QUIETLY POWERFUL ORGANISATIONS
Uncover and develop hidden talent to become the leaders you need, amidst a changing workplace and an increasingly complex business environment
Old modes of management and leadership styles are falling short in the workplaces of today.
Despite significant effort, organisations are struggling to meet growing expectations around diversity and inclusion, hybrid and flexible working, mental health and well-being. In a time of talent shortage, this can lead to the unexpected loss of valuable employees and difficulty attracting the best people.
At the same time, the external business environment is more complex than ever, and leadership that relies on fast, authoritative decision-making is proving insufficient to address challenges more strategically.
What organisations now require are leaders able to listen to diverse perspectives, motivate through strong relationships, and bring teams together to make higher quality decisions.
These are the strengths of Quietly Powerful leaders.
And yet, talent identification and development programs remain skewed towards a traditional style of leader. Quiet achievers with strong leadership potential remain hidden, undervalued and unable to help boost organisational performance.
The Quietly Powerful Programs help your organisation identify and nurture the hidden talent you need to succeed in today’s environment.
By developing hidden quieter talent, you will:
- Develop inclusive leaders who could listen to and work with their teams to address changing employee expectations;
- Make meaningful progress on complex issues such as diversity and inclusion, hybrid/flexible working and mental health/wellbeing;
- Build leaders who are capable of navigating complexity and uncertainty, and who can deal with the bigger picture;
- Attract and retain potential leaders who possess competence and substance, in a market with talent shortage.
How We Help Organisations Find and Develop Hidden Talent
Is your best leadership talent hiding in plain sight? Are you effectively identifying and nurturing all future leaders in your organisation?
Quietly Powerful helps progressive organisations who wish to rethink talent and leadership. Our approach is tailored to deliver on identified priorities, and may include some or all the following:
Hidden Talent Attraction and Selection
Who might you be missing in your current leadership talent pipeline?
Your leadership frameworks and beliefs about good leadership may require updates to reflect the leadership capabilities needed to succeed amidst a changing workplace and business landscape. It may involve showcasing Quietly Powerful leaders, and reviewing leadership models, leadership selection and development approaches to ensure the best talent is identified.
Hidden Talent Development
What talent development and engagement strategies might be available for you to cultivate this hidden talent?
Your quiet achievers can succeed and lead authentically with the right support and development. Our proprietary Quietly Powerful leadership programs are designed specifically for quiet professionals (whether they are introverted or quiet for other reasons) and involve engaging managers of program participants to become more aware of their hidden talent and learn how to support them.
Hidden Talent Retention and Engagement
How can you retain your hidden talent to harness diversity in leadership?
When senior leaders demonstrate how much they utilise quiet superpowers such as calm, listening, and inclusion, they signal to the organisation that diverse styles are valued. They can also engage their quieter talent. You will get the most from your hidden talent and enhance your organisation’s performance, as more people feel they can contribute their best selves.
How The Quietly Powerful Programs Are Delivered
We work with your organisation to identify the best way to introduce concepts and develop your talent. This may include:
- Delivering keynote presentations or awareness workshops with senior leaders or more broadly within your organisation.
- Consulting with HR leaders on leadership frameworks, selection and development approaches.
- Providing 1:1 coaching to identified senior leadership talent.
- Offering learning programs for a broader audience. This may be via a Group Coaching Program specifically for your organisation, or our flagship public program, the Quietly Powerful Program.
- Offering toolkits for managers of Quietly Powerful learning program participants to support their development.
- Delivering senior leader workshops on specific skills and topics.
By working with both the hidden talent and current organisational leaders, we can help your organisation expand the definition of good leadership, become more inclusive, and support your quieter achievers to develop and thrive.
Explore how Quietly Powerful can help your organisation identify and develop its best leadership talent.
