Three days to move from the boss who decides to the manager who helps people grow

The group had set a clear course: become a benchmark in sustainable construction, innovate, digitalise its practices and break down the silos between trades, regions and countries. But a strategic plan does not reach the site on its own. It goes through the managers.

What was at stake: shifting a historically directive management culture towards management that gives meaning, empowers and develops people, in a sector that struggles to attract and retain talent.

What the internal signals showed:

• A “some think, others execute” mindset still very much present.
• Strategic direction understood at the top, much less so on the ground.
• Feedback that is rare, often confused with the annual appraisal or with criticism.
• Trades losing their appeal, and young employees looking for meaning.
• Managers from different subsidiaries and language communities who barely know each other.

The management challenge: move from command and control to empowerment and trust, without losing the high standards that the trade’s reputation is built on.

The group had defined three management challenges and six key capabilities. Lead brought this programme to the Belgian branch: adapting it to the local context, translating and facilitating it in Dutch and in French, in small groups mixing managers from different subsidiaries. Each seminar alternates short inputs, role plays and work on participants’ real cases.

Before: prepare

• Adapting the group’s materials to the branch context and to both languages.
• Putting together mixed groups, with entities and functions combined.
• Self-assessment questionnaires (preferences, leadership styles) prepared for each participant.

Day 1: give meaning

Intention: understand the changes under way and practise translating them into a concrete perspective for teams.

• A collective icebreaker that reveals, through experience, what frees up or holds back a team’s innovation.
• The trends transforming work (ecological transition, expectations of younger generations, psychological health, flexibility, AI) and what they mean as challenges for the company.
• Directive model or collaborative model: where to set the dial?
• Conveying meaning day to day: identify your own drivers and speak to people who do not work the way you do.

Day 2: lead with humility

Intention: look at the real impact of your leadership style on the working climate, and engage your team in change.

• The six factors of working climate and the six leadership styles: individual profile, group profile, ways to adjust.
• A serious game on leading change, played in teams, to experience the launch, roll-out and anchoring phases.
• Individual and collective resistance: person-by-person impact analysis and spotting allies on your own project.

Day 3: help people grow

Intention: make feedback a reflex and adopt the posture of the manager as coach.

• Building a feedback culture: what feedback is (and what it is not), a simple formula for strengths and areas for improvement, practice in pairs on real cases.
• Situational leadership: adapting your management style to each team member’s competence and motivation.
• Peer coaching with the GROW model, on each person’s action plan.

After: anchor

• Learning sheets for each capability, handed to participants.
• Proposed follow-up: co-development peer groups, a management lab, thematic workshops in person and online.
• Option: a Map & Match team session to work on how talents complement each other.

The common thread: secret observers and the DAKI

On the first morning, each participant draws a colleague’s name. For three days, they observe that person without them knowing. On the last day, they give them structured feedback in four boxes: what they would gain by stopping (Drop), starting (Adopt), keeping (Keep) and strengthening (Improve).

In parallel, everyone keeps their own DAKI, filled in at the end of each workshop. The secret observer’s feedback then sets it against a peer’s view. The exercise turns feedback theory into lived experience: you learn to give feedback based on observed facts, and to receive it.

• A personal DAKI completed over the three days, enriched by the secret observer’s view.
• An individual leadership style profile, compared with the group profile.
• An analysis of resistance and allies on a real change project of the participant’s.
• A feedback formula and six essentials, ready to use.
• An action plan worked through in GROW coaching with a peer.
• Six learning sheets, one per capability, in Dutch and in French.

The programme aims to shift management practices in support of team engagement. At the end of the three days, managers have:

• a shared reading of the changes in the sector and what they demand of management;
• a sharper awareness of the impact of their style on the working climate;
• concrete feedback and coaching practices, already tested with peers;
• an internal network across subsidiaries and language communities;
• clear personal commitments, set out in their DAKI.

The momentum created has opened discussions on follow-up for former participants and on a redesign of the programme for the next strategic plan.

• The ability to take a programme defined by a group and bring it to life locally, in Dutch and in French.
• Experiential learning: people live feedback, change and coaching before talking about them.
• In-depth knowledge of the construction sector and the realities of the site.
• Support over time, from seminar to follow-up, so that practices take root.

If your organisation wants to shift its management culture towards more meaning, feedback and empowerment, we can design or roll out a programme tailored to your reality. Let’s talk.