Leadership in the Age of AI: Why Human Skills Still Matter

Winning the Audit Rotation Challenge

A decade ago, audit rotation legislation created a seismic shift for auditors, requiring firms to re-pitch for client audits every 10 years and exit after 20 years. For Deloitte Audit, this meant competing in a high-stakes environment to retain clients while winning new business to stay compliant.

However, the team faced significant challenges:

• Low Win Rate: Less than 20% of pitches were successful.
• Weak Relationships: Insufficient rapport and trust established with key client stakeholders.
• No Differentiation: Pitches lacked a compelling value proposition that set Deloitte apart.
• Over-reliance on Leaders: The focus was on the lead partner, with minimal team involvement.
• Late Engagement: Relationship-building and pitch preparation often started too late.

Natural Direction designed a program that transformed their approach to pitching and client engagement, focusing on resilience, preparation, and teamwork.

Key initiatives included:

• Resilience Building: Training teams to handle high-pressure pitch environments with confidence, agility, and a growth mindset.
• Pitching to Win (PTW): A structured methodology to ensure thorough preparation, early engagement, and alignment of pitch strategy to client needs.
• Team 100 Approach: Shifting focus from the lead partner to a collaborative, cohesive team dynamic, showcasing the strength and expertise of the entire Deloitte offering.

The transformation was dramatic:  

• Improved Win Rate: Deloitte’s pitch success rate climbed significantly resulting in substantial increased market share of the FTSIE 100 Audits
• Stronger Relationships: Early engagement and team-led approaches built deeper trust and rapport with clients.
• Clear Differentiation: Pitches now stood out with tailored solutions and compelling value propositions that spoke clearly to each client’s needs.
• Sustainable Change: The pitching to win frameworks embedded best practices into the pitch process, ensuring a consistent level of discipline applied to each bid resulting in continuing to win new audits whist retaining existing clients in the competitive audit rotation landscape.

This strategic overhaul not only helped Deloitte navigate the challenges of audit rotation legislation but also positioned them as leaders in building enduring client partnerships and delivering extraordinary results.

Transforming Partner Engagement at a Leading Executive Search Firm

A leading executive search firm, known for its bespoke and high-touch service, sought to evolve how Partners engaged with clients.

Despite being viewed as trusted advisors, Partners recognised there were greater opportunities to leverage existing client relationships and expand their client base by  acquiring new logos.

To win more business and compete against the larger international SHREK firms the partners recognised they needed to elevate their approach.  The goal was to equip Partners with the mindset and skills to differentiate their offer by moving beyond transactional discussions to forging deeper trusted strategic relationships that aligned with their clients’ evolving needs and priorities.

Natural Direction designed a bespoke programme which focused on four key pillars:

• Strategic Partnership Building
  Reposition partners as strategic advisors by aligning client needs with long-term outcomes and demonstrating value beyond immediate deliverables.
• Elevating the Dialogue
  Lead meaningful, high-stakes conversations, offering fresh perspectives and challenging client assumptions to uncover untapped opportunities.
• Embedding Trust as a Strategic Advantage
  Foster relationships built on credibility, and mutual respect, ensuring alignment with client priorities.
• Operating with Confidence and Presence
  Strengthening executive presence to communicate with authority and connect authentically during high-level engagements.

The programme has started to transform how Partners engage with clients, enabling them to win the trust of their clients in particular where they were less familiar with the Firm. This has resulted in some significant wins and strengthened their position and credibility.  

Most importantly Partners demonstrated more confidence and gravitas and the willingness to take on larger opportunities.

From Runner-Up to Front-Runner: Transforming pitch success for Atos

Atos, known for technical expertise and innovation, faced a critical challenge: despite exceptional solutions, they struggled to win competitive pitches.

Their transactional, solution-first approach limited opportunities to differentiate and build emotional connections, making it hard to stand out in a crowded marketplace.

Natural Direction introduced the Pitching to Win programme, simulating real pitch environments to deliver:

• The 10 Disciplines of Pitching: A proven framework for the planning, preparation and performance of winning pitches.
• Value-Driven Insights: Shifting from fact-finding to incisive questions that add value and reveal unique client needs.
• Strategic Storytelling: Turning insights into client-focused narratives that inspire confidence and differentiation.
• Mastering the Pitch: Delivering confident, compelling presentations that resonate and optimise win rates.

