How a Fortune 200 Firm Retained 96% of Its Rising Leaders with 1 Unified Leadership Framework
A Fortune 200 utility serving more than 10.7 million customers through six regulated operating companies needed one common leadership language that could serve both field supervisors and office-based managers.
In partnership with GP Strategies, the firm launched a leadership development program consisting of three role-specific leadership journeys based on self-assessment, guided practice and simulations, and peer coaching and feedback. Since its inception, the program has developed 747 leaders at three levels—73% of whom reported feeling more prepared to lead at the next level six months later.
The Challenge: 1 Enterprise, 2 Very Different Kinds of Leaders
For more than two decades, the utility’s leadership development grew organically across six regulated operating companies, each with its own programs, terminology, and cadence. Leadership stakeholders wanted to centralize that patchwork under one strategic leadership development framework so that every leader—regardless of operating company, location, and modality—was trained to a consistent standard and shared a common language of leadership.
Creating a new, unified approach to leadership development represented a major challenge, given the how different leaders’ day-to-day realities are across the enterprise. Supervisors leading represented, field-based crews operate under collective bargaining agreements that require consistent, less “situational” approaches to feedback and discipline. Managers leading office-based or remote employees have more latitude, but less contact with their direct reports. And depending on their level of responsibility (whether as new leaders, mid-level managers, or senior executives) they need to develop unique sets of skills in order to succeed.
A single, off-the-shelf program wouldn’t cut it for this diverse audience. Building a relevant, tailored framework meant analyzing past programs, understanding the unique challenges of different management scenarios, and crowdsourcing insight and expertise from stakeholders across the enterprise ecosystem.
Key Constraints
6 operating companies, 1 framework: Leadership programs needed to align consistently across six regulated companies without erasing OpCo-specific realities.
2 leadership realities: Field supervisors, bound by collective bargaining agreements, needed a different playbook than office-based managers leading remote or hybrid teams.
3 career stages, 1 language: The framework had to serve first-time leaders, aspiring senior managers, and first-time leaders-of-leaders without fragmenting into unrelated programs.
Enterprise-wide adoption: With roughly 20,000 employees across a hybrid, geographically dispersed workforce, the program needed buy-in across the business, not just the corporate learning team.
Solution: 1 Language, 3 Journeys
GP Strategies helped the client design and facilitate a leadership development solution comprising three role-specific journeys built on the same coaching model, feedback model, and change-leadership methodology, and mapped to the firm’s existing competency model.
Phase One | Grounding the Framework in the Field
Before building any content, the team worked to understand distinct leadership realities firsthand—including sending GP Strategies on a scheduled “ride-along” with field crews. Combined with an analysis of results and feedback from the utility’s prior leadership programs and input from the four collaborating working groups, this grounded the common leadership language in real operating conditions rather than theory.
Phase Two | 3 Role-Specific Journeys, 1 Common Core
The program came to life as a series of three leadership development programs aligned with the evolution of the leadership journey.
- New Leader Essentials: a 4-week journey for first-time leaders of individual contributors
- Next Level Leadership: a 12-week journey for managers aspiring to the senior manager level, anchored by a 360 Leadership Assessment
- Senior Manager Leadership Excellence: a 10-week journey for first-time executives who lead other leaders
Each program threaded the same coaching, feedback, and change-leadership models through content mapped to the firm’s competency model, which promotes courage, inclusion, adaptability, innovation, coaching, and strategic vision. They were delivered through a blend of virtual instructor-led sessions, self-insight tools (360, EQ-i, and strategic-thinking assessments), simulations, peer breakout practice, and a Leader-as-Coach model that paired up participants from different cohort levels.
Phase Three | Enterprise-Wide Rollout and Continuous Refinement
Hybrid delivery, led by a team of diverse facilitators, succeeded in reaching the utility’s geographically dispersed workforce. Rollout was made possible through manager playbooks, consistent and transparent communication, and executive sponsorship that reinforced the program’s credibility. In the months following the launch, agile adjustments led by the client’s Talent Center of Excellence and GP Strategies grew cohort sizes, fine-tuned program structure, and collected feedback on how the program prepared leaders to lead with competency and confidence.
“Exploring emotional intelligence, focusing on what motivates my teams, along with strategies for effective coaching and feedback were particularly relevant for me… It has aided in my shift to this next level of leadership, and I look forward to sharing learnings with my team to support their continued growth and development.”
– Senior Manager, Project Management
Impact: A Framework That Sticks and Scales
So far, the leadership development program has scaled to serve 747 leaders across 21 cohorts
of graduates were promoted or moved laterally within the organization, representing positive career mobility.
of surveyed participants felt “very” or “extremely” prepared to lead their new teams six months after completing the program,
of graduates are still with the organization today, showing that it is retaining leaders who move into higher scopes of responsibility using the language and tools they learned in the program.
In 2025,
the program won a Silver Brandon Hall Group HCM Excellence Award for Best Leadership Development Program, recognizing it among the year’s top leadership programs industry wide.
Beyond the numbers, the program gave the Fortune 200 firm something more durable: a single leadership language—for first-time supervisors to senior managers across six regulated operating companies—that actively promotes its policy of inclusion and fosters a more productive and resilient workforce that is better positioned to achieve the organization’s long-term objectives.
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