Leader Development

Developing healthy, efficient and improvement focused organisations.

Our Services

Leadership Capacity Development

Progressive and improvement focused organisations operating within the disruptive world know that long-term success requires a pipeline of visionary and adaptive leaders.

Technical professionals in most situations are now expected to perform as business partners, develop deep and genuine relationships with stakeholders to achieve better commercial outcomes as well as strong and ethical governance and management practices. Our leadership development programs use a science based approach to prepare ‘fit for future’ leaders that can consciously build and leverage the benefits of social capital to progress in the volatile and uncertain contexts.

We have programs built for:

Individuals

Teams

New Leaders

Senior Leaders

Open Enrolment

In the mind of a great leader: Executive Education Series

Leadership Sense making and reasoning are not entirely cerebral (IQ), we think with our heads but also our emotions and bodies (EQ) and our spirits, pursuits, endeavors, hopes, our sense of meaning and value (SQ).

Alignment of leadership IQ, EQ and SQ is required to thrive and survive in uncertainty and creatively realise the full potential of those around us.

Program Details

Market volatility, digital transformation, and innovation are changing the way organisations survive and thrive in every industry. Project professionals and leaders are now expected to be business partners who can develop deep, genuine and meaningful relationships with others and move beyond carrying out only the core knowledge based technical services.

Corporate Sherpa’s Executive Education Series is made up of four highly integrated modules that are designed to broaden the width, breadth, and length of leadership perspective taking to successfully steer through the disruptive business environment. You will explore how to identify, frame, and solve complex business problems in a variety of contexts by leveraging the strength of ‘Group IQ’. Built upon psychological and neuroscientific research, the workshops will cover –

Understanding the sharpening the self emotional quotient
Applying the science of trust to influence others
The psychological risk assessment of having difficult conversations
Leadership sensemaking of decisional context

Program Logistics

Who is this program meant for?

Executives and professionals responsible for organisational growth and sustainability.

How long is the program duration?

Four executive workshops held over four weeks.

Program Outcomes

Leveraging team and organisational emotions to achieve outcomes.
Understanding the brain based framework for communication and influence.
Tactfully holding difficult conversations to maintain trust, communication and relationships.
Consciously identifying contexts to optimise decision making.

Enquire Now

For Organisations

Conscious Leadership in Modern Business (CLIMB)

Over the past decade, amid a profound technological revolution, business leaders have faced geopolitical instability, hybrid work, a global pandemic, and economic volatility. Organisations today encounter two types of challenges: those with known solutions, requiring existing knowledge and workflows; and those with unknown solutions, demanding innovation, experimentation, and adaptation.

Adaptive Leadership focuses on addressing challenges with unknown solutions by mobilising individuals throughout the organisation to undertake adaptive work. This approach emphasises responding effectively to change and uncertainty. Leaders must skilfully navigate and manage the distress that accompanies such endeavours.

Unlike traditional leadership models with fixed protocols, adaptive leadership empowers individuals and teams to adjust behaviours, strategies, and mindsets as circumstances evolve. Essentially, adaptive leaders cultivate a culture of learning, unlearning, and relearning.

Program Details

Rooted in rigorous research within the field of social psychology and neuroscience, CLIMB is a capacity development project designed to empower leadership teams and technical professionals in enhancing their adaptive leadership capacities.

The CLIMB curriculum is designed to cultivate a healthy, efficient, and continuous improvement culture through 12 integrated modules. It offers hands-on, practical development with stories, tools, frameworks, cases, and action plans to help leaders push people beyond their comfort zones and tackle tough challenges. This framework is based on extensive discoveries across diverse Australian industries, including resources, engineering, construction, legal, financial, and not-for-profit sectors.

1. Adaptive Leadership and Business Performance:
Navigating Complexity by Leveraging Social Capital.

2. Leading Under Pressure:
Forging Excellence and Navigating Leadership Amidst Adversity.

3. Individual, Team and Organisational Resilience:
Building an indomitable Spirit to keep up with ever-increasing demands.

4. Cognitive Frame-Forging:
Elevating Cognition and Transcending Distortions to Maximise Performance.

5. Self-Mastery and Extreme Ownership:
Leveraging the Sphere of Influence in Adversity.

6. Earning Trust and Exercising Influence:
Unlocking Engagement and Collaboration.

7. Rewiring Performance:
Shaping new and improved behaviours and performance.

8. Leading Relentless Pursuit of Improvement:
Leadership as a curator of new ideas.

9. Leading Transformational Change:
Calibrating the organisational rate of change to the corporate strategy.

10. Navigating Conflict with Courage:
Enhancing performance by daring to disagree.

11. Optimising Leadership Decision Making:
Creating clarity and navigating decisional biases.

12. Putting the Pieces Together:
Practical Application of the Adaptive Leadership Journey.

Program Logisitics

Who is this program meant for?

CLIMB is best suited for experienced and future leaders – executives, senior leaders, professionals in high profile technical roles

How long is the program duration?

The CLIMB program consists of 10 half day workshops, with one workshop being delivered approximately every month. The total duration is 10 to 12 months.

How is it delivered?

In person.

