Dr. Candace L. Goodwin President & CEOIn an exclusive interview with Manage HR, Dr. Candace L. Goodwin, President and CEO of Organizational Leadership Partners, shares her thoughts and ideas on the new world since the onset of the pandemic, the challenges companies face in achieving an optimal organizational culture, and how effective leadership development can enable better employee engagement and performance.
According to you, what are some of the pain points that organizations face today, and what has changed in the context of the pandemic?
The most obvious challenge that organizations face today is employee mass resignation due to various reasons, including income and work-life balance. Retaining employees is vital to strengthening and maintaining organizational culture and performance. Another pain point is that managers have a tough time meeting expectations of board members while supporting and nurturing their direct employees. Employee well-being is critical. After the pandemic, employees are burning out and facing difficulties maintaining their overall performance.
Please shed some light on how Organizational Leadership Partners is uniquely positioned to address these challenges.
At Organizational Leadership Partners, we help our clients in different industries to align their goals and priorities with their culture. We work with leadership teams to cultivate a robust organizational culture necessary to achieve exceptional performance. That means employees must be engaged and aligned with the organization’s mission, vision, and values, and leaders should be trained to adhere to those values. Partnering with us, our clients succeed in fostering a culture where individuals perform their best and thrive in an optimal work environment.
Could you please elaborate on the different service offerings of Organizational Leadership Partners that lead organizations to higher levels of engagement and performance?
We implement effective strategies through our three primary lines of services to help our clients reap many benefits. We provide leadership intelligence, which is the sum of emotional and cultural intelligence. Leaders can use emotional reasoning to improve employee well-being and establish a foundation to move the organization forward. We conduct a series of workshops that help professionals develop emotional intelligence and transform their experience in the workplace.
Another prominent service is leadership development, where the company trains leaders to work as a high-performing team, conduct effective coaching conversations, and exchange feedback to drive performance. The workshops leverage frameworks developed by renowned leadership experts, Patrick Lencioni and John Maxwell, helping leaders achieve excellence. We also offer executive coaching, an inquiry-based approach to help individuals develop and sustain new perspectives and skills. The course consists of various communication assessments, including DISC and Genos International EI 360 surveys to evaluate emotional intelligence and foster personal and professional development.
Apart from that, we assist our clients in building a strategic foundation by defining and updating their mission-vision-values and competitive advantages. Creating clear goals and understanding how to operationalize them drive employee engagement and retention.
How do you track the right ingredients needed to build the relevant services?
We typically start our engagement by conducting a survey designed to understand the organization’s overall performance and how they aim to achieve their goals. Then, we consult the leadership team and strategize to impact their organizational culture positively. Once that’s done, we meet with managers and different departments to understand the existing barriers and provide solutions to improve.
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Partnering with us, our clients succeed in fostering a culture where individuals perform their best and thrive in an optimal work environment
Please share an instance where your unique capabilities helped solve clients’ challenges.
A client approached us to help them transform their leadership team and organizational culture. The firm struggled with its employee engagement and overall performance. We began by developing a leadership training program where all the leaders went through a series of workshops to hone their skills and behaviors. We also looked at the organization’s strategic priorities and developed effective plans at team and individual levels. Organizational Leadership Partners implemented a new way of performance coaching after evaluating their performance management system. Applying action plans in each department removed barriers and brought about cultural change. This helped them increase their employee engagement from 3% to 65% in three years, an exceptional result that our group of insightful leadership experts made possible.
How does Organizational Leadership Partners distinguish itself from other competitors in this space?
The main factor that sets us apart from our peers is that we don’t employ a cookie-cutter approach. We interact with leaders to understand their needs and strategize with our team to determine the aspects where clients need our assistance. We then create the best strategy and layout the timeline to go forward.
What does the future look like for Organizational Leadership Partners?
We will continue to help our clients transform their organizational culture to create opportunities for employees to do their best work and get optimal results. On a personal note, I have published a bestselling book named ‘Breaking through a Cracked Foundation’ that describes my journey and healing in life, which has inspired many to overcome difficulties and break through the cracked foundations and find a purpose for living.
