Our philosophy

Responsibility first. Coaching alongside.

SYLC is built on what the strongest leadership research keeps finding, from Harvard Business Review to the Center for Creative Leadership: leaders are made by stretching experiences, by the senior people who back them and by the visibility their work earns. So we give young talent bespoke, on-the-job opportunities rather than another course.

The bespoke model

Every member gets a role that is slightly too big.

At onboarding each member agrees a personal pathway with a mentor: what they want to lead, the project that will stretch them and the skills they need to get there. A chemical engineer might own a carbon-storage screening study; a business analytics student might run the club’s operations as Vice President; a biomedical scientist might lead a mock grant application built on a sanitised case.

The role comes first and the support wraps around it: a fellow as sponsor, a senior member as coach, peers from other disciplines as sparring partners. That is the reverse of a classroom programme, and it is deliberate.

70% challenging work

20% people

10%

70% challenging assignments. Live projects, club portfolios, the executive.

20% relationships. Fellows, coaches, peers.

10% coursework. Think-tank sessions, workshops.

The 70-20-10 framework comes from more than 30 years of the Center for Creative Leadership’s Lessons of Experience research [2].

What the research says

Five findings and one rule of thumb that shape how SYLC works.

Each finding is paired with the practice it drives in the club.

97%of fast-track CEOs made a career “catapult” move

Big leaps make leaders

The ten-year CEO Genome study by ghSMART, reported in Harvard Business Review and drawing on more than 17,000 C-suite executive assessments, found that 97% of “CEO sprinters”, those who reached the top job faster than average, had at least one of three career catapults. More than 60% at some point took a smaller role to go big, for example launching something new or moving to a smaller company for broader responsibility. More than a third made a big leap into a role well beyond their experience. More than 30% inherited a big mess and turned it round.

How SYLC applies itEach year’s President and Vice President take executive roles ahead of their readiness, with fellows on hand. Project leads own a club workstream from start to finish.

Botelho, Powell & Wong, HBR, 2018 [1]

70%of leadership learning comes from challenging assignments

Experience is the main teacher

The Center for Creative Leadership finds leaders learn roughly 70% from challenging experiences, 20% from developmental relationships and 10% from coursework. Across the US, China, India and Singapore the same learning sources recur: bosses, turnarounds, bigger job scope, horizontal moves and new initiatives.

How SYLC applies itMembers rotate between projects and portfolios by design: horizontal moves, new initiatives and growing scope are built into every pathway.

Center for Creative Leadership [2]

15%more promotions went to men than to comparable women

Mentoring is not enough; sponsorship is

In a Catalyst survey of more than 4,000 high-potential MBA graduates, reported in HBR, more women than men had mentors, yet men received 15% more promotions. Women’s mentors had less organisational clout, and mentoring predicted promotion for men but not for women. The missing ingredient was sponsorship: senior people using their influence to put someone forward.

How SYLC applies itFellows act as sponsors, not just advisers. They nominate members for visible roles, introductions and stretch work.

Ibarra, Carter & Silva, HBR, 2010 [3]

9–24%rise in the representation of women and minorities in management

Formal mentoring widens the pipeline

Dobbin and Kalev’s HBR analysis of decades of company data found that formal mentoring programmes raised the share of black, Hispanic and Asian-American women, and of Hispanic and Asian-American men, in management by 9% to 24%. Mandatory diversity training on its own often backfired.

How SYLC applies itEvery new member is matched with a mentor at onboarding, and an EDI lead on the officer team keeps access to roles and projects fair.

Dobbin & Kalev, HBR, 2016 [4]

Shadowboards of younger people advising the executive

Young voices sharpen senior decisions

HBR describes the “shadow board”: younger, non-executive staff who work with the executive team on strategy. Gucci’s millennial shadow board was a wake-up call on digital; its sales grew 136% between 2014 and 2018, a turnaround the authors link in part to the board’s influence alongside other changes, while Prada, which admitted it had been slow on digital, saw sales fall 11.5%.

How SYLC applies itThree times a year members meet as a shadow board: they review a non-confidential question from Senergy’s directors and give their view. The directors decide; members practise board-level thinking and teach fellows new tools in return.

Jordan & Sorell, HBR, 2019 [5]

10/30/60Coleman’s PIE rule of thumb, not a measured result

Networks and visibility move careers

Harvey Coleman, drawing on his career at IBM, proposed the PIE model, weighting performance, image and exposure 10/30/60, where exposure means visibility to networks and management, crucial roles and sponsorship. It is a rule of thumb rather than a tested finding, but research points the same way: in a three-year longitudinal study, people who networked more earned more and saw faster salary growth.

How SYLC applies itMembers present their work to fellows, industry guests and partners from SPE, Senergy and the University of Glasgow, building exposure years earlier than usual.

Coleman [7]; Wolff & Moser, 2009 [6]

Performance, image, exposure

A rule of thumb: performance, image, exposure.

10%
PerformanceResults, contributions and the use of skills and knowledge.
30%
ImageBehaviours, reputation, authenticity, credibility, savvy and style.
60%
ExposureVisibility to networks and management, crucial roles and projects, sponsorship.

Harvey J. Coleman, Empowering Yourself: The Organizational Game Revealed [7]. The weights are his own estimate, not measured data.

In practice

How the philosophy shows up every week.

Bespoke pathways

A personal plan agreed at onboarding and reviewed each quarter: the role, the project and the skills each member is stretching towards.

Real roles, real stakes

Officer portfolios in partnerships, EDI, innovation, fundraising, communications and technical work come with agreed goals, a quarterly update appended to the board report, and a presentation to the board once a year.

The October rotation

A new President and Vice President every year, so executive experience reaches more young leaders, not the same few.

Sponsorship by fellows

Principal-level fellows open doors: introductions, advice, nominations for speaking opportunities where they arise, and the stretch assignments that build a track record. Sponsorship never includes a promise of paid work.

Think-tank sessions

Cross-disciplinary problem solving on live questions, where an engineer, a lawyer and an analyst attack the same brief.

Reverse mentoring

Members teach fellows new tools, from AI and analytics to design and social media, and practise leading upwards.

We don’t wait for young people to be ready for responsibility. We make them ready through it.

Sources

Botelho, E. L., Powell, K. R. & Wong, N. “The Fastest Path to the CEO Job, According to a 10-Year Study.” Harvard Business Review, January 2018 (ghSMART CEO Genome Project). hbr.org (opens in new tab)
Center for Creative Leadership. “The 70-20-10 Rule for Leadership Development.” ccl.org (opens in new tab)
Ibarra, H., Carter, N. M. & Silva, C. “Why Men Still Get More Promotions Than Women.” Harvard Business Review, September 2010. hbr.org (opens in new tab)
Dobbin, F. & Kalev, A. “Why Diversity Programs Fail.” Harvard Business Review, July–August 2016. hbr.org (opens in new tab)
Jordan, J. & Sorell, M. “Why You Should Create a ‘Shadow Board’ of Younger Employees.” Harvard Business Review, June 2019. hbr.org (opens in new tab)
Wolff, H.-G. & Moser, K. “Effects of networking on career success: a longitudinal study.” Journal of Applied Psychology 94(1), 196–206, 2009. doi.org (opens in new tab)
Coleman, H. J. Empowering Yourself: The Organizational Game Revealed. 1996 (practitioner book).