HAQDARSHAK — GROWING LEADERS
Growing the Second Line: Leadership Development at Haqdarshak

About Haqdarshak

Haqdarshak is a social development organization working across 22 states that has reached over 3 million citizens — building systems for welfare delivery at the last mile. They enable citizens and MSMEs to access government welfare and financial services, using technology to bridge information gaps by digitizing welfare scheme data in local Indian languages.

 

Context

With Haqdarshak poised for ambitious growth, the organization needed its second line of leaders — AVPs and Senior Managers — to be ready for significantly greater responsibility. They were looking for a rigorous, contextually grounded leadership development program that would build the skills, self-awareness, and stakeholder management capabilities needed to lead at scale. Phicus was invited to design and facilitate this journey.

 

The Collaboration

Phicus began with a diagnostic phase — conversations with senior leaders to understand the organization's context and strategy, and interviews with a sample of potential participants to understand their roles, challenges, and development needs.

 

This diagnostic shaped a program built around four pillars: Leading Self, Leading Teams, Leading Functions and Departments, and Engaging Stakeholders. Each pillar was defined as a set of concrete behaviours, creating a practical skills framework for the journey.

 

Participants began with 360-degree feedback from peers, managers, and direct reports, supplemented by a psychometric assessment (SHL's Occupational Personality Questionnaire). A Phicus coach worked individually with each participant to interpret both reports and develop a personal development plan.

 

Over 6 months, the cohort moved through monthly skill-building modules — anchored by two 2-day in-person workshops at the start and close of the journey, with four 3-hour online workshops in between. The journey closed with individual coaching conversations to review progress and consolidate action plans.

 

Going Forward

The journey surfaced important insights about the environment in which Haqdarshak's second-line leaders operate — including significant bandwidth pressures created by the organization's own rapid growth. Phicus and Haqdarshak's senior leadership recognized that individual development journeys work best when the organizational environment also evolves to support them.