Turning specialist expertise into organisational influence at Lantmännen
Lantmännen partnered with Companions for Leadership to help high-talent specialists strengthen their self-leadership, collaborate across functions and contribute with greater confidence and influence. Together, they created a development journey that recognises expertise as a strategic asset and supports specialists in extending their impact across the organisation.
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The challenge
Deep expertise is essential to Lantmännen’s work across agriculture, food, machinery and bioenergy. Yet specialists’ ability to make a wider contribution often depends on influencing people beyond their own function, without formal management authority.
Traditional career pathways can leave these experts with limited opportunities to develop unless they move into people management. Lantmännen wanted to offer a meaningful alternative: a dedicated pathway that values specialist contribution while developing the personal and relational capabilities needed to work effectively across a complex matrix.
The opportunity was to help specialists turn their knowledge into broader organisational impact, strengthening collaboration, engagement and their sense of a future within the business.
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Our approach
CFL and Lantmännen co-created Elevate, a development journey comprising two three-day residential modules, spaced approximately five months apart to allow for application and integration at work.
The first module, Transforming Leadership from Within™, created space for participants to explore their values, strengthen self-awareness and develop greater clarity about how they contribute. This inner work supported the confidence and personal agency needed to act with courage and integrity in their specialist roles.
The second, Succeeding in Collaboration, adapted CFL’s Wisdom in Teams™ approach to the realities of specialists who influence across functions rather than lead line teams. Participants explored how to understand stakeholders, recognise different engagement styles and shape conversations that build trust and alignment.
Reflective enquiry, experiential exercises and peer coaching connected personal insight with everyday working relationships. Close collaboration between CFL and Lantmännen ensured that the examples, tools and exercises reflected participants’ real challenges.
Outcomes
Participants reported greater confidence to speak up and contribute beyond their immediate area of expertise, clearer approaches to stakeholder engagement and stronger listening and communication skills.
The shared experience also built relationships across functions, creating a peer network to support collaboration beyond the programme. Participants described a shift towards seeing themselves as strategic contributors, able to bring their expertise into wider conversations and shared problem-solving.
Early feedback included a Net Promoter Score of +95, indicating strong willingness to recommend the experience.
The partnership demonstrates how investing in specialists’ personal development can help expertise reach further, strengthening their contribution while offering a valued development pathway alongside people management.
Explore the full case study
Discover how CFL and Lantmännen designed Elevate around the realities of specialist work. The full case study includes more detail on the programme, participant experiences and reflections from Lantmännen’s HR and talent leaders and the CFL facilitators.
