Global consulting firm Sionic has called on financial services to ‘radically accelerate a different style of inspirational leadership’ in the sector.
Peter Stone, the firm’s managing partner and one of financial services’ leading experts in organisation transformation and leadership development, has today (11th Feb) issued a powerful call to arms.
‘It’s time to stand the leadership model on its head,’ he said.
‘We are being presented with a massive opportunity to radically accelerate this change so that anyone who is responsible for people can bring a greater and healthier balance to the lives of their teams whilst unlocking motivation and discretionary effort. Why would we ever want to go back to the old normal; why wouldn’t we take ownership and create a new, better normal?’
The call comes as Sionic launches a brand new series of ‘open market’ development programmes, focused on building leadership behaviours, and unlocking the value of experts and specialists. The series aims to equip anyone who is responsible for people in financial services with the skills to inspire, motivate and sustain performance levels in a new pandemic-shaped world.
Sionic is the leading specialist provider of leadership and talent development programmes in financial services. The firm has a 25+ year global track record of developing staff across the world’s major banks and financial institutions.
Sionic's new programmes are based on a six-month study of the correlation between leadership behaviour and high performing people, which the firm's specialist Learning & Development team conducted as Covid took hold. This research has shown that remote and digital working can energise, rather than demoralise, staff working in financial services – but only if leadership adopts a new mindset and patterns of behaviour.
Stone, who leads the Learning & Development Practice said, ‘Leadership is about behaviour, not hierarchy. High performing firms are created by high performing cultures – which in turn are created by how people behave. The pandemic has shown us the power, as well as the vulnerability, of the human. Whilst financial institutions proved incredibly resourceful and resilient in pivoting to digital as the pandemic took hold, they now need to encourage a different style of leadership to permanently sustain performance.’
His colleague Deborah Challinor, who is a partner in the Learning & Development Practice, has designed a three-part virtual, real-time programme which will run on 16th and 30th March and 13th April. Challinor, a high performance specialist who works with many of the world’s largest financial firms, will also be delivering the programme.
Commenting on Sionic’s new series of programmes, Challinor said, ‘Sionic’s existing portfolio of global development programmes typically see a senior executive send a large cohort of staff onto single programme. By contrast, our new programmes are aimed at smaller groups of individuals from a range of firms and geographies who wish to invest in their own careers, either as private individuals or sponsored by their employer, to hear new thinking and translate into actions to tackle common challenges together. I’m really excited by the buzz our first taster session has already created – this is a new way of learning, a new way of working and a new way of leading as we all adapt to the new way of living.’
Photo by Riccardo Annandale on Unsplash