Organisational Benefits Of The Quietly Powerful Programs
Organisations benefit in many ways from the Quietly Powerful programs, including:
- Getting more value from quiet achievers, not only as doers but as excellent leaders, by harnessing their strengths and enabling them to adapt when needed.
- More diversity in leadership styles, which may also assist in achieving other diversity goals, as hidden talent is spotted and developed.
- Lifting the standard of leadership overall, by selecting competence and substance over style, and enabling all leaders to tap into their quiet leadership strengths.
- Managers of participants enhancing their inclusive leadership skills to get the most out of different styles of people.
- Greater attraction and better retention of promising leadership candidates, by promoting an environment that openly commits to diversity of thought and work styles.
- A more, engaged and psychologically safe workplace, by tapping into the inclusive and empowering tendencies of Quietly Powerful leadership approaches.
At an individual level, participants in previous programs have spoken of the following benefits:
- Greater self-awareness that enables them to use their natural styles effectively and adapt when needed.
- Building greater confidence in their own leadership potential, skills to handle their self-doubt and an increased willingness to tackle new opportunities.
- Enhanced ability to speak up in meetings, influence and have impact, manage difficult conversations, and to speak publicly.
- Achieving workplace promotions, taking on new, stretch opportunities, and receiving awards.
One client’s analysis of the program found that, when compared with quieter high achievers who haven’t yet been on this program, people who had been on the program had an increased rate of progression within the organisation, and a decreased rate of attrition.
A Quietly Powerful Case Study – Bank of New Zealand
The Bank of New Zealand (BNZ) places a strong emphasis on diversity of thought and recognises the importance of growing and promoting talent and leaders of different styles. Knowing that they had many highly capable professionals with a quieter style who were ‘slipping under the radar’, BNZ engaged Quietly Powerful to help deliver its Talent Program.
With 2 cohorts having attended the program, and another 2 cohorts underway, BNZ have analysed their program results and found that people who had participated in the program had an increased rate of progression, and a decreased rate of attrition, compared with similar high achievers who had not yet been on the program.
Not only have individual participants reported personal benefits from the program, but the fact that BNZ is investing in developing quieter talent is sending a message that BNZ values diversity and is committed to helping individuals from all walks of life to realise their own potential.
Read more about Bank Of New Zealand’s experience.
About Megumi Miki, Founder of Quietly Powerful
Megumi is a consultant on leadership and organisational culture, and an award-winning coach and author, based in Melbourne, Australia. Megumi has over 20 years of experience working within and consulting to large organisations including Accenture, ANZ Bank, Bank of New Zealand, Department of Defence, Ernst & Young, National Australia Bank and Department of Treasury as well as smaller, government, and non-profit organisations.
In addition to extensive workplace experience in organisational development, and her own personal experiences as a quieter, Japanese female consultant, Megumi has undertaken extensive research into what makes some of the most successful Quietly Powerful leaders so effective as leaders.
Megumi’s insights into ‘quieter strengths’, the dynamics of power and workplace culture are evidence based, and the strategies she proposes are as practical as they are powerful. Her individual and group coaching clients have achieved promotions, recognition they deserved and explored new opportunities with greater confidence and purpose.
As a speaker, facilitator and consultant, Megumi is known for being able to convey complex ideas through frameworks and approaches that are practical, easily understood, and applicable to modern workplaces.
Megumi’s book ‘Quietly Powerful: How your quiet nature is your hidden leadership strength’ received Best Leadership Book and Australian Career Book awards in 2020. Megumi is also the recipient of the Top Coach for 2021 award by coachfoundation.com.
Your organisation has a great opportunity to find and retain valuable talent, make genuine progress on workplace goals, and to build the broad-thinking leaders you need in this changing environment.
Please get in touch to explore how Quietly Powerful can help your organisation today.
Why should your organisation be concerned about developing its quieter talent? Find out how failing to do so can drain your organisation of its leadership potential, in the whitepaper ‘7 reasons why you may be losing your hidden talent and what it’s costing your organisation’.