Allen & Overy

Background

At a time of significant change in the legal industry, Allen & Overy is determined to continue leading the market as they have done throughout their 86-year history. Over the past year alone they have faced some of the world’s leading business transactions including Anheuser-Busch Inbev’s takeover of SABMiller plc – the largest commercial loan in history at $5bn. Strengthscope is supporting Allen & Overy to deliver more inspiring and effective leaders of the future who will be more self-aware, high performing, and positive, helping A&O gain an edge in a fast-changing and competitive legal industry.

Our solution

After initially supporting A&O with individual career development for several years, Strengthscope has been working closely with A&O’s talent team to develop future leaders to become more effective people leaders by helping them be more aware of their leadership behaviour and impact – including their strengths, performance risks and how to optimize their effectiveness on a daily basis to deliver peak performance and an engaging work environment.

Through our strong partnership, we’ve helped leaders:

• Discover and optimize leadership strengths using our cloud-based Strengthscope® 360-degree profiling system to align strengths with company goals
• Tackle performance risks including limiting weaknesses, strengths in overdrive and other performance blockers getting in the way of excellence
• Identify their unique ‘leadership brand’ and how to communicate this effectively to ensure their strengths and contribution are fully understood and valued by others
• Create and progress a development plan which is focused on how to optimize their strengths and leadership behaviours across four key leadership behaviours: sharing a vision, sparking engagement, skilfully executing and sustaining progress.

Outcome

The Strengthscope® assessment, together with associated development tools and activities, have helped accelerate leaders’ learning and performance through:

• Higher levels of self-awareness and confidence to optimize strengths to achieve peak performance in leadership
• Improved understanding of how to tackle performance risks and blockers, including overdone strengths and weaker areas
• Improved agility by learning to adapt their strengths and style to fast changing situational requirements
• Inspiring more positive, inclusive and solutions-focused teams