• The programme boosted win rates from 41% to 74% within 18 months, transforming how the company engaged clients.
• In the last decade over a 1000 sales professionals have been trained in the Pitching to Win methodology resulting a new level of discipline applied to how they engage with their clients and setting themselves apart in a highly competitive marketplace.

E.ON Customer Operations sought to elevate leadership capabilities across its UK teams to achieve operational excellence and deliver an exceptional customer experience. E.ON needed a transformative program to empower leaders, develop their mindset, and align them with the company’s vision of being Number 1 for Service.

Natural Direction partnered with E.ON to design Power Up Your Performance, a dynamic leadership development program built around three core pillars: Leading Self, Leading Others, and Leading Teams.

Key elements included:

• Building Self-Awareness: Leaders explored their personal beliefs, emotional intelligence, and impact on others, helping them align their behaviours with the company’s goals.
• Empowering Leaders: Workshops emphasised mental resilience, the power of language, and strategies to stay resourceful under pressure.
• Actionable Disciplines: Leaders learned practical techniques for operational excellence, such as real-time management, daily planning, and setting clear expectations with their teams.
• Sustainable Learning: Monthly action learning sets and personal development plans ensured ongoing growth and application of new skills.

The program delivered measurable and cultural transformation across E.ON:

• Elevated Leadership Performance: Leaders reported greater confidence, clarity, and effectiveness, enabling them to inspire their teams and manage performance consistently.
• Stronger Engagement: Leaders embraced personal accountability, encouraging a culture of proactive problem-solving and continuous improvement.
• Operational Excellence: Teams achieved higher levels of efficiency and consistency, aligned with E.ON’s commitment to exceptional customer service.

By “powering up” their leadership capabilities, E.ON leaders now embody the principles required to drive sustained success and position the organisation as a leader in customer operations.

Bombardier, a multinational leader in aerospace and transportation, has a strong reputation for health and safety excellence. However, the UK Services team, responsible for servicing trains, was falling short of the group’s high standards. Ranked last in safety performance across the company, the team faced rising accidents, lost productivity, and low morale. Bombardier needed a transformative solution to reignite their commitment to safety and establish a world-class safety culture.

Natural Direction partnered with Bombardier to uncover the root causes of underperformance and shift the mindset around safety from compliance-driven to values-driven. The result was ‘Safety with Attitude,’ a groundbreaking program that changed the way Bombardier’s people thought, talked, and acted about safety.

Key elements included:

• Deep Stakeholder Engagement: We worked closely with leaders and frontline teams to diagnose issues and align on the need for cultural change.
• Behavioural Transformation: The program focused on fostering personal ownership of safety, challenging old habits, and inspiring employees to view safety as integral to their identity and work ethic.
• Wide-Scale Implementation: Spanning 28 sites and engaging 1,700 participants, the program embedded safety as a core value across every level of the organization.

The impact of ‘Safety with Attitude’ was profound:

• Safety Leadership: The UK Services team climbed from last to first in Bombardier’s global safety rankings.
• Reduced Accidents: A 40% reduction in workplace accidents and lost time incidents over three years.
• A 70% reduction in the numbers of days lost
• An uplift of 17% in employee engagement around safety
• Improved Productivity: Increased safety contributed to a more efficient and motivated workforce, with sickness absence hitting an all-time low of 2.7%.
• Sustained Momentum: Building on this success, Bombardier launched ‘Safety with Attitude Zero’, aiming for a zero-tolerance culture toward preventable accidents across its UK workforce.
• Bombardier Services were awarded two RoSPA gold awards

Vice President Paul Roberts summed up the transformation:

Optimising leadership for accelerated growth and a successful exit in a PE-backed fintech firm

A private equity fund acquired a stake in a fast-growing fintech firm, aiming for rapid growth and a successful sale. After appointing a new CEO, leadership issues within the executive team threatened progress. The CEO engaged us to align the team with the firm’s strategic goals and drive efficiency, execution, and speed.

We delivered intensive sessions focused on instilling urgency, improving execution, enhancing communication, and developing leadership capabilities. This included executive coaching, high-performance team sessions, and a Leadership Academy to prepare the next generation of leaders.

Our work realigned the leadership team, sharpened execution, and fostered collaboration—accelerating growth and setting the company up for the desired exit.