Program Outcomes

Enhance mindset and behaviours to expand presence as an impactful leader and to address organisational challenges.
Enhanced capacity to lead and inspire diverse teams effectively to meet organisational goals.
Lead organisational change and transformation.
Develop a personal leadership philosophy and presence that reflect greater confidence and capabilities.
Create a detailed action plan related to your specific development needs.

Enquire Now

For New Leaders

Developing ‘fit For Future’ Emerging Leaders

The most common pitfall for technical individuals assuming leadership roles in professional services and resources industries is addressing adaptive challenges with technical solutions. This approach wastes resources, diminishes team cohesion and social capital, leads to frustration, and misses growth opportunities, ultimately impacting engagement, retention, and performance. It prevents the organisation from effectively tackling complex issues that require creative and collaborative approaches.

Program Details

Transitioning from an individual contributor to a first-time leader necessitates a profound evolution in emotional intelligence, cognitive flexibility, social acumen, and organisational awareness. This comprehensive development ensures new leaders handle their multifaceted roles with proficiency and insight.

Our customised development initiative for first-time leaders addresses this risk by providing a deeper understanding of leadership beyond technical expertise. It develops new habits, enhances sense-making abilities, and equips leaders to see the bigger picture. It empowers future leaders to navigate complex challenges with wisdom and foresight by expanding their perspective-taking. The programme is tailored to the context – professional services or resources industry.

Program Logistics

Who is this program meant for?

First time leaders. This comprehensive development ensures new leaders handle their multifaceted roles with proficiency and insight.

How long is the program duration?

6 – 8 months.

How is the program delivered?

In person

Program Outcomes

Understand and strengthen social Intelligence.
Communicating to influence with the brain in mind.
Setting clear expectations and empowering extreme ownership.
Exchanging effective critical feedback while enhancing motivation and self-efficacy.
Reinforcing helpful behaviours and mindsets.
Holding challenging conversations and leveraging conflict effectively.

Enquire Now

Executive and Senior Leaders

Community of Practice (COP)

Up until recently, confident decision-making and strong problem-solving skills were the top celebrated skills of leaders backed up with a certain amount of experience and knowledge.

However, leaders operating in the current dynamic and disruptive environments can no longer only rely upon their prior knowledge and experiences to make decisions from the given alternatives. The ability to make meaning, or sense, becomes the hidden superpower of the modern-day executives and leaders that will shape and move the organisations forward.

Program Details

COP is a leadership sensemaking series for Adaptive Leaders faced with Adaptive challenges. Sensemaking is needed most when we are facing adaptive challenges. Adaptive challenges occur when our environment is presenting us with surprises, which require a response outside of our existing repertoire. Leaders who are strong in sensemaking know how to quickly capture the complexities of their environment and clearly articulate with others in simple terms in resolving the Adaptive challenges.

During the series, leaders are guided to identify and articulate adaptive challenges within their current and future projects, make sense of them, and explore ways to experiment and identify a way forward. Sensemaking will enable the leaders to translate the unknown, chaotic, and complex into something that can be understood and explained, while also driving shared action of operating in an effective matrix framework.

Program Logisitics

Who is this program meant for?

This series is designed for executives, senior leaders and business owners.

How long is the program duration?

The COP series is designed to take place once a month, over 6-8 months.

Program Outcomes

The focus of the sensemaking discussions will be on:

Understand and envision the required culture.
Apply enterprise thinking and extreme and meaningful collaboration.
Clearly articulate the cultural and leadership challenges as constraints and design action-oriented commitments to resolve them.
Regulate emotional constraints in working through cultural complexities and pressures of a matrix structural relationships.
Build adaptive leadership capacity to strengthen relationships of the leadership team, by demonstrating:
- Vulnerability
- Growth mindset
- Empathy and social awareness
- Psychological safety
- Warmth in addition to competence

Enquire Now

Executive and Senior Leaders

Community of Practice (COP)

The COP is an Adaptive Leadership Sensemaking series conducted as unstructured facilitated dialogues among leadership teams. One critical leadership capability attracting attention from researchers is ‘sensemaking’. It involves interpreting dynamic organisational cues to grasp emerging issues, their implications, significance, and optimal responses amidst uncertainty.

Sensemaking is crucial for addressing complex adaptive organisational challenges when environmental surprises demand responses beyond existing methods. It enables leaders to interpret emerging patterns, adapt strategies in real-time, and develop innovative solutions beyond traditional frameworks. This approach ensures organisations remain agile and resilient in the face of uncertainty.

Program Details

Leaders articulate their understanding of organisational complexity and ambiguity through the significant themes like market and competitive pressure, operational challenges, government and regulation, human resource and human capital, technological disruption and external operating environment. During these dialogues, leaders participate in collaborative analysis and translate the unknown into actionable insights, fostering shared action.

Program Logisitics

Who is this program meant for?

Executives, senior leaders, and technical professionals in high profile technical roles.

How long is the program duration?

6 – 10 months.

How is the program delivered?

In person

Program Outcomes

Understanding current organisational constraints and envisioning an optimising culture.
Applying enterprise thinking and enabling meaningful collaboration while avoiding ‘Group Think’.
Exercising adaptive leadership mindset and enhancing social capital.
Managing emotional constraints amidst cultural complexities and matrix structures.
Designing action-oriented experiments to optimise organisational and project constraints.
Consensus-building on concrete optimisation initiatives.

Enquire Now