Leadership development programmes · UK and international
Leadership development programmes built for the moment your leaders are under pressure.
For HR, People and L&D leaders who have run the programme, read the glowing feedback forms, and then watched behaviour slide back within a quarter.
We design cohort programmes around your strategy, your leadership framework and the decisions your people are actually facing. Then we build in the routines that keep the change going after the last session. Co-designed with Google. Built for Serco.
In short
What is a MindsetShift leadership development programme?
A bespoke programme for a defined group of leaders: senior managers, new executives, high-potential talent, or leaders who are performing but not progressing. It mixes live sessions, action learning, coaching and manager involvement, and it is mapped to your own leadership behaviours. We agree how success will be measured before anyone walks into the first session.
- Who commissions it
- Chief People Officers, HR directors and L&D leads responsible for a leadership population.
- What it fixes
- Programmes that score well on the day and change nothing by the next quarter.
- How it runs
- Over several months, in person, virtual or blended. The Collective ran in eight countries.
Why programmes fade
Your leaders don't lack the model. They lose it when the pressure arrives.
Most leadership development teaches people what good looks like. They already know. What they need is help with the moment a hard quarter, a restructure or a difficult stakeholder pulls them back into old habits. If the programme never touches that moment, the investment fades with the slide deck.
- The content sits apart from the work, so nothing gets tried on a live problem.
- Line managers are left out, and they decide what new behaviour survives.
- Measurement stops at satisfaction scores, so nobody can say what changed.
- The programme borrows a generic framework instead of your own leadership behaviours.
What we build
Designed so the learning survives the first bad week back.
Design mapped to your framework
We use your leadership behaviours and your language. IGNITE was built around Serco's own behaviours: belonging, growth, collaboration, safety, results and learning.
Action learning on real work
Small groups take each idea into a workplace experiment, then come back and review what happened. That is where most of the learning sticks.
Managers and sponsors in the loop
Mentors, sponsors and line managers are part of the design, because they shape access, visibility and whether new behaviour is rewarded.
Coaching where it counts
One-to-one executive coaching for the leaders whose behaviour has the widest blast radius.
An honest measurement plan
We separate what participants report at the end from what you should track at 12 and 18 months, such as progression, internal moves and manager observation.
Evidence
Two programmes, with the numbers and their limits.
IGNITE for Serco
87.5 NPS
A nine-month programme for Black leaders. 90% of participants were confident applying what they learned. Participant-reported, end of programme.
Read the case studyThe Collective with Google
1,500+ managers
A six-month onboarding experience across eight countries. Google's 2023 Diversity Annual Report: 93% of the inaugural class said it was worth their time, and more than 75% of eligible Googlers opted in.
Read the case studyWe publish what these figures measure and what they don't. If a provider can't tell you that, ask why.
Programmes we design
Common starting points.
Senior leader programmes
For directors and heads of function who carry strategy, politics and pressure, and pass it on to their teams.
New executive transition
For leaders stepping into a bigger seat, where the habits that got them promoted start to work against them.
Inclusive leadership and progression
For capable people who are performing but not progressing, and the managers and sponsors around them.
Manager onboarding
For organisations where new joiners take too long to work out how decisions, influence and success really work.
Questions HR and L&D teams ask before commissioning.
- It depends on the change you need. The two programmes in our published case studies ran for six and nine months, because behaviour has to be tested in real work before it holds. Shorter formats exist, and we will tell you plainly if a short programme won't deliver what you are being asked to deliver.
Tell us who the programme is for and what has to change.
One scoping conversation is enough to know whether we are the right partner, and what a realistic programme would look like.
Discuss a programme