As Walmart Global Technology continued to scale rapidly, the organisation faced a dual leadership challenge. It needed to strengthen diversity and confidence at senior levels, particularly among women leaders, while also preparing mid-level talent to step into larger leadership roles in an environment marked by speed, complexity, and constant change.
While strong technical and functional leadership development already existed, the organisation recognised a deeper gap. Leaders were capable, but many were operating without a stable inner leadership anchor. Beliefs, confidence, influence, and responses to change varied significantly under pressure, creating inconsistency in leadership presence and execution.
This insight aligned directly with the Coherence Code™, which frames leadership effectiveness as a function of inner coherence across Identity, Intent, and Impact. Walmart Global Technology partnered with Invincible You to design two parallel journeys that would strengthen this coherence deliberately and systematically.
The Leadership Challenge
Leaders across levels were navigating:
- Increased complexity, scale, and pace of change
- The need to lead inclusively across diverse and distributed teams
- Internal resistance related to visibility, influence, and authority
- A disconnect between technical competence and leadership presence
What the organisation required was not additional capability, but stronger leadership coherence. Leaders needed clarity about who they are, steadiness in how they choose and prioritise, and consistency in how their leadership showed up across contexts.
The Journey Design: Identity, Intent, and Impact
The journey design was grounded explicitly in the Coherence Code™, which defines leadership effectiveness through three interconnected domains.
Identity
The Identity domain focused on strengthening leaders' understanding of who they are as leaders, beyond role or title. Leaders explored belief systems, motivational drivers, and emotional patterns that shaped how they showed up, particularly under pressure.
- Discover Your Steel (DYS) assessment anchored this work
- Leaders surfaced personal narratives, confidence patterns, and fear triggers
- Focused reflection built self-awareness and emotional regulation
This work helped leaders develop a more stable leadership identity, reducing reactivity and increasing confidence and authenticity.
Intent
The Intent domain focused on how leaders translate identity into choices. Leaders examined how values, priorities, and decision-making patterns played out in real organisational situations.
- Clarifying leadership values and non-negotiables
- Examining trade-offs and boundary-setting
- Understanding how intent signals trust and direction to others
This phase strengthened leaders' ability to act deliberately rather than reactively, especially in moments of ambiguity, conflict, or pressure.
Impact
The Impact domain focused on how leadership intent translated into visible outcomes in the system. Leaders reflected on how their behaviour influenced trust, collaboration, inclusion, and execution.
- Observing how leadership behaviour affected team dynamics
- Linking decisions to trust, engagement, and follow-through
- Building consistency between stated intent and lived leadership impact
This ensured that inner shifts resulted in sustained behavioural change rather than episodic insight.
Delivery Approach: SENSE, ALIGN, ACT, REFLECT
The journeys were delivered through a structured integration rhythm aligned with the Coherence Code™ methodology of SENSE, ALIGN, ACT, and REFLECT.
SENSE
Leaders developed awareness of internal patterns, emotional triggers, and default responses through assessments, guided reflection, and facilitated dialogue.
ALIGN
Leaders aligned choices with identity and intent by examining values, priorities, and decision-making patterns in real work situations.
ACT
Leaders applied learning directly in their roles, experimenting with new leadership behaviours, conversations, and influence strategies.
REFLECT
Through coaching and group reflection, leaders reviewed outcomes, integrated feedback, and strengthened learning and resilience over time.
This rhythm ensured that leadership development was continuous, practical, and embedded in everyday work rather than isolated learning events.
Participants engaged through:
Immersive in-person leadership labs
Virtual group coaching for peer learning and reflection
1:1 coaching for deeper personal integration
Impact Observed
Stronger Leadership Identity
Participants demonstrated greater confidence, clarity, and steadiness in how they lead.
Clearer Leadership Intent
Leaders made more deliberate choices, particularly in moments of pressure, change, or complexity.
Consistent Leadership Impact
Teams experienced greater trust, inclusion, and follow-through in day-to-day execution.
Organisational Adoption
UNLEASH and RISE have become reference models for coherence-based leadership development within Walmart Global Technology.
Outcome
Through UNLEASH and RISE, Walmart Global Technology embedded leadership development grounded in inner coherence rather than surface capability alone. By strengthening Identity, Intent, and Impact, and by applying the SENSE–ALIGN–ACT–REFLECT methodology, the organisation built leadership capacity that is stable, authentic, and scalable.
The journeys demonstrate how the Coherence Code™ translates into real organisational outcomes. When leaders operate with greater inner coherence, trust strengthens, leadership presence stabilises, and execution holds even in fast-growing and complex environments.
