Today more than ever before, qualified leadership is critical to achieving company success in the global market. Not only do uniquely competent individuals produce greater results, but as markets become more competitive, creating a culture of learning and empowerment contributes to lower turnover rates and greater retention of internal knowledge and serves as a powerful competitive advantage. This becomes even more important in the financial services industry, where organizational results are extremely elastic relative to changing economic conditions.

Given its unique history and current position in the financial services industry, Bank of America has experienced rapid changes in a dynamic environment, and as a result has developed its core philosophy around leadership development. Having started as a regional bank in North Carolina, Bank of America has grown dramatically over the past two decades. Since 1990, the company’s assets have grown from $61.6 billion to $1.7 trillion in 2007, and revenues have grown from $2.8 billion to $68 billion. During this period of rapid growth, both organic growth and acquisitions, leadership roles have become extremely complex in variety, size, and scope. Talent acquisition and retention have become more critical than ever before. The latest McKinsey War for Talent survey, conducted in 2007, indicated that 89 percent of executives surveyed thought it was more difficult to attract talent than was the case three years back, and 90 percent felt it was more difficult to retain them. Given the bank’s exponential growth and increasing complexity of roles, combined with an external environment of global scarcity of leadership talent, the need for effective on-boarding to make executives succeed is even more imperative.

The company found that an ideal on-boarding program should serve three purposes. The first purpose is to accelerate the performance results of the new leader. Research suggests that a senior-level manager requires an average of 6.2 months to reach a break-even point—the moment at which the new leader’s contribution to the organization exceeds the costs of bringing him or her on board and developing within this person a critical base of insight into the job (Watkins, 2003). A good on-boarding program should effectively reduce this period by accelerating the building of critical relationships and networks, clarifying leadership and performance expectations, and facilitating the formation of more realistic short- and medium-term performance objectives.

This section uses Bank of America employee testimony to construct the story of Stephanie, a fictional Bank of America executive and beneficiary of the company’s on-boarding process, to show not only the effects that on-boarding has had on the company but its impact at the individual level. Although the description is broadly representative of what a typical executive may go through during the on-boarding process, the plan is customized and may look different for different executives depending on their individual needs and situation.

Stephanie’s entry with Bank of America, and her first exposure to her on-boarding experience, begins during the interview and selection phase.

For Stephanie, the first few weeks on the job are among the most challenging. During this time, she has the responsibility of adapting her skills to the new role, developing business acumen, becoming deeply acquainted with the organizational culture, mastering the leadership demands associated with her position, and building critical organizational relationships. Bank of America recognizes the last as not only one of the most important but also the most difficult for many executives.

Apart from her immediate manager and stakeholders, Stephanie is given a broader enterprise view of how the different parts of the business make money and connect with each other through the New Executive Orientation Program. This day-and-a-half session is sponsored directly by the CEO. During this time, Stephanie meets with roughly fifteen to twenty participants from across the organization, as well as the CEO, the executive team, and a panel of other executives previously hired in the Bank of America’s on-boarding program.

During the next thirty to sixty days, Stephanie goes through a process known as the New Leader-Team Integration Session, which is designed to accelerate the working relationships between the new executive and her direct report team, as well as allow Stephanie to become acquainted with the operating styles and expectations of those with whom she will be working. Prior to this session, her leadership development partner explains what she might expect from this meeting and discusses her goals for the session. Following that, the partner meets with the team without Stephanie to gain a preliminary understanding of the group’s issues and concerns. The process takes approximately four hours. During the initial part of the meeting, the leadership development partner shares the questions that were originally outlined with Stephanie, while Stephanie sits in a separate area and reviews the questions and concerns outlined by the team. Later, on arriving at the conference room, she is able to address any questions or concerns of the team in terms of operating style, the way forward as well as the team routines. The intent of this session is to have a candid dialogue between Stephanie and the team on how best to work together to create business results for the bank in the most efficient and effective way. The team also gets to ask questions collectively in a safe environment that fosters trust going forward, an important element of team success.

Stephanie has been working with Bank of America for three to four months. During this time, she has been given a number of resources to help her navigate through her new surroundings and apply her strengths and expertise to the job. Her boss has been instrumental thus far, retaining an open-door policy and in helping her in everything from coaching to working on assignments with her. Her peer coach has been extremely useful as a sounding board and helping her navigate the organization. Nevertheless, her work has been intense and demanding, even more so than she had imagined it would be. Her goals have led her to work on tasks that stretch her out of her comfort zone and allow her to work on diverse teams of members of the organization. Stephanie greatly appreciates the opportunity to prove herself from the start and excels in adding value to her new position.

For Stephanie, the on-boarding process at Bank of America left a strong impression in her mind about the company and her colleagues. This program does not just represent a means of getting the most out of the company’s investment in its people during the first year; it is an indicator of the bank’s strong adherence to the belief that stronger leaders produce better results. During the many interventions and meetings that took place, Stephanie was able to see the depth of leadership talent at the bank.

An effective on-boarding system, when properly linked to other practices of leadership development, is a powerful way to maximize leadership effectiveness not just during the first few months but in the long term as well. One can anticipate a lower frequency of derailment, a shorter initiation process into new and difficult roles, stronger connection to the company among senior executives, and improved performance individually and among teams. The case of Bank of America’s on-boarding program leaves a number of lessons to be learned for those in any industry who are interested in any aspect of leadership development:

Hale, J. “Strategic Rewards: Keeping Your Best Talent from Walking out the Door.” Compensation & Benefits Management, 1998, 14(3), 39-50.

Watkins, M. The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2003.

Mohit Misra is the learning and leadership development executive supporting all leadership development processes across global consumer and small business bank at Bank of America. He joined the bank in 2005 and has held various leadership development positions, specializing in organization design, executive coaching, change management, and talent planning.

Roger Cude is responsible for learning and leadership development functions for global consumer and small business banking at the Bank of America, which he joined in 2003. He has held various positions in leadership development and human resources in the global consumer and small business bank and business banking.