How to Build Leadership Capabilities for Success

Coaching a Marketing Director to Lead Through Transformation (A Jarther+ Case Study)

Leadership isn’t just about having the right skills - it’s about the confidence to navigate complexity, inspire teams, and drive impact at scale. When organisations grow, their leaders must grow with them. That’s where we come in.

Here’s the challenge:

Following a company reorganisation, a rapidly expanding scale-up faced a leadership challenge. The newly appointed Marketing Director for Australia and New Zealand had successfully led a small team but now found themselves responsible for an entire region. Without a CMO to provide strategic guidance, they reported to a sales leader who, while highly capable, lacked the marketing expertise needed to support them. The organisation needed an external partner who could not only help them build their marketing capabilities, but also help their leader step up, own their role, and confidently drive strategic marketing initiatives across a growing regional presence.

Here’s our response:

At Jarther+, we believe that leadership capability isn’t just about technical know-how; it’s about enabling individuals to think strategically, lead with confidence and scale their influence within an organisation. Our tailored coaching and mentoring program combined immediate tactical support with long-term leadership development, ensuring the Marketing Director could navigate both day-to-day challenges and the bigger-picture transformation.

We worked with the Marketing Director to define key leadership competencies essential for success in a fast-evolving organisation - such as managing diverse stakeholders, crafting compelling narratives, and leading through change. But leadership development isn’t just theoretical. As part of our hands-on and results-driven approach, we shared actionable tools and frameworks like stakeholder management, presentation skills, executive presence and change management skills reviews, providing resources that could be applied immediately and built upon as the director’s leadership capabilities grew.

We also provided tactical support to address immediate concerns, such as presenting at Quarterly Business Reviews, managing underperforming team members, and enhancing cross-functional collaboration.

This comprehensive, long-term approach enabled the Marketing Director to not only overcome short-term obstacles but also to take ownership of their growth, allowing them to lead their team with a strategic mindset while empowering others along the way.

More importantly, here is the impact:

By blending a structured, strategic approach with the flexibility of addressing real-time challenges, our coaching and mentoring sessions empowered the Marketing Director to build the leadership and management capabilities necessary for success at scale. Key impacts included:

1. Stronger Team Performance: The marketing team exceeded all their KPIs, a direct reflection of the director’s enhanced leadership and strategic guidance. This improvement wasn’t just about meeting targets - it was about creating a culture of excellence and accountability that allowed the team to thrive in an evolving environment.

2. Recognition and Career Advancement: Within a year of completing the coaching and mentoring program, the Marketing Director was recognised for their transformational growth, consistently surpassing performance expectations. Their ability to lead effectively positioned them for a promotion, cementing their place as a key leader within the organisation.

3. Scalable Leadership Skills: Equipped with proven leadership frameworks and tools, the Marketing Director was empowered to replicate their success throughout the team, fostering a culture of excellence that scaled alongside the organisation’s presence.

4. Organisational Impact: The combination of strategic and operational improvements helped elevate the marketing function, positioning it as a critical driver of business success. The ability to lead with both vision and practical capability demonstrated the power of effective leadership in influencing organisational outcomes.

Is your organisation navigating leadership transitions or preparing leaders for larger roles? Talk to Jarther+ about how we can help build leadership capability within your team. Whether it’s guiding an individual through their leadership journey or scaling a leadership development program, our tailored coaching programs equip leaders with the skills, mindset, and tools to succeed.