Case Study

King Arthur Flour

Leadership Development Builds Capacity and Enhances the Culture

In 2008, one of King Arthur’s strategic goals was to deepen
the company’s leadership capacity and to develop a succession plan, even though no one on the senior team was approaching retirement.

King Arthur Flour is a 220 year old, 100% ESOP owned company that provides the highest quality flour and baking ingredients and baking tools through internet, catalog, retail and wholesale sources. Their mission is to support and expand all aspects of baking by being the highest quality product, information, and education resource for, and inspiration to, bakers worldwide. They have more than 180 full time, year round employees most of whom are located in Norwich, Vermont.

Goals of Engagement

Develop a set of leadership competencies and identify behaviors that reflect how each competency would be demonstrated at the level of individual contributor, manager, and senior leader
Assist in the design of a process for building employees’ understanding of the competencies and the application of each to their everyday work experience
Design and facilitate a leadership development program to strengthen the leadership skills and knowledge of managers and strengthen the relationships of managers across departments
Enhance managers’ skills such that they could take on more responsibilities, freeing members of the senior team to spend more time on strategic issues
Work with the senior team to develop a succession planning process for critical senior-level positions

Results

A clearly articulated and widely understood set of leadership competencies and behaviors that are becoming part of the performance feedback process
Built much stronger relationships among managers across departments
Managers that are ‘doing’ less and leading more, using their resources more effectively
Changes in internal processes such as better planned and more productive meetings
Improved communication between the senior team and the managers
Put in place a succession process for all critical senior positions
Organization Type
Employee-Owned, Food Service
Number of Employees
180
Client Since
2006