Leadership Development Strategy: An Evolving Approach Linked to Business Performance

Client Profile & Challenge

When Credicorp, the leading financial services institution in Peru, set its sights on expanding across Latin America, it needed a leadership strategy that was just as ambitious and robust as its business strategy.

Credicorp’s growth plan involved launching new initiatives in which teams would be going head-to-head with domestic, regional, and global players across the Americas. Managers would need to steer diverse and dispersed teams; lead through rapid, frequent change; and implement new business models, systems, and processes. Managers who had been extremely successful in the past would face an entirely new level of complexity and uncertainty as the strategy was executed.

After several experiences with outside leadership providers that missed the mark, Director of Talent Ursula Alvarez brought us in because of our proven track record, collaborative approach, and ability to teach and coach in Spanish that opened the door for an initial leadership development program with senior managers.

“That was our last shot at formal leadership development for our top leaders,” Alvarez recalls. “Either we found the right formula with CCL or we went back to traditional management education.”

Solution & Results

To create a leadership solution that would evolve along with the organization’s strategic challenges, we constructed a comprehensive training and development architecture for leaders across all levels.

Phase I: Core Leadership Development Program

We started by identifying 18 individual competencies — from gaining a strategic perspective to leading high-performing teams — critical for leaders at every level.

Our discussions were driven by central themes necessary to execute Credicorp’s business strategy, such as giving and receiving developmental feedback; creating networks of continuous learning; and fostering creativity and innovation.

Guided by these leadership competencies and central themes, we delivered a core leadership development program to the top 500 leaders across all business units in the organization. Each participant worked with an executive coach to tailor an individual developmental plan aimed at strengthening the competencies most important for their success at Credicorp.

Phase II: Leadership Solution Architecture

As “leader development” at the individual level took root with the implementation of the core leadership program, Credicorp executives sought to take a more strategic view of “leadership development” at the organizational level. So a dual developmental approach — individual competency and collective capability — became the foundation of a broad and deep leadership strategy.

Through our Leadership Solution Architecture, the concept of leadership development shifted from a stand-alone training program to ongoing learning experiences that stretch over a 12-month period and are tailored to the senior leadership team, senior managers, middle management, and up-and-coming high-potential leaders.

After 5 years, Credicorp continues to implement and evolve its leadership strategy. We are a trusted thought partner and solutions provider in the pursuit of bridging the strategy/performance gap that so often plagues organizations in the process of international expansion.