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The Leadership Opportunity

When John Ruane became The GIANT Company’s president, he took an opportunity to reshape the organization and the leadership team in a way that would drive a higher level of sustained performance. Leading a regional grocer with more than 35,000 team members in 194 stores, John saw the opportunity to better serve the ever-changing needs of the company’s customers.

He wanted to be deliberate, not just about the strategic direction, but about the way everyone worked together in the company.

Under John’s leadership, he worked to align the team around a shared vision and galvanize the team to create a winning culture that would inspire people and deliver exceptional results. He also took the opportunity to refine his own leadership approach: setting explicit expectations, coaching direct reports more effectively, and finding the right balance between kindness and high performance. That is when he reached out to me, an individual and team executive coach, to partner with him.

A Coaching Partnership

From our first conversations, it was clear to me that John was not looking for quick fixes or generic leadership tips. He wanted an intentional process starting with his own leadership and extending to his leadership team.

What it would take to build a group that could anticipate change, navigate healthy tension and consistently deliver value?

We discussed what it would take to build a group that could anticipate change, navigate healthy tension, and consistently deliver value. By the time the new team met for the first time in December 2024, the foundation was set. In January, we launched the team coaching engagement.

Why Team Coaching Matters

In many organizations, newly formed leadership teams focus on immediate operational priorities and assume that effectiveness will “emerge” over time. The reality is often the opposite: unexamined dynamics and unclear expectations calcify into habits that limit the team’s potential.

John’s and my view was simple: if he could invest in how this team worked together from the outset, it would dramatically accelerate the team’s performance. Team coaching offers a way to do exactly that. It is a comprehensive, long-term partnership with the entire team, designed to maximize collective talent and resources in service of the organization’s most important work.

Team coaching is not a one-size-fits-all workshop or a one-off retreat. Each engagement is tailored to the team’s specific composition, context, and stage of development, and it evolves with the team’s needs.

The Coaching Model

I introduced a dynamic, interactive model that iterates through four phases:

1. Discover - Establish the scope, builds trust, and understands the team’s history, strengths, and challenges.

2. Design - Create a tailored approach based on the team’s unique goals, needs, and context.

3. Deliver - Facilitate high-impact, integrated experiences such as off-sites, team coaching sessions, and live-action coaching during meetings.

4. Review - Assess progress, capture learning, and define next steps to sustain gains beyond the formal engagement.

From the start, we grounded the work in three core principles for high-performing teams.

Three Principles That Guided the Work

Three principles guided the work from day one. The first was to see the team as a system, a social network embedded in a larger organizational context, not just a collection of individual performers. The second was to apply a deep understanding of team dynamics, and the third was to build sustainable change, developing the capacity for team learning, adaptability, and resilience so the work would endure beyond the coaching engagement.

1. See the Team as a System

High-performing teams are more than the sum of their individual members; they operate as a dynamic, interconnected system. Seeing the team this way changes the coaching focus: instead of only developing individuals, the team works to strengthen the collective.

I helped the team clarify its purpose: a consequential, challenging, and clear reason for existing as a leadership team. This was not just about echoing the company’s mission; it was about defining the unique role this leadership team plays in integrating strategy, aligning functions, and driving results across the enterprise. Without this clarity, leadership teams tend to drift between high-level strategy and operational minutiae, often diluting their value. The team also concentrated on ensuring strategic alignment to establish one coherent flow across the company’s strategic architecture. Doing so clarifies and supports the implementation of strategic imperatives.

See the team as a system, a social network embedded in a larger organizational context, not just a collection of individual performers.

The leadership team worked on enhancing interdependencies the ways in which leaders rely on each other outside of formal meetings. The aim was to increase “strategic leader interfaces,” or deliberate cross-functional touchpoints that move the business forward. This involved having tough conversations about working relationships, turf issues and learning new perspectives on operating beyond one’s individual function.

Finally, the team built collective accountability, shifting mindsets from “my department’s success” to “our collective success.” This included encouraging candid feedback, sharing resources, and taking joint responsibility for outcomes, even when decisions didn’t favour one’s own area.

2. Understand Team Dynamics and Provide Advanced Facilitation

Working with a team is far more complex than working with an individual. There are multiple overlapping relationships across the team, the leader, and with the team coach.

