The Pathway

Visible leadership engagement emerged as the most critical success factor for effective team performance during my Doctoral research 2022 - 2024. Frontline leadership has always been central to success, but it has become even more important as the swirling winds of change represent the constant context of the energy sector.

If visible frontline leadership engagement is key, then selecting and supporting these leaders is surely a priority? Sadly the research revealed that many organisations do not prioritise this imperative, and furthermore their leadership approach is poorly understood and inconsistently applied across different places of work. There is an assumption that frontline supervisors are set up for success because they have been promoted into a leadership role, yet often they are inadequately prepared, supported, and enrolled regarding non-technical skills and human performance.

With this in mind, Exceed developed a pathway for supervisors whereby selected applicants with frontline heritage, are prepared, trained, and tested before deploying as coaches to help teams safely deliver quality work. These coaches come from a technical background and are trained in leadership skills such as communication, situational awareness, and teamwork. After serving their time in the service of others, they become frontline supervisors themselves. This pathway has recently produced 10 exceptional DSVs and it ensures that Exceed coaches are highly motivated and visibly committed to excellence.

Safe efficiency requires a culture and a system that assures a consistent approach. Leaders create the environment for effective teamwork so providing a bespoke coaching pathway to support frontline leaders, while carefully preparing new leaders for tomorrow, is what we continue to do at Exceed. Our coach selection, toolkit, and leadership training is continually refreshed based on new insights, new research, and recent frontline feedback. There are no shortcuts on the pathway, but there is a very short list of pathways that genuinely deliver quality frontline leaders.

What is Moodset? Moodset is about what you feel and sense, the atmosphere, the energy, the heart and soul of a group in a certain place. Some call it performance climate. Moodset is as important as mindset for inspiring excellence.

If you enjoyed this article, I would encourage you to check out my popular book on performance improvement; Accelerating Automatic!

Tim Wigham is Head of Performance at Exceed Energy. He is an Amazon#1 bestselling co-author of Purposeful People and a TEDx Speaker on the topic of Moodset and Team Performance.