service provider

In a multi-modular development program for the executives of the first two management levels of a financial service provider, the task was to make visible the strengths and improvement points in the culture of the teams and divisions and to further develop them.

By using XLNC_c, the perception of the team regarding the ›perceived‹ climate could be made visible both in the actual and in the target state. Based on the results of XLNC_s, it was worked out to which extent the managers' leadership behaviour and their applied leadership styles were influencing the team climate.

Based on the individual evaluation interviews and team workshops, specific measures for improving the team climate could be derived both for the individual teams and for the entire organisation and specifically promoted within the framework of the leadership development program.

Executive Coaching

In executive coaching, the coach's work initially lives from what the client reports about himself and his environment – plus his own perception. Statements on the actual behaviour experienced by the client's environment are usually not available. Nevertheless, leadership topics should be worked on effectively.

In order to obtain valuable additional information as a kind of ›user experience‹ of the employees ›affected‹ by the leadership work, XLNC offers a diagnostic reflection of the experienced leadership behaviour and its impact on the climate in the respective organisational unit of the client.

The coaching process is complemented by a relevant external assessment of the Direct Reports, which enables effective work on the client's issues. The targeted self-image/external image comparison allows the client and the coach to deal with possible deviations between the client's intended leadership behaviour and that experienced by their employees.


Leadership quality in a highly complex matrix organization

The management team of a large international capital goods group asked us to review and improve its leadership quality in a highly complex matrix organization in order to sustain the excellent sales and earnings development.

By using XLNC diagnostics, the present leadership styles of all members of management were captured and the resulting climate dimensions were determined. In the XLNC evaluation interviews between an external coach and the management members, success factors were identified as well as individual optimisation potentials in the daily use of leadership styles. The intense discussion of the results with the feedback providers from the second management level allowed to operationalise the findings and thus ensure an actual optimisation of leadership quality.

The further individual optimization of the management styles used, the resulting corporate climate and the sustained success of the company figures have prompted the management to optimize the second and possibly third management levels with the instruments of XLNC diagnostics.