The coach has to pay attention to underlying patterns of behaviour and unspoken norms: Who speaks most? Whose ideas get traction? Where does conflict arise, and how is it handled? The coach also has to watch the flow of the conversation and what this means for unaddressed tension points in team decision-making.

In team coaching, I apply a flexible approach grounded in the present moment. Powerful questions direct a team to focus on what is occurring in the process vs. the content of the discussion.

One example came during a team activity where the team was candidly identifying how issues were discussed or when topics were avoided. I looked to help the team stay focused on the sticking point until it was fully faced and resolved.

Throughout the team coaching engagement, a core focus was on building psychological safety, the belief that it is safe to take risks, dare to voice dissent, and admit mistakes. This does not emerge by accident. It is fostered when leaders model vulnerability and curiosity, and when the team codifies clear norms for constructive challenge.

3. Build Sustainable Change

The ultimate measure of success is what happens after the coach leaves. Sustainable change means the team continues to learn, adapt, and perform without external facilitation.

The team coaching focused on team learning reflecting on how the group functions, experimenting with new approaches, and institutionalizing effective practices. Adaptability was reinforced, helping the team shift between operational detail and strategic perspective as needed. Ultimately, team coaching helped the leaders to develop resilience: the capacity to navigate setbacks without losing alignment or momentum.

The ultimate goal was to build the muscle for self-correction. This way, even when inevitable changes occur in strategy, market conditions, or team composition, the group would maintain high performance.

The coach has to pay attention to underlying patterns of behaviour and unspoken norms.

From Principles to Practice

Throughout the team coaching engagement, John and I stayed in close, regular contact. John offered ongoing guidance on the overall flow, pacing, and focus of the sessions, while I shared observations from the team’s progress with him. This ongoing exchange enabled us to align perspectives, refine the approach as the engagement unfolded, and ensure that the coaching process effectively supported the team’s development and long-term growth.

Interviews and Assessments

The Discovery phase began with me interviewing every executive team member. Each took the CDR 3D Leadership Assessment, by CDR Companies, which produced three reports on character, risk areas, and drivers. Each team member received an individual debrief, linking insights to both their personal growth and team contributions.

The team also took the Executive Team Accelerator assessment by Insightful Edge to provide an objective read on the team’s strengths and opportunities. This dual lens individual and collective created a shared fact base for the work.

I also observed several live-action leadership team meetings to better understand the communication flow and relationships among the team members.

First Offsite: Foundations and Ways of Working

At the first offsite, in January, the team shared personal histories, explored their assessment results, and discussed perceptions of the team’s strengths and challenges. Together, the team identified initial team goals and developed Ways of Working protocols for how the team would interact, make decisions, and address conflict.

Second Offsite: Purpose, Strengths, and Feedback

The second offsite, in February, went deeper, exploring the team’s strengths, ideal legacy, and interdependencies. This led to the development of the leadership team’s purpose statement:

The leadership team provides a clear vision, strategic direction, and actionable goals while creating a culture that embraces our values, so that we sustain a growth-oriented business model that will endure for our team members, our customers, and our shareholders.

The team also engaged in a candid feedback exercise called “Spotlight Feedback,” where each member provided feedback about every other member using targeted prompts (e.g., “When you do, my energy decreases”; “A belief I think is limiting you is” The session was both challenging and energizing, building trust and creating new openness among members.

Sustainable change means the team continues to learn, adapt, and perform without external facilitation.

Virtual Session: Tackling Turf and Perspective Challenges

Next, a virtual meeting team to name barriers to collaboration and identify ways they may unintentionally silo themselves. Insights from this session directly informed adjustments to leadership interactions and priorities.

Third Offsite: Strategy and Culture Alignment

In April, a two-day offsite was convened. Day one focused on discussion on deepening understanding, sharing personal leadership challenges, and aligning on company strategy and culture change goals. Day two brought in the extended leadership team to co-develop the culture change plan and refine enterprise-level decision-making.

Virtual Session: Further Refining Strategy and Culture Change Initiative

This half-day session in May brought together the extended leadership team to further refine the organization’s strategic direction and advance the ongoing culture change initiative. In addition to clarifying the overarching priorities, the session emphasized translating strategy into action by adding greater tactical detail around implementation. The discussion enabled the team to align on key milestones, identify critical enablers and potential barriers, and establish clearer ownership for moving initiatives forward.

