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Heritage Meets Innovation: Tailored Leadership for a New Era at City & Country 

City & Country, a family-owned housebuilder specialising in restoring heritage buildings, needed a comprehensive leadership course to support a leadership transition as the founding family began stepping back from operations.

Summary

Sector: Property Development
Location:  Stansted Mountfitchet
Year founded: 1962
No. of employees: 150+

City & Country’s partnership with Lumina Learning successfully equipped its new generation of leaders to uphold the company’s legacy while driving future growth. The programme’s blend of heritage and innovation has ensured that City & Country remains true to its roots while confidently stepping into the future, with a renewed focus on improved leadership performance, and health and wellbeing.

Products Used

Lumina Spark

Lumina Spark reveals your whole personality, providing a unique portrait of who you really are.

Lumina Leader

Lead the way, in your own way. Lumina Leader gives executives a deep understanding of their natural leadership style.

Lumina Select

Find the right people, ask the right questions, uncover hidden potential and avoid costly recruitment errors.

Lumina Team

Work better, together. A holistic view of your whole team.

Lumina Emotion

Improved emotional intelligence, adaptability and resilience are just some of the benefits which organisations report.

Business Need

City & Country has always been passionate about preserving Britain’s architectural heritage, whether through conservation, restoration, or new creations. With the founding family taking a step back, City & Country was entering a new chapter.

The Solution

Lumina Learning, along with a team of senior consultants, created a leadership course that was both practical, personalised, and grounded in evidence-based approaches, delivered over 12 months.

The Results

80% noted strong support throughout

Deepened trust & collaboration

Stronger psychological safety

Curious how Lumina Learning could help your organisation?

Contact us below to learn more

Get in touch
The full story

Business Need

City & Country has always been passionate about preserving Britain’s architectural heritage, whether through conservation, restoration, or new creations. With the founding family taking a step back, City & Country was entering a new chapter.

They knew that to keep their legacy thriving, their leaders needed the right tools and skills. They were looking for a way to refine their leadership skills, deepen self-awareness, and enhance teamwork all while staying true to the company’s core values and unique heritage.

The goal was to create a leadership course that combined practical leadership training programmes with a profound understanding of the company’s heritage values, ensuring a smooth leadership transition while preparing the organisation for future challenges.

The Solution

City & Country had already experienced Lumina Learning’s tools from their learning and development programmes. Lumina Learning, along with a team of senior consultants, created a leadership course that was both practical, personalised, and grounded in evidence-based approaches, delivered over 12 months.

The programme was designed to fit in with City & Country’s existing culture, featuring a mix of interactive workshops and e-learning for a flexible and engaging learning experience. There were 6 core programme modules and 2 optional modules for leaders. The core modules included Self Awareness, Introduction to Leadership, Setting Others up for Success, Team Development, Coaching and Facilitation for Leaders, and Culture and Change. The modules were designed to give practical skills while taking leaders through developing their most authentic and effective styles of leadership.

Products Used

Lumina Spark

Lumina Spark reveals your whole personality, providing a unique portrait of who you really are.

Lumina Leader

Lead the way, in your own way. Lumina Leader gives executives a deep understanding of their natural leadership style.

Lumina Select

Find the right people, ask the right questions, uncover hidden potential and avoid costly recruitment errors.

Lumina Team

Work better, together. A holistic view of your whole team.

Lumina Emotion

Improved emotional intelligence, adaptability and resilience are just some of the benefits which organisations report.

The goal was to move away from a traditional command-and-control approach and shift the focus to developing leaders with a strong coaching skillset. Empowering leaders to help their teams grow by building on individual strengths and providing clear, practical, and supportive feedback to ensure goals are met.

An Action Learning method was implemented that had a ‘Plan, Act, Reflect, and Learn’ cycle to allow key takeaways to build up across the modules, encouraging continuous improvement and deeper learning.

Joel Young

Staff Spotlight

For key leaders like Joel Young, Associate Director of Pre-Construction and Customer Care, who had been with City & Country for over 11 years, this was especially valuable as he faced the challenge of managing a larger, more diverse team while keeping the company’s strong culture intact. Through the programme, he gained a deeper look into his introverted and competitive nature, which sometimes caused stress. By applying what he learned, Joel improved his leadership style, becoming more inclusive and empowering his team, which led to a more cohesive team environment and smoother onboarding processes for new hires.

Theory was introduced through online modules, letting the leaders engage with it at their own pace. They began with reflection questions like, “How does this theory match with your experience?” and then discussed, practiced, and reflected on the theory during workshops, always concluding with, “Now what are you going to do differently?”.

Lee Kirtland

Staff Spotlight

Lee Kirtland, a key leader in City & Country’s design and technical management team, also saw significant benefits from the Lumina Learning programme. As the company grew, Lee needed to navigate the transition to a more agile business model. Lumina Learning tools helped Lee gain insights into his management style, allowing him to balance his detail-oriented approach with broader strategic thinking. This led to improved teamwork, more effective training and recruitment practices, and better overall team performance.

