In 2023 APS worked with a prominent healthcare organisation to unlock hidden leadership potential —driving engagement, performance and retention.

Background:

In many healthcare and professional services contexts, teams generally expect their Leaders to have technical expertise, typically resulting from years of direct application experience, in order to be seen as credible. Such care often calls for sensitive communication with patients and being able to cope with the pressure of high demand on limited resource and tension. Morale levels and attrition are often effects of such situations which adds further pressure - challenging clinical leader’s to work on their teams in addition to their core professional calling.

As you would expect, PhD level Leaders are smart and deal with complex issues day to day – they expect evidence-based diagnostic tools and approaches that are backed up with significant research and scientific grounding. An effective development programme typically starts with helping participants become aware of what their strengths are and why they should work on any development to help gain more effective results personally, for the teams and for the organisation.

Participant previous experience indicated a disappointment with tools used, feedback suggested they were shallow, generic and technically superficial meaning participants saw little value and impact on their day to day work. Despite best intentions by HR, this didn’t help them to help their colleagues.

Our Approach

1. Assess and Reflect

Provide Hogan Assessment tools to help participants understand their reputation at work – what drives them, likely every-day behaviour in the workplace, how they react to pressure and how all this compares to other adults.

Help the HR team to acquire the knowledge of such tools to support deployment and build collective insight and buy-in re strengths and focus areas, skill development areas - both individually and collectively.

Rapid Deployment of Hogan Assessments: Delivered within four weeks of first contact. In-house certification workshops enabled HR to own and interpret the data—predicted to cut recurring assessment costs by over 50%.

2. Exposure and Experience

Ongoing expert support: APS advisors worked alongside the cohort to guide initial debriefs and continue to maximise the value they were getting from the tools. APS consulted with the organisation about the benefit of understanding collective characteristics for cohorts of leaders, and agreed with the client to provide a bespoke “Team Insights Masterclass©” synthesising individual profiles into collective leadership dynamics.

3. Skills Development & Performance Tracking

Hands-on group development: Interactive workshops to translate assessment insights into real-world peer-to-peer strategies. Focus on self-awareness, communication style and the ripple effect of senior leaders’ behaviours.

This approach provided with insights about some of the frequently identified strengths of leaders within the organisation and also emphasised the challenges that were arising as a result of some ‘over-played’ characteristics. This opened the door for collective discussions about how to drive change and have a positive impact on the culture of the organisation and placed more focus on self-development, people leadership and organisational influence.

The “Aha” Moment

During the Masterclass, leaders realised that understanding their own tendencies wasn’t just “nice to have”—it was the linchpin to building team morale and sustaining high performance. That shift from technical command to people-centred leadership sparked genuine curiosity: “What else could we achieve if we channelled this insight across the organisation?”

Tangible Outcomes

• Psychometrics become indispensable: Hogan Assessments are now the go-to tool for every leadership programme, boosting HR-led engagement by 35%.
• Leadership pipeline: Advanced Leaders, Future CEOs and Medical Directors receive certified training, executive coaching and targeted masterclasses—a closed loop from assessment to measurable growth.
• Behavioural agility unlocked: Senior leaders demonstrate heightened self-regulation, adapt their styles for diverse team needs and carve out time for strategic planning.
• Data-driven talent decisions: HR are predicted to identify emerging leaders with 60% greater accuracy, accelerating promotions and slashing time-to-fill critical roles.