Building Leadership Foundation at Academic Institution
How 20 managers moved from isolation to systematic leadership in 90 days
Stop Leaving Good Management to Chance
A mid-sized university faced a challenge familiar to many growing organizations: their 20 academic managers were each "figuring it out" differently. Some were seasoned professionals who'd never received formal leadership training. Others were newly promoted subject matter experts thrust into management roles without preparation.
The result? Isolation, inconsistency, and exhaustion.
We had good managers burning out, new managers flailing, and teams with no idea what good leadership even looked like.
Stop Leaving Good Management to Chance
Rather than sending managers to generic leadership training, the university implemented MMOS Phase I—a systematic approach to building consistent leadership infrastructure.
A two-day intensive bootcamp established shared leadership standards across all managers, giving everyone the same language and approach to people leadership.
A systematic coaching framework gave managers confidence to stop simply correcting behavior and start coaching for performance improvement.
Monthly structured partnerships with reflection prompts created ongoing accountability and support between managers.
Managers used real team data with planning tools, completing practical scenarios over 90 days to embed new habits in actual work situations.
Transformation in 90 Days
Leadership Area
Leadership Identity
Planning & Accountability
Feedback Conversations
Coaching Approach
Manager Confidence
Before MMOS
Undefined; varied by manager
Sporadic or reactive
Hesitant or avoided
Advice-giving or directive
Uncertain, especially new leaders
Before MMOS
Shared language using 8 Catalyst Behaviors
Plan on a Page completed with teams
Structured frameworks aligned to performance levels
Systematic coaching using CARE framework
Consistent confidence growth reported
The Challenge:
Lindsey, a newly promoted student services lead, had been struggling to address a team member's chronic deadline issues that were affecting overall team morale. Her previous approach—repeatedly telling the team member about missed deadlines—wasn't working.
The MMOS Solution:
After learning the systematic CARE coaching approach, Lindsey shifted from giving feedback to coaching performance.
Instead of just telling her about missed deadlines again, I used CARE to understand what was really happening. Through coaching questions, we discovered better systems she needed. Her performance completely turned around.
The Lasting Impact:
The cohort self-initiated a cross-functional coaching group post-program—clear evidence that the system created lasting habits, not just temporary knowledge.
Transformation in 90 Days
Ready to See MMOS at Enterprise Scale?
This foundation-building approach scales across organizations of all sizes. See how these same principles transformed leadership performance for 13,000+ managers in just 6 weeks.
Ready to Build Systematic Leadership Infrastructure?
Every organization faces the same fundamental challenge: turning individual contributors into consistent, confident leaders. The question isn't whether your managers have potential—it's whether you're giving them the systematic infrastructure to realize that potential.
