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IMD honored with gold award for Excellence in Executive Education

IMD has been awarded Gold for Excellence in Executive Education in the Chief Learning Officer Learning in Practice awards.
October 2021

Susan Goldsworthy OLY, Affiliate Professor of Leadership, Communications and Organizational Change, and her team were honored for their work on the SITA 5.0 Leadership Journey.

For almost 20 years, the Learning in Practice awards have recognized learning leaders “who demonstrate excellence in the design and delivery of employee development programs through a combination of qualities such as leadership, vision, business acumen and strategic alignment”.

“We are thrilled to be given this award,” says Goldsworthy. “In the unique and changing circumstances of COVID lockdowns, it’s been a team effort to design a flexible, blended learning journey aligned with SITA’s values and leadership behaviours. We have cared, dared and shared together.”

This category is specifically for executive education providers who have delivered a targeted executive education program for a client that has delivered measurable results.

The annual awards are judged by senior practitioners, learning and development experts, Chief Learning Officer editors, and previous award winners.

The program is part of IMD’s custom offering, in which organizations co-create learning journeys for their talent development. Goldsworthy and her team were honored for their work with SITA’s Top 200 executives in this program that runs from 2019 to 2022 across six cohorts.

“We worked closely with IMD to design a program that was built on solid foundations and that could be easily translated into day-to-day practice in the business context,” said Derek Smith, Global Head of Learning at SITA.

Aiming to accelerate the organization’s transformation and culture change, the programs three core objectives are:

  • In an ever-changing world, develop adaptability, resilience and the ability to apply SITA leadership practices whilst creating a sense of psychological safety
  • Increase self-awareness of our leaders, developing your authenticity and deploying your strengths through your teams
  • Return leaders to our business who have a consistent leadership approach, applying common techniques and displaying a collective shift in your leadership mindset

“I wanted the senior leaders to really live the values through their behaviors in order to fully transform the culture,” SITA CEO Barbara Dalibard explains. “The key for me was to ensure that every leader who attended the program would become more self-aware. The idea was that by learning about themselves, they could have a better impact. The whole Excom decided to be part of the program.”

Co-author of award-winning book, Care to Dare, Professor Susan Goldsworthy said, “The program is designed around the concept of secure base leadership to build psychological safety and resilience, co-creating the conditions where curiosity, creativity and innovation can flourish. People can then expand into their potential by playing to thrive together.”

Following the program, 90% of participants reported a high impact at both the individual and organizational level, trust in leadership scores increased significantly on the employee engagement survey and, for the first time, SITA was included in the Forbes 2020 World’s best employers.