Watford Football Club

CLIENT CASE STUDY

CONTACT

Gayle Clarke: Head of HR
Paul O’Brien: Commercial Director

DATE

January – August 2023

PROJECT NAME

Watford FC Leadership Development Programme

OBJECTIVES

The proactive development of the Club’s next generation of leaders who are knowledgeable, experienced, loyal and motivated
Individuals who feel valued by the Club and can progress in their career at the Club and beyond
Tangible impact on individual and team performance

PROJECT SUMMARY

We tailored a six-month leadership coaching and mentoring programme around Watford FC’s objectives that provided learning, development and support for their future leaders. The programme was designed to offer practical and tactical support for the team, and as individuals, via a series of 1:1 and group coaching sessions which focused on developing the understanding and skills required to:

Lead self
Lead and manage a team
Lead a department/organisation The programme kicked off with assigning a personal executive leadership coach to every course member, which provided them with 1:1 coaching and mentoring sessions to build their personal development plans.

The group sessions were led by sports industry leaders in modules such as:

Proactive leadership: Modifying behaviours, managing perceptions, exerting influence, implementing and managing change

The key drivers of organisations: What does success look like, goal setting, measuring success

Practical Leadership: Prioritisation, stakeholder engagement and management, embracing feedback, current state analysis

People strategy and communication skills: Building your team, harnessing diversity, how to coach your team

OUTCOMES

14 Watford FC future leaders with personalised development plans supported by a leadership coach.
Unanimously positive feedback from all individuals, both for Watford FC initiating the process, and KinseySears for the support programme.
100% delegate satisfaction with the programme, 100% found the content was relevant and useful, and 100% rated their executive coaching sessions as excellent.
Impact on individual performance. E.g Alex Cook, Marketing Manager told us he had the newfound confidence to initiate and lead a multi discipline club wide marketing and engagement project with measurable outcomes to satisfaction and bottom line.

CLIENT TESTIMONIALS

‘’The Leadership programme that was provided by KinseySears was a great success and we have seen a vast improvement in performance across all departments involved. The positive change that the course has provided has helped across the board and those that attended the course have all spoken highly of the coaches who delivered the sessions.’’

Gayle Clarke: Head of HR

‘’The leadership development and coaching I have had through KinseySears has really challenged me and taken me out of my comfort zone which is exactly what I needed. I have learnt so much about myself and how to lead and I find myself using the skills and knowledge on a daily basis. I am so much more confident about leading people and projects and it has been a huge benefit to me.’’

Frankie Marcello: Commercial Sales Manager / course attendee

‘’Watford Football Club had very specific requirements for developing their next generation of leaders to improve individual and collective performance. We designed a bespoke programme of learning, development and coaching to ensure these objectives were met, and exceeded with tangible outcomes and metrics. The Club has seen a marked improvement across all departments that has impacted, not just the cohort we worked with, but the colleagues at all levels.’’