Fourth Offsite: Raising the Bar on Candor and Accountability

In July, the leadership team participated in a three-day offsite designed to elevate their collective performance and solidify the team’s growth trajectory. The session began by revisiting the February “Spotlight” feedback exercise with the team. Members reflected on the feedback they had received earlier, provided updates, identified new development goals, and discussed mechanisms for holding one another accountable for progress. These conversations included a deep exploration of how to further strengthen candour and curiosity within the team. In a concurrent meeting, extended leadership team members focused on linking their personal leadership development to enterprise-level goals and refining the company’s strategic architecture to advance the organization’s strategic priorities.

On the second day, the extended leadership team joined the offsite. Together, they applied their collective energy toward addressing turnover challenges and shaping a culture of ownership as a driver of growth. The offsite concluded with Day 3, when leaders presented strategies and tactical plans to accelerate progress on the strategic goals.

Upcoming Fifth Offsite: Final Review, Taking Stock, and Looking Ahead

This final review meeting will begin with a retrospective. Each team member will reflect on their individual leadership growth since the start of the engagement, identifying specific behaviours they had adopted, habits they had shifted, and moments where they had led differently because of the team’s work together. These reflections will be anchored not just in self-perception, but also in the feedback they have received from peers throughout the process.

From there, we will revisit the team’s Ways of Working and purpose statement. Members will assess how consistently these agreements are being honored in day-to-day operations. This exercise will reveal both areas of strong alignment, such as improved cross-functional communication, and places where drift is occurring, often under the pressure of urgent operational demands.

We will then review the data from an Executive Team Accelerator reassessment. The side-by-side comparison to the baseline results from December will provide an objective view of progress.

One of the most critical parts of the review will be mapping out how the team would own its development going forward. Together, we will identify a set of recurring practices to keep the momentum alive, such as quarterly retrospectives and annual extended offsites.

By putting these structures in place, the team will signal that development was not a “project” with an end date, but an ongoing discipline woven into the fabric of leadership at The GIANT Company.

Turning Points

Several moments marked clear shifts in the team’s trajectory. One came when the group recognized that the regularly scheduled extended leadership team meeting was redundant and unnecessary. By streamlining leadership meetings and establishing clearer channels for cascading strategic communication, they improved both the speed and clarity of messaging across the leadership chain.

Tensions arose over which department should own a functional area, with one leader reluctant to let it go. In the past, such conflicts might have lingered unresolved. This time, however, the team paused, faced the discomfort, and pushed for accountability, choosing the decision that best served the broader organization rather than a single department.

Such conflicts might have lingered unresolved. This time, however, the team paused, faced the discomfort, and pushed for accountability.

Impact

The qualitative shifts within the team are already evident based on member acknowledgement of increased trust, more direct communication, better alignment, and greater clarity and agreement about the strategic direction for the company. Extended leadership team members report improved cross-communication. Team interactions demonstrate strong camaraderie in the room, and members are taking a whole organization perspective. Preliminary team assessment shows a positive impact on team culture and an openness to innovation and change.

Across the greater company, interviews and engagement survey changes since John assumed the permanent role and engaged in individual and team coaching show increases in participation, seeing leaders acting as one team, and better communication across teams. During that time, the financial data showed improved trends in sales, market share, and volume.

Reflections on the Journey

The team has navigated candid conversations, made bold personnel moves, and built a foundation of trust that allows them to challenge each other constructively. They have clarified their purpose, aligned on strategy, started a culture change effort, and created systems to sustain their progress.

This work has reaffirmed what research and practice both make clear: high-performing leadership teams don’t happen by accident. Without deliberate attention to purpose, relationships, and the structures that sustain them, even the most talented groups will fall short of their potential. With intention, discipline, and a willingness to embrace discomfort, a team can transform not only its own performance, but the performance of the entire organization it leads.

By investing in its own effectiveness, the leadership team of The GIANT Company has not only elevated its ability to collaborate and enhanced its ability to make enterprise-level decisions has also set a new cultural tone for the entire organization. The lessons are clear: when leaders commit to disciplined reflection, candid dialogue, and shared accountability, they create the conditions for growth that endures. For The GIANT Company, this is more than a leadership initiative it is a foundation for long-term success in serving its customers, empowering its people, and sustaining its business well into the future.