Throughout the programme, Sanford’s Support and Challenge Model guided interactions between facilitators and participants, balancing the need to challenge ideas with the need to offer support, empathy, and encouragement. This approach gradually built a strong sense of psychological safety within the group, leading to more meaningful conversations.

Lindsey Howland

Staff Spotlight

Lindsey Howland, a sales manager overseeing teams across London, Bristol, and Swindon, faced the challenge of harmonising diverse teams and adapting to varying regional buyer behaviours. These reflections helped Lindsey balance her logical and tough traits with increased empathy, enhancing her leadership qualities. By empowering her team members and improving feedback processes, Lindsey fostered a more positive and collaborative team environment, leading to increased team empowerment and improved performance.

The leaders also explored the role of culture in their organisation effectiveness, reflecting on their part in shaping it. After identifying their current culture, they considered how they wanted it to evolve, and they committed to a charter of leadership behaviours which would support the development of their desired culture going forward.

Michael Burt

Staff Spotlight

Michael Burt, Head of Sales, joined City & Country during a period of rapid growth and cultural transformation. He found this approach particularly helpful in helping him to understand and adapt his leadership style, balancing his logical and competitive traits with empathy. This adaptability led to improved team cohesion and performance, contributing to the team exceeding their sales targets. The programme also enhanced Michael’s recruitment practices, leading to more strategic hires and a positive impact on the company’s culture.

The programme explored group dynamics and team formation concepts to help the leaders understand these processes. Using a digital ‘Team Mandala’, they could see the live information of their teams’ strengths, preferences and opportunities. It illustrated the value of diversity within the teams and supported the practice of building rapport and being an inclusive leader. This aspect was crucial across the board, whether it was helping Joel create a more cohesive team environment, assisting Lee in balancing his leadership approach, or supporting Lindsey in furthering a positive team culture. Additional psychological concepts were introduced to teach essential leadership skills like influence, feedback, facilitation, and change management, which everyone, including Michael and Nicola, found instrumental in their leadership development.

Nicola Cooper

Staff Spotlight

Nicola Cooper, a Senior Finance Assistant with over 20 years at City & Country, faced challenges related to interdepartmental communication and team empowerment. She wanted to create an open feedback culture for everyone. Through the programme, Nicola improved her communication skills, empowering her team to think independently and solve problems proactively. The course also boosted Nicola’s confidence as a leader, resulting in enhanced team performance and engagement.

One of the biggest challenges that we face at City & Country is interdepartmental communication. And this course has been really good at learning some skills to develop that communication and how to give feedback, both good and bad towards individuals and other departments

Testimonial Icon

The biggest change I’ve seen in leaders on the whole has been an increase in confidence, empowerment and ability. And those three things are so key to us being successful as a business.

Wayne Douglas, CEO, City & Country
Modules

The leadership programme combines the flexibility of self-paced learning with the immersive experience of 13 face-to-face workshop days for leaders. This blended approach ensures people have the opportunity to engage deeply with the material while also developing practical skills in an interactive setting. To further support each individual’s development journey, they each receive 5 personalised Lumina Portraits, offering a valuable, in-depth look into their leadership style and growth areas. Additionally, the programme includes 18 hours of tailored one-to-one online coaching, providing dedicated time to refine skills, address challenges, and accelerate personal and professional growth

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6 Key Results

The programme was a huge success and delivered significant benefits at both individual and organisational levels.

High Relevance and Engagement: The leaders found the programme relevant, engaging, and useful. 80% of teams and leaders noted strong support throughout the programme.

Behavioural Changes: The leaders demonstrated increased self-awareness, better communication, and improved leadership effectiveness. Leaders reported feeling more self-assured, with improved communication and decision-making abilities.

Improved Relationships: The programme helped to deepen trust and collaboration within teams. Enhanced working relationships, stronger psychological safety, better teamwork and better team dynamics were reported.

Positive Feedback: Feedback from everyone involved highlighted noticeable improvements in leadership across the company, contributing to a smoother transition and continued success.

Measurable Impact: Evaluated using the Kirkpatrick Four Levels of Evaluation, the programme showed strong positive reactions, learning outcomes, behavioural changes, and business results.

City & Country’s partnership with Lumina Learning successfully equipped its new generation of leaders to uphold the company’s legacy while driving future growth. The programme’s blend of heritage and innovation has ensured that City & Country remains true to its roots while confidently stepping into the future, with a renewed focus on improved leadership performance, and health and wellbeing.

Testimonial Icon

The Lumina Learning Leadership programme has been one important part of helping our people play their part massively. It’s created a more cohesive relationship between team members on the course and will definitely help us take the next step forward

Wayne Douglas, CEO, City & Country

Curious how Lumina Learning could help your organisation?

Contact us below to learn more