Leadership Workshops we deliver

Decision-making under pressure

Managers make dozens of consequential decisions each week, often with incomplete information and tight deadlines. This workshop teaches two specific frameworks: the pre-mortem technique, which asks participants to imagine a decision has already failed and work backwards to find the weak points, and the two-track method, where participants split into opposing teams to stress-test an option before committing.

The session begins with a 30-minute briefing on cognitive biases that commonly distort business decisions, including anchoring, sunk-cost thinking, and groupthink. Participants then work through three timed scenarios based on situations from their own sector. Each round is followed by a facilitated debrief where the group identifies what went well and what they would change.

By the end, every participant has a laminated one-page decision protocol card they can pin above their desk. We have found that this physical reminder is what makes the learning stick weeks later, not the session itself.

Difficult conversations

Most people avoid hard conversations until the problem is too big to ignore. By then, trust is already damaged. This workshop gives managers a repeatable four-step structure: state the observation, describe the impact, ask for the other person's perspective, and agree on a next step together.

The morning covers the theory and demonstrates common mistakes through short video clips. After lunch, participants pair up for live practice rounds. Each pair tackles three scenarios: giving negative performance feedback, pushing back on a client request, and addressing a peer who is not pulling their weight. A facilitator coaches each pair in real time, pausing the conversation to suggest alternative phrasing or tone adjustments.

We cap this workshop at twelve people because the practice rounds require individual attention. Larger groups split into two cohorts on separate days.

Participants receive a pocket-sized conversation planner card and a follow-up email two weeks later with a short self-assessment questionnaire. The four-week check-in call reviews how they have applied the method and troubleshoots any situations that did not go as planned.

Team alignment

When departments or teams disagree on priorities, the organisation slows down without anyone quite understanding why. This facilitated session brings the relevant people into one room and works through a structured process to surface those hidden conflicts.

The day starts with each participant writing down what they believe the team's top three priorities are, without discussion. We then compare answers on a shared board. In almost every session we have run, at least two people have fundamentally different lists. That moment of surprise is where the real work begins.

The middle of the day is spent negotiating a single priorities document. We use a forced-ranking exercise where the group must agree on an ordered list of no more than five priorities. This requires trade-offs and honest conversation about what matters most. The facilitator's role is to keep the discussion productive and to prevent any single voice from dominating.

The session closes with each participant writing one personal commitment: a specific action they will take in the next two weeks to support the agreed priorities. These commitments are shared with the group and revisited during the four-week follow-up call.

New-manager transition

The jump from individual contributor to manager is one of the hardest transitions in a career. Skills that earned the promotion, like deep technical ability and personal productivity, are suddenly less important than delegation, coaching, and setting direction for others.

Session one covers the first 90 days: how to run an effective first one-to-one with each direct report, how to set expectations without micromanaging, and how to identify which tasks to keep and which to hand over. Participants build a personal 90-day plan during the session.

Two weeks later, session two addresses the emotional side of the transition. New managers often feel guilty delegating work they used to enjoy, or struggle with the loneliness of no longer being "one of the team." We discuss these feelings openly and share coping strategies drawn from interviews with 40 managers who went through the same shift in the past three years.

This programme works best when participants are within their first six months of managing others. We have also run it as a pre-promotion programme for people who have been identified as future managers but have not yet taken on the role.