Top Corporates Shine at Great Manager Awards - Celebrating Companies with Great Managers and Cultures

The landmark feature in the corporate calendar of Sri Lanka’s most celebrated companies took place in a glamorous event in Colombo recently. The Companies with Great Mangers and Agile Leaders hosted by Colombo Leadership Academy and CLA Coaching in their quest to raise the benchmark for leadership excellence yet again recognized the country’s best corporate leadership at the annual CLA Great Manager Awards ceremony. The event was graced by Hon. Eran Wickramaratne, His Excellency.

Recognizing top conglomerates benchmarked with best practices demonstrating the culture & eco system for nurturing great managers, Accessibility to top leadership, Room to challenge the status quo, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, Empowering women in leadership roles, Clarity on career roadmaps and Alignment of L&D for growth.

The first ever awards category for tech organizations too were conferred at the event under the title Companies with Agile Leaders.

The organizations conferred with prestigious Companies with Great Managers awards exceeded the benchmark of providing great employee experience, empowering women in leadership roles, diversity & inclusion and career enrichment emerged as great employer brands.

Riaz Hassen CEO and Managing Director of CLA Coaching and Colombo Leadership Academy said – “We are privileged to host the Leadership Excellence Awards for the 8th consecutive year in collaboration with our global strategic partners. Our endeavors as Sri Lanka’s premier Leadership Coaching & Executive Education facility, inspiring organizations and individuals to nurture effective leadership skills in order to create measurable and lasting impact on their businesses, have left an indelible footprint in nurturing effective leadership for organizational success.

CLA is strongly committed to nurturing sustainable leaders through systematic approaches and experiential learning and coaching simulations to create effective leadership and high-performance business outcomes.”

”The awards are conferred under Companies with Great Managers, Companies with Agile Leaders (Tech Organizations) and Great Manager Awards. This year we are excited to announce the celebration and the recognition of six Great Millennial Managers under a very special category.” Said Riaz Hassen the CEO of CLA Coaching Inc.

The CLA Great Manager Awards serve as an opportunity for each company to learn of its own managerial and leadership effectiveness quotient and assess itself when placed against the best in the country, identifying overall strengths and areas of development of the managerial pool within the company. In this there is also an opportunity to foster higher engagement levels through building stronger managers and strengthening the quality of managers in the industry. The awards also serve a greater purpose of assessing the company’s own eco system of nurturing more great managers and comparing best practices amongst a wide spectrum of organizations in the country.

”Managers are the live wire in the organizations and leaders at the top must realize that managers play a pivotal role shaping organizational success, strategy execution and business transformation. It is the quality of leaders in the organizations that determines the quality of great managers they produce. If the leaders at the top do not walk the talk, demonstrate authenticity and inclusive leadership, it is very unlikely that leaders could create a sustainable environment for great managers to thrive.” Riaz further said. 

“Today we are so proud to say that leading organizations make serious note on the outcomes generated through the Great Managers’ study of the managerial and leadership assessments using the research tool DACTI-5X and have blended the learnings into their talent development interventions and performance management spectrums. Year on year new competencies are evolving in the leadership coaching domains and the seamless integration of these valuable insights into the talent development sphere brings the value to further strengthen and retain key talent in the ever-changing hybrid corporate environments.” Riaz said.

Riaz Hassen CEO / Managing Director Colombo Leadership Academy / CLA Coaching Inc

The Colombo Leadership Academy (CLA), the hosts of the CLA Great Managers awarding program is a dedicated bespoke leadership coaching and executive education facility founded with the aim to produce the next generation of exemplary leaders. Applying a curriculum of experiential learning through business impact simulations coached by certified faculty of industry experts who are equipped with all the core competencies necessary to create effective leadership and high-performance business outcomes.

CLA Coaching; has expanded its activities to Canada and North American regions to develop people with strong leadership abilities and have a long-lasting impact on their organizations. 

A key feature of the awards night was the thought leadership session on “Game Changers of Tomorrow – The Great Managers” where industries leaders shared deeper insights on key areas in today’s business environment, including culture, the new generation of employees and the evolving role of women in the workforce and retention of the Gen Zs in the organizations. 

The forum was coloured with an insightful Panel Discussion Game Changers of Tomorrow - The Great Managers focusing on key areas in today’s business environment, including culture, the new generation of employees and of course the evolving role of women in the workforce. The panel, chaired and moderated by Executive & Leadership Profiler and Coach, Avrille de Zoysa, included a broader spectrum of industry experts and thought leaders, Rasika Karunatilake, Surani Amarasinghe, Irfan Ahmed and Navneeth Sindu who gave their valuable insights. In today’s dynamic business environment, building great managers begins with empowering leaders to lead with empathy, take ownership, and drive growth. Organizations must align employee purpose with core values, ensuring those values are not just words on a wall, but actions in practice.

One of the greatest challenges organizations face today is attracting and retaining Gen Z talent. Irfan points out that this generation, born digital, thrives on assimilation, learns rapidly, and expects instant feedback, recognition, and motivation. They don’t resonate with long-term career plans or rigid systems. Instead, they’re drawn to short term, meaningful goals and exciting engagements that align with their sense of larger than life purpose.

Riaz Hassen CEO and Managing Director of CLA Coaching and Colombo Leadership Academy said – “We are privileged to host the Leadership Excellence Awards for the 8th consecutive year in collaboration with our global strategic partners. Our endeavors as Sri Lanka’s premier Leadership Coaching & Executive Education facility, inspiring organizations and individuals to nurture effective leadership skills in order to create measurable and lasting impact on their businesses, have left an indelible footprint in nurturing effective leadership for organizational success. CLA is strongly committed to nurturing sustainable leaders through systematic approaches and experiential learning and coaching simulations to create effective leadership and high-performance business outcomes.”

Career growth, continuous learning, work-life balance and meaningful work are non-negotiables for Gen Z. They value transparency, question the status quo, and demand inclusion in decision-making processes. For them, hybrid work models and flexibility are not perks—they’re expectations as Rasika states in his experience in the tech industry.

Navneet, noted that this shift requires leaders to rethink traditional management styles; the “carrot and stick” approach is obsolete. Gen Z isn’t motivated by hierarchy or job titles—they want to know if their values are reflected in the organization, and if the promises made during hiring are truly upheld. They’re not just here for a paycheck; they’re here to live their purpose.

Importantly, for this generation, identity isn’t defined by gender or social qualifications. What matters is capability, creativity, and contribution. They respond best to leaders who are enablers, who walk the talk—who recognize individual strengths, provide opportunities for growth, and champion equity over equality.

Gender equity, particularly in leadership, remains a pressing issue. Surani remarks that too often, women are expected to conform to traditionally male leadership norms to succeed. Many adopt these behaviors simply to be accepted—but this expectation is neither fair nor sustainable. Women aren’t asking for handouts; they’re asking for fairness. In cultures like Sri Lanka’s, where women are often equal breadwinners and juggle multiple roles, equity—not sameness—is key.

Organizations must move away from autocratic leadership models and towards a culture of empowerment and decentralization. Leadership should not be about control, but about enabling. Build organizations that are skill-driven, yet values-led—structures that can evolve without losing their essence.