What participants report after completing the programme
"I walked into week one unsure whether I belonged in a senior role. By week eight I was leading a restructuring conversation with our board. The shift was specific: I learned to separate my anxiety from the room's actual dynamics."
Fiona Hartwell, Operations Director, Edinburgh-based logistics firm
"Other programmes gave me frameworks I forgot within a month. This one gave me a diagnostic habit. I still use the decision-mapping exercise from week five every single Monday morning."
Rajan Mistry, CTO, fintech startup (Series B)
"The 360-degree feedback session in week three was uncomfortable. Genuinely uncomfortable. But it was the first time I heard what my direct reports actually thought, and that changed how I run every meeting since."
Alison Crewe, VP People, Glasgow healthcare group
Executive Leadership Training that follows your real organisational timeline
Most leadership courses compress everything into two intense days, then send you back to the same desk with a binder. We run a 12-week structured programme because behaviour change takes repetition, reflection, and accountability across real working weeks.
Each cohort is capped at nine participants. You work through live organisational challenges, not hypothetical case studies.
Request your placeThe 12-week programme timeline
Below is the actual sequence. We do not rearrange it for convenience. The order matters because each phase builds cognitive scaffolding for the next.
Diagnostic intake
Before any teaching happens, we collect data. Each participant completes a structured self-assessment, nominates five colleagues for anonymous 360-degree feedback, and submits a written account of their three most difficult leadership moments from the past year. We analyse these inputs and build an individual development brief. Nothing generic.
Feedback confrontation
A full-day session where each participant receives their 360 results in a facilitated one-to-one conversation. This is not a comfortable day. We surface the gap between self-perception and external perception, and we do it with precision. Participants leave with a written gap analysis and two priority development targets.
Decision architecture
Two half-day workshops focused on how senior leaders actually make decisions under ambiguity. We teach a decision-mapping method adapted from clinical risk assessment. Participants practise it on live strategic questions from their own organisations. The emphasis is on speed of framing, not speed of conclusion.
Between sessions, each participant runs one real decision through the framework and reports back with a written debrief.
Conflict simulation
We run a half-day live simulation using professional actors who play difficult stakeholders: a resistant board member, a disengaged direct report, a hostile regulator. Participants navigate these conversations while being recorded. The debrief uses video playback to identify micro-behaviours: tone shifts, eye contact patterns, the moment they lose control of the conversation.
Strategic communication
Two sessions on how to communicate strategy to different audiences. Week seven covers downward communication: translating board-level strategy into team-level action without losing meaning. Week eight covers upward communication: presenting recommendations to a sceptical executive committee. Each participant delivers a live presentation and receives structured peer feedback.
Organisational design lab
Participants work in trios to redesign a real organisational structure. We provide anonymised case data from previous client engagements (with permission). The task is to propose a restructure that improves decision speed without losing accountability. Each trio presents their proposal and defends it against challenge from the facilitator and the wider cohort.
Personal leadership statement
Each participant writes and delivers a ten-minute personal leadership statement. This is not a motivational speech. It is a structured articulation of their leadership philosophy, their known weaknesses, and their commitments for the next twelve months. The cohort provides written feedback. We keep a copy on file and revisit it during the follow-up check-in.
Integration and accountability contract
The final session is not a celebration. It is a working session where each participant signs an accountability contract with a peer from the cohort. They commit to specific behavioural changes, define measurable indicators, and schedule three follow-up conversations over the next quarter. We facilitate the first of these conversations at the six-week mark after programme end.
"The accountability contract was the part I dreaded most. It was also the part that made the whole programme stick. My peer partner called me out twice in the first month, and both times she was right."
Tom Gallagher, Managing Director, Aberdeen engineering consultancy
Readiness check
This programme is not for everyone. We turn away roughly one in four applicants because the fit is wrong. Answer these honestly.
Good fit
- You manage at least two layers of people (direct reports who themselves manage others)
- You have been in a senior role for at least 18 months
- You can commit four hours per week outside sessions for reflection exercises
- You are willing to receive blunt, data-backed feedback about your leadership behaviour
Poor fit
- You are looking for a motivational event or team-building exercise
- Your organisation wants a tick-box compliance training
- You are unable to attend all twelve weeks (we do not allow partial attendance)
- You expect a certificate without behavioural change
How we work
Our method borrows from clinical supervision, military after-action review, and design thinking. We did not invent a proprietary acronym. We combined existing evidence-based practices and stripped out the parts that do not survive contact with a busy executive calendar.
Sessions run on Tuesday mornings, 08:30 to 12:30, in person at our Edinburgh facility or via secure video link for participants outside Scotland. We strongly prefer in-person attendance for weeks three, six, and eleven.
Facilitation model
Two facilitators per session. One leads content delivery; the other observes group dynamics and provides real-time process notes. Both hold chartered psychologist status.
Cohort design
Nine participants maximum. We deliberately mix sectors: a public-sector leader sits alongside a startup founder. Cross-sector challenge is where the most useful friction happens.
Materials
No slides decks distributed. Participants receive a structured workbook at week one and build it up across the programme. The workbook becomes a personal reference document, not a shelf ornament.
Follow-up
A 90-minute facilitated check-in at six weeks post-programme. A second optional check-in at six months. Both are included in the programme fee.
Based in Scotland, working across the UK
Our facility is in Kuhlmaning, a short drive from Edinburgh city centre. The training room holds twelve people comfortably. There is no branded signage on the building because several of our clients prefer discretion.
For organisations outside Scotland, we deliver the programme via secure video with in-person intensives at weeks three, six, and eleven. Travel and accommodation for those weeks are the participant's responsibility.
Programme fee: £8,400 per participant, invoiced in two instalments. Volume pricing is available for organisations enrolling three or more participants in the same cohort year.
Common questions
Can I attend individual weeks without enrolling in the full programme?
No. The programme is designed as a cumulative sequence. Dropping in for a single week removes the diagnostic foundation and the accountability structure that make the later weeks effective. We have tested modular delivery and the outcomes were measurably weaker.
What happens if I miss a week due to illness or travel?
We allow one missed session per participant. You receive a recorded summary and a 45-minute one-to-one catch-up with a facilitator before the next session. A second absence triggers a conversation about whether continuing is the right decision.
Is the 360-degree feedback shared with my employer?
Never. Your individual feedback data belongs to you. We share aggregate, anonymised cohort-level themes with sponsoring organisations if they request it, but no individual data leaves the facilitation team without your explicit written consent.
Do you offer executive coaching alongside the programme?
Yes, as an optional add-on. Six sessions of individual coaching, scheduled fortnightly alongside the programme, cost an additional £2,100. Roughly half of our participants take this option. The coaching is delivered by the same facilitators who run your cohort, which means continuity of context.
Request a conversation
We do not sell on the first call. The initial conversation is a mutual fit assessment: we ask about your context, you ask about our approach. It takes about 25 minutes.
Next cohort begins September 2026. Five places remain.