Driving strategic alignment and leadership transformation at a global engineering company

The UK division of this global company, with £50 million in revenue, aimed to unify its operations under a “One UK” vision and grow to £60 million in the short term and £100 million over five years. Despite enthusiasm for the vision, the team needed greater strategic clarity, leadership development, and cultural alignment.

Over the past three years, we worked closely with the executive team to create an Organisational Charter which included defining their vision and purpose, redefining their values and behaviours, sharpening their strategic priorities, and ensuring alignment across the entire business.

A key part of this collaboration was to design and implement a development programme for the executive team, senior managers and high-potential leaders, aimed at equipping them with the skills and mindset needed to drive the “One UK” vision forward.

Now in its fourth cohort, the program has become a cornerstone of leadership development, preparing participants to take on greater responsibilities and contribute to a cohesive and high-performing culture.

The division achieved its £60 million revenue goal and is on track for further growth. With a cohesive culture and solid leadership foundation, the company is well-positioned for sustained success.

Heathrow Airport, the world’s busiest two-runway airport, handles 1,300 aircraft movements and over 200,000 passengers daily. The 550-strong engineering team plays a critical role in ensuring efficiency amid aggressive cost-reduction targets and ambitious expansion plans, including a potential third runway.

Despite acceptable performance, internal engagement surveys revealed disengagement within the engineering teams, marked by siloed working, passive attitudes, resistance to change, and fear of mistakes. This cultural stagnation hindered the team’s ability to achieve optimal performance. Heathrow Engineering needed a solution to reignite engagement and foster a high-performance culture.

Heathrow partnered with Natural Direction to embed the “Edge” program into its engineering culture, focusing on four core behaviours: Customer First, Take Ownership, Understand Why, and Be Professional.
Natural Direction developed a five-phase engagement strategy to make Edge resonate with the team. Key initiatives included:

• Edge Champions: Two-day events trained natural influencers within the team to embody and promote Edge behaviours, inspiring high performance.
• Edge Awareness Sessions: These interactive workshops engaged the wider team, encouraging them to contribute ideas and adopt new ways of thinking.
• Language and Behaviour Change: A focus on language transformation introduced concepts like “above the line thinking” and “moving from blame to aim” to encourage collaboration and problem-solving.
• Integration: Edge behaviours were embedded into recruitment, onboarding, apprenticeship programs, and daily operations, ensuring lasting cultural change.

The Edge program delivered transformative results:

• Improved Engagement: Engineering achieved a 66-point year-on-year improvement in its Best Companies score, with a 78% response rate, and was named one of Best Companies ‘Ones to Watch’ in 2019.
• Global Recognition: Rated as the ‘best global airport engineering team’ by MCP benchmarking, with an exceptional first-visit score of 71%.
• Operational Excellence: Surpassed 2018 Management Business Plan targets, delivering significant cost savings and exceeding business plan expectations for Q6.
• In addition, this programme of made the shortlist in the CIPD Best Change Management and Employee Engagement initiatives at their awards in 2019.

The program not only improved metrics but also transformed the team culture, with employees describing Edge as “career-changing” and engineering as “the best it has ever been.”

Developing future C-Suite leaders for long-term success with Deloitte’s Next Generation C-Suite Academies.

Deloitte recognised a critical need to support senior leaders as they transitioned into C-Suite roles. Despite their extensive experience, even accomplished executives often struggled to navigate the unique demands of C-level leadership.

Deloitte created the Next Generation CXO Academy aimed specifically at developing the skills capabilities required by the next generation of C-Suite officers.

The curriculum blends personal insights and research-based methodologies, focusing on the unique challenges of executive leadership and long-term strategic success.

Participants gain a deep understanding of the role’s breadth and complexities, stakeholder expectations, and board dynamics. The academy also assists with career acceleration, advanced technical skills development, and the chance to build a strong peer network.

Natural Direction has partnered with Deloitte in providing leaders with a best in class leadership 360 benchmarked against their peer group enabling each leader to build a meaningful development plan aligned to their career goals. In addition we deliver a number of other leadership modules in the programme. With over 130 academies delivered in the past 15 years, we are proud to support this prestigious programme.

30% of participants have been promoted into C-Suite roles. With outstanding positive feedback from Deloitte clients the program’s success expanded its reach to future CLOs, CTOs, CHROs, and CIOs, shaping the next generation of leadership.