Building a Confident, Cohesive Management Community

The Challenge

The business is one of the UK’s most recognisable media and publishing organisations, with iconic brands reaching millions across print and digital channels. In a fast-changing media landscape, managers were leading teams through significant organisational change while balancing the demands of lean, highly skilled teams. The organisation recognised that management development needed to become a deliberate strategic priority, rather than something leaders were expected to navigate alone.

• Managers were knowledgeable and committed, but many had progressed because of functional expertise and strong individual performance rather than formal people-leadership development.
• Skills such as courageous conversations, coaching, and managing underperformance and building trust through uncertainty needed more structured support.
• Managers worked across different brands, functions and levels of experience, creating an opportunity to build a more connected management community with a shared language for leadership.
• The organisation needed managers who felt confident, equipped and supported to lead people through complexity and change.

The Results

• A five-session, in-person management development programme gave 35 managers practical tools for self-awareness, courageous conversations, coaching, resilience and high-performing teams.
• Visible senior sponsorship—from the Director of People & Culture co-delivering the opening session to a CEO fireside chat at the close—positioned management development as an organisational priority.
• Managers began applying the learning immediately through stronger one-to-ones, more open questions, active listening, coaching conversations and regular team check-ins.
• Cross-functional cohorts created a stronger peer community, helping managers share challenges, build relationships beyond their own teams and lead with greater confidence.