Leadership development | Aviation & travel
Developing leaders of the future
When Heathrow’s CEO stands up and says your name, something has already shifted. This is the story of how 2,000 managers across one of the world’s most complex organisations started leading differently, and why Heathrow will never look at learning the same way again.
What Heathrow was really up against
Post-pandemic, Heathrow was rebuilding at pace with a depleted workforce. Experienced people had left. Trust between managers and their teams – and between teams and the organisation – had fractured under the pressure of shutdown and restart.
The brief was a leadership development programme for 2,000 middle and first-time managers. In practice, it was something considerably harder. Heathrow’s workforce is one of the most operationally diverse in the world – a single programme had to resonate equally with baggage handlers and air traffic controllers, security officers and senior corporate functions, ten-year veterans and people stepping into their first leadership role. One size would fit none of them. Generic wasn’t an option. Neither was slow.
The Impact
increase in employee engagement
jump in trust in leadership
average NPS across the programme
The decision that changed everything
Heathrow could have requested an off-the-shelf programme with a fixed scope and known deliverables. Most organisations in their position would have. But the old tried-and-tested approaches weren’t cutting it anymore, and with a workforce as complex and operationally varied as Heathrow’s, there was no room for another initiative that looked good on paper and landed flat in practice.
Lucy Davies, Head of Learning, chose a different starting point. One that began with questions. One that put the Solvd team in Heathrow’s world first, before designing any solutions.
That decision – to trust the discovery process before committing to a solution – is what unlocked everything that followed.
Digging deeper to design smarter
The research phase included extensive work shadowing. Solvd’s team spent time directly alongside Heathrow’s managers, observing what leadership actually looked and felt like across different roles and contexts.
It was that proximity that gave the programme its edge. Not assumptions about what managers needed. Evidence.
What emerged was an understanding that Heathrow’s leaders didn’t just need new skills. They needed to feel psychologically safe enough to be honest – about their challenges, their doubts, and the realities of leading people through a period of significant disruption.
That insight shaped every subsequent decision.
The research also revealed something more granular. Many teams, Security in particular, had almost no performance support to speak of. Nothing they could reach for in the moment. But people were carrying things on their lanyards: notes, references, reminders of what mattered to them. That observation directly shaped the design of the pocket guides and the Lead the Way pin badges – created not as corporate merchandise, but as tools and tokens that reflected what Heathrow’s own people actually needed and valued.
Solvd Together has immersed themselves within Team Heathrow with a dedicated and agile approach.”
Thomas Woldbye
Group CEO, Heathrow Airport
What we built together
Lead the Way wasn’t a one-off course. It was an 18-month experience – and it was designed to feel like one from the moment managers encountered it. Every element was designed to live in the flow of work, not sit apart from it.
Solvd brought in immersive theatre set designers to physically transform standard office spaces into environments where, unmistakably, something different was happening. The set design wasn’t incidental – it was a signal. Growth requires a different kind of room.
The internal brand was built through creative workshops with Heathrow stakeholders, not handed down from above. The result felt like it belonged to Heathrow – because it did.
Real leadership stories, captured on video from Heathrow’s own people, seeded a teaser campaign before the programme launched. By the time managers arrived at their first session, curiosity was already ahead of them.
Live events brought together 25 leaders at a time, using gamification, behavioural science, and actor-led scenarios to make the difficult feel approachable and possible. Cards Against Bad Leadership – an experience designed to surface the real impact of mindset and behaviour on the people around them – became one of the programme’s most talked-about moments.
Between sessions, the work continued. Pocket guides steered managers through tough conversations. A peer-to-peer coaching structure sustained momentum. A digital hub gave people a space to return to, reflect, and keep growing. Bespoke pin badges – Gold, Silver, Bronze – recognised progress through the programme’s stages, publicly and tangibly. But they carried a second meaning, too: an acknowledgement of what Heathrow’s leaders had endured during the pandemic and a celebration of the fact that they’d come through it.
The results, and the ripple beyond them
The numbers landed clearly. A 19% increase in employee engagement. An 8% jump in trust in leadership. A 7% uplift in inclusion. An average NPS of +55. All tracked through Heathrow’s own Pulse survey.
But the more significant outcome isn’t a number.
What changed at Heathrow was what their L&D team now believes is possible. The immersive, discovery-led approach that Lead the Way demonstrated has since shaped how Heathrow approaches customer experience training, security training, and beyond. The bar moved and it stayed moved.
Lead the Way was awarded Highly Commended at the British Training Awards 2024. Solvd Together was named Heathrow’s Supplier of the Year 2023.
Lead the Way has been a fantastic programme to reset the culture at Heathrow and equip front-line and middle managers to set the tone for our organisation. The feedback has been exceptional – but more importantly, it has had impact. We’ve increased our overall engagement metric by 19 percentage points since the start of the programme, and improved our scores around inclusion and line management support.”
Jason Knight
People Director, Heathrow
