Ashridge to share High Performing Team Leadership lessons at the region’s largest HR Summit

Ashridge Executive Education will present their in-depth research about leadership and management at HR Summit, the region’s largest gathering of HR and business professionals. More than a decade of innovation and thought leadership has made the summit the ideal platform for the best learning, networking and inspiration. The event will take place from 14 - 16 November 2016, at Dubai International Exhibition Centre, UAE.

The presentation by Rory Hendrikz and Alex Davda from Ashridge will be based on the leadership lessons from Ashridge’s research on the Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing Team. The Volvo Ocean Race which takes place every 3 years, involves elite international sailors, in 7 teams competing for 9 months over 62,000 kilometres in a highly competitive environment. The research explored the performance and leadership dynamics of a winning team in the demanding and competitive context of around the world ocean racing. The event also bears clear comparison to the day to day business challenges of co-coordinating the efforts of diverse and talented individuals into effective teams to maximise performance within a competitive intense business environment.

Following the detailed thematic analysis of over 150 interviews over 18 months, it appeared that the winning crew displayed six prevalent features– sound stakeholder support, clear strategic and tactical purpose, high performance standards and technical expectations, collaborative and constructive interpersonal relationships, active learning and innovation, and finally, resilient and versatile leadership.

However, the Ashridge research also found a number of challenges or complexities – political coalitions and influence, different perceptions and philosophies, the role and influence of mavericks, relational tensions and group conflict, the approach and response to winning and setbacks, and finally, the vulnerability and anxiety of leading.

In summary, team leaders may wish to focus in particular on four cross cutting and interrelated themes – clarify wider group meaning and motivational purpose, identify a simple method of winning, build good relationships and finally learn and adapt through open debate and direct talk.

According to Hendrikz, “These findings have important organisational challenges for high performance teams and team leadership and we look forward to discussing these with the region’s HR practitioners.”