Leadership Development
- Managers are being promoted into leadership roles with no preparation for actually leading people?
- Good people are leaving, and the root cause keeps coming back to how they are being led?
- You have a leadership team with real talent that is not yet functioning as a unit?
- Your strategy looks strong at the top but is not translating into results on the ground?
- Engagement is dropping and the usual interventions are not moving the dial?
- You have tried leadership training before, and it has not stuck?
If any of those sound familiar, you are in the right place. We design programmes specifically around the issues you are facing, so that what gets delivered actually changes things.
What a Programme Could Include
Every programme is built around what your organisation actually needs. These are the building blocks we draw from, and in our experience, most organisations find they want all of them. The conversation is usually about where to start, not whether any of it is relevant.
- Mindset and the Science of Behaviour, why people do what they do, and how to change it
- Emotional Intelligence and Personal Impact, leading consistently, especially under pressure
- Managing and Developing People, getting the best from every person on the team
- Building High Performance Teams, trust, accountability, and results as a collective
- Building a Culture of Accountability, creating ownership at every level without creating fear
- Behavioural Profiling, a shared language that transforms how your team communicates
- Having Difficult Conversations, saying what needs to be said and getting a good outcome
- Coaching Skills for Leaders, developing people rather than just directing them
- Influencing Skills and Stakeholder Management, bringing people with you
- Negotiation Skills, building rapport, finding solutions, overcoming resistance
- Strategic Decision Making, better decisions under pressure, with incomplete information
- Executive Presentation Skills, communicating with authority in any room
- Crisis Management and Business Resilience, because it will never happen to you, until it does
- Organisational Culture and Values, defining the vision, values, and behaviours that drive everything elsee
We will work with you to decide what goes in, what order makes sense, and how to phase it across the time and budget you have available. The starting point is always a conversation.
How it is delivered matters as much as what is delivered.
Every organisation has its own culture, pace, and personality. A programme for a global manufacturing business feels different from one for an NHS trust. A leadership team in Australia needs something that lands differently from one in Central America. The content adapts, the language adapts, and the style of delivery adapts, because the best training meets people where they are, not where we are.
What a Programme Could Include
Every programme is built around what your organisation actually needs. These are the building blocks we draw from, and in our experience, most organisations find they want all of them. The conversation is usually about where to start, not whether any of it is relevant.
- Mindset and the Science of Behaviour, why people do what they do, and how to change it
- Emotional Intelligence and Personal Impact, leading consistently, especially under pressure
- Managing and Developing People, getting the best from every person on the team
- Building High Performance Teams, trust, accountability, and results as a collective
- Building a Culture of Accountability, creating ownership at every level without creating fear
- Behavioural Profiling, a shared language that transforms how your team communicates
- Having Difficult Conversations, saying what needs to be said and getting a good outcome
- Coaching Skills for Leaders, developing people rather than just directing them
- Influencing Skills and Stakeholder Management, bringing people with you
- Negotiation Skills, building rapport, finding solutions, overcoming resistance
- Strategic Decision Making, better decisions under pressure, with incomplete information
- Executive Presentation Skills, communicating with authority in any room
- Crisis Management and Business Resilience, because it will never happen to you, until it does
- Organisational Culture and Values, defining the vision, values, and behaviours that drive everything else
We will work with you to decide what goes in, what order makes sense, and how to phase it across the time and budget you have available. The starting point is always a conversation.
How it is delivered matters as much as what is delivered.
Every organisation has its own culture, pace, and personality. A programme for a global manufacturing business feels different from one for an NHS trust. A leadership team in Australia needs something that lands differently from one in Central America. The content adapts, the language adapts, and the style of delivery adapts, because the best training meets people where they are, not where we are.
What Changes
There is usually a moment when something has clearly shifted. A meeting that goes differently. A conversation that would have been avoided six months ago. A team member who brings a solution instead of a problem.
