Project Ascend

A large, multi-division organization engaged us to design a high-potential leadership development program that would strengthen its executive succession planning and prepare future leaders for broader enterprise-level responsibilities.

The client had more than 20,000 employees across multiple business units and a leadership structure that had grown increasingly complex as the organization expanded. While the company had talented leaders across the business, succession planning was inconsistent. Some executive roles had strong internal bench strength, while others depended heavily on a small number of known successors or external hiring.

Leadership recognized that future growth required a more intentional approach. The organization needed to identify high-potential leaders earlier, develop them against future executive requirements, and create a clearer path from senior management into enterprise leadership. The goal was not simply to create a leadership training program. The client wanted a disciplined development system that could improve executive readiness, reduce succession risk, and help retain top talent.

We acted as a leadership development and succession strategy partner, helping the client design a high-potential program connected directly to executive pipeline needs.

Our work focused on five key areas:

1. Defining what high potential meant for the organization’s future strategy

2. Creating a selection and nomination framework for high-potential leaders

3. Integrating DiSC to strengthen leadership self-awareness, communication, influence, and adaptability

4. Designing a development experience that prepared leaders for enterprise-level complexity

5. Connecting individual development plans to executive succession priorities and measurable readiness outcomes

Because the program was tied to executive succession, our role required balancing rigor with credibility. The process needed to feel fair, strategic, and practical for leaders, while giving executives better visibility into the strength of the future leadership bench.

We began by aligning with executive stakeholders, HR leaders, and business unit sponsors to understand the organization’s strategic priorities, leadership gaps, critical roles, and succession planning pain points.

From there, we defined the leadership capabilities required for future executive success. These included enterprise thinking, strategic decision-making, change leadership, cross-functional influence, financial judgment, people leadership, resilience, and the ability to lead through ambiguity.

We then designed a high-potential identification process that combined business leader input, performance history, potential indicators, readiness signals, and development needs. The goal was to move beyond informal sponsorship or visibility-based selection and create a more consistent framework for identifying leaders with the ability, aspiration, and organizational need alignment required for larger roles.

DiSC was incorporated as a practical development tool within the program, not as a standalone exercise. Participants used DiSC to better understand their leadership tendencies, communication preferences, decision-making patterns, stress behaviors, and potential blind spots. The framework gave leaders a shared language for improving influence, collaboration, conflict navigation, and adaptability across different teams and executive stakeholders.

The development program was built as a multi-month experience combining executive sponsorship, cohort-based learning, DiSC-informed leadership workshops, strategic business projects, leadership assessments, peer learning, targeted coaching, and individualized development planning. Each element was designed to help participants build the capabilities required for future executive roles, not just perform better in their current jobs.

Our work found that the organization had strong leadership talent, but lacked a consistent system for converting that talent into executive readiness.

Succession conversations were happening, but the criteria for readiness varied by business unit. Some leaders were evaluated based on performance in their current role, while others were assessed on perceived potential, visibility, or personal sponsorship. This created uneven development opportunities and made it difficult for executives to compare talent across the enterprise.

We also found that many high-potential leaders had deep functional strength but needed more exposure to enterprise-level complexity. They were strong operators, but had fewer opportunities to practice cross-functional decision-making, influence senior stakeholders, lead through ambiguity, or think beyond their immediate business area.

DiSC also revealed a development opportunity around adaptability. Many leaders were effective within familiar teams and communication norms, but needed stronger tools for adapting their style with different stakeholders, especially in high-pressure, cross-functional, or executive-facing situations.

Finally, the organization needed better data. Leaders wanted a clearer view of succession depth, readiness timelines, development progress, behavioral strengths, and risk areas for critical executive roles.

We recommended a high-potential leadership program built around executive readiness, not generic leadership development.

This included creating clear nomination criteria, standardizing selection conversations, and linking the program directly to succession planning priorities. We also recommended using a shared leadership capability model so the organization could evaluate potential and readiness more consistently across functions.

DiSC was recommended as a core component of the development experience because it helped leaders translate self-awareness into practical behavior change. We advised using DiSC insights to support coaching conversations, peer learning, executive communication practice, conflict management, and individualized development plans.

For the broader development experience, we recommended a cohort-based program that blended learning with real business application. Participants would work on strategic projects tied to enterprise priorities, receive executive exposure, engage in coaching, and build individualized development plans aligned to future role requirements.

We also advised the client to integrate the program into the annual talent review process. This ensured that high-potential development, succession planning, retention strategy, and executive workforce planning were connected rather than managed as separate HR activities.

Finally, we recommended a measurement framework that tracked leadership readiness, succession coverage, participant retention, internal mobility, promotion velocity, DiSC-informed development progress, and executive sponsor feedback.

By the end of the engagement, the client had a high-potential leadership program that gave executives a more disciplined way to identify, develop, and retain future leaders.

The organization moved from fragmented succession conversations to a more transparent and structured leadership pipeline. Executives gained better visibility into where the company had strong bench strength, where future risk existed, and which leaders needed targeted development to prepare for broader roles.

Participants gained a clearer understanding of what executive readiness required and how to build the capabilities needed for larger enterprise responsibilities. Through DiSC, they also gained deeper awareness of how their leadership style affected communication, influence, collaboration, and decision-making. This helped make the program more personal, practical, and immediately applicable.

HR gained a repeatable program model that could be scaled across cohorts while staying connected to business strategy.

What began as a need for leadership development became a stronger succession planning engine. The client left with a practical system for turning high-potential talent into a more visible, prepared, and strategically aligned executive pipeline.

The program helped the client improve succession visibility, strengthen leadership readiness, and create a more measurable path for advancing high-potential leaders.

Within the first program cycle, the client increased documented succession coverage for critical executive roles by 24 percent and created individualized development plans for 100 percent of program participants. Executive sponsors also reported stronger confidence in the organization’s ability to identify and prepare internal leaders for future enterprise roles.

The integration of DiSC strengthened the participant experience by giving leaders a clear framework for understanding their own leadership style and adapting more effectively to others. Post-program feedback showed that 89 percent of participants felt better equipped to adapt their communication style with senior stakeholders, peers, and direct reports.

The client gained a scalable toolkit, including high-potential nomination criteria, leadership capability definitions, DiSC-informed coaching guides, cohort learning architecture, executive sponsor guidance, development planning templates, talent review integration tools, and a measurement dashboard.

Most importantly, the work gave the organization a more strategic way to protect its future leadership bench. Instead of relying on informal succession conversations or reactive external hiring, the company gained a repeatable system for developing the leaders who could shape its next stage of growth.