Assessing Leadership Readiness at Scale in an Indian Public Sector Power Utility

Assessing Leadership

Readiness at Scale in an Indian Public Sector Power Utility

One of India's largest public sector power utilities needed a defensible view of leadership readiness across its senior management cadre not a training judgement, but an evidence base that succession and development decisions could rest on.

The organisation already had an established internal competency framework. What it needed was a way to assess against that framework, at volume, without the ratings becoming a matter of individual assessor opinion. So, they partnered with us.

The Engagement:

Over a window of approximately two months, around 300 senior managers completed a full assessment and development centre. The cohort was run in batches of 15, each batch taking roughly a day and a half a first day of individual exercises, a second of group assessment and development planning. Approximately 20 batches were required to cover the cohort. Five assessors were assigned to each batch, drawn from a standing panel of nine to ten, so that a full complement was available on every scheduled date.

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Each participant was assessed against 10 competencies drawn from the organisation's own framework, using a battery of 6 exercises and two psychometric instruments: a 45-minute behavioural event interview, a written case study, an in-basket simulation, individual role plays with an assessor playing the counterpart, and a group activity set in a board-meeting scenario.

Psychometric instruments were administered ahead of the centre. The five assessors worked from five parallel assessment rooms against a scheduling matrix that mapped every assessor to every assessee and protected the preparation time each exercise required.

60 minutes before the case study and the in-basket, 30 minutes before each role play. On the second morning, each batch of 15 split into groups of eight and seven for two simultaneous group activities, observed by three assessors and two respectively.

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No rating was finalised by a single assessor. Because each competency was observed through more than one exercise, and each exercise by a different assessor, the full panel convened after the group activity to calibrate competency by competency, comparing what each had observed and agreeing a single rating. The calibrated profile identified each participant's three strongest competencies and, from the three weakest, at least two development priorities. The individual development plan was then written by the assessor who had conducted that participant's behavioural event interview, drawing on every other assessor's observations, discussed directly with the participant, and shared with the organisation.

RESULTS

10 of 10

Competencies evidenced through two or more independent instruments - no rating rested on a single observation

24

Separate competency observations designed into each participant's assessment, across eight instruments

~300

Individual development plans, one per participant, each discussed with the leader before being shared with the organisation.

METHODOLOGY

Competency	Methodology
Strategic Orientation	Long-horizon thinking tested twice under analytical load, then again under group pressure.
Business Acumen	Commercial judgement evidenced in analysis, in prioritisation, and in live debate.
Interpersonal Skills	Observed only in live interaction, where it is hardest to rehearse.
Effective Communication	Tested across internal, external and group audiences — three distinct registers.
Inspiring and Leading	Past evidence from the interview checked against present behaviour in two live simulations.
Builds an Effective Team	Track record from the interview, tested twice against a team-facing simulation.
Champions Change	Stated change history checked against decisions under load and against external resistance.
Drive for Result	Delivery orientation observed in written analysis and repeatedly under time pressure.
Sound Judgement & Decision Making	The most heavily evidenced competency — four separate observations across two instruments.
Builds Organizational Capability	Past capability-building checked against how the leader develops others in a group setting.

Every rating carried a calibration trail. Every participant left with a development plan they had discussed in person. And at the close of the two-month window, the organisation held a comparable readiness picture across its entire senior management cadre — built in its own competency language, not in a vendor's.

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