Here is what organisations typically notice after working with us:
- Leaders promoted without preparation, now leading with genuine confidence
- Teams that waited to be told, now taking ownership and solving problems themselves
- Conversations that were avoided, now happening early, honestly, and productively
- A leadership team of talented individuals, now a cohesive unit with shared trust
- Engagement improving, because of how people are being led, not a new initiative
- Business results following the culture shift, retention, performance, and commercial growth
And the results do not fade. Because we build around behaviour change rather than knowledge transfer, what people learn becomes how they work, permanently.
“I have worked with some of those people in other businesses since then, and they still refer to that training and coaching experience as transformational for them as leaders.”
Chris Claydon-Butler, Managing Director, Tunstall Healthcare
How We Work
Every engagement starts the same way, with a conversation where we do far more listening than talking.
Sometimes that conversation is short. You know what you need, you know who it is for, and we can move quickly. A focused workshop can be scoped, designed, and delivered in a matter of weeks.
Other times the challenge is bigger or more complex, and the right thing is to take more time to get it right. Either way, the starting point is the same.
In that first discovery call, we want to understand everything. Your organisation’s structure and culture. Your people, who they are, how they work, what drives them. The challenges you are navigating right now and the goals you are building towards over the next five or ten years. What you think is working. What you suspect might be getting in the way.
From that conversation, we put together a discussion document. Not a proposal. Not a brochure. A first draft, designed to be questioned, challenged, and changed.
That document often goes to the people who matter most in your organisation, the influencers, the decision-makers, the people whose buy-in will make or break the programme. We want as many of the right voices engaged as early as possible. Then we come back together for a walkthrough meeting where we tweak, polish, take things out, and put things in until the shape of the programme feels exactly right.
Sometimes there is another conversation after that, with a few key people, in person if needed, to make sure we have got the detail right before we build anything.
The Programme
Then we design the programme. And this is where it gets specific.
Because how something is delivered matters as much as what gets delivered. We will work through the detail together:
- Face to face or online, or a blend of both
- Full days or shorter focused sessions that respect people’s time
- Large cohorts or smaller groups where everyone gets heard
- One to one coaching running alongside the group work for people who need to go deeper
- Mastermind groups and peer learning sets that keep the momentum going long after the formal programme ends
We make those decisions together. And then we build something that fits your organisation, not the other way around.
The goal is always the same. We want the change to be permanent. Not dependent on us coming back. Not held together by enthusiasm from a good day in the training room. Genuinely embedded in how your people think, communicate, and lead.
Everything we design is built to keep working long after we have left the building.
And then we start. But even during delivery, the work keeps evolving. We are watching how each session lands, what is shifting in the business, what might need adjusting. Programmes adapt as organisations do. That is not a flaw in the process. It is the point of it.
Who This Is For
This programme is for organisations where leadership quality directly affects business performance. Which, in our experience, is every organisation.
It tends to be the right fit when:
- The organisation has serious ambitions, and needs its leaders to have the capability to make them happen
- A business is growing and the leadership team needs to scale with it
- A restructure, merger, or period of change has exposed gaps in leadership capability
- Managers are technically excellent but struggling with the people side of their role
- The leadership team has talent but is not yet operating as a cohesive unit
- Staff turnover is higher than it should be and the root cause keeps coming back to leadership
- Previous training has been tried and has not delivered lasting change
- A new MD, HR director, or L&D lead wants to make a meaningful difference
We work with organisations across every sector, from global manufacturers and financial services firms to NHS trusts and professional services businesses. If the challenge involves people and performance, the conversation is worth having.
What Makes This Different
There are plenty of leadership programmes out there. Here is why organisations who have tried others come to us.
It is practical, not theoretical.
Every concept is grounded in real situations. Participants do not sit and listen to ideas. They apply them, in the room, to their actual challenges. The tools they leave with are ones they can use the next morning.
“I have already had two 1-2-1s this morning and both account managers have commented on how valuable they have been.”
Jake White, Regional Sales Director, Brammer Buck and Hickman
It changes habits, not just knowledge.
Most training fills people with information they intend to use. Ours changes the daily patterns that shape how people actually behave. When habits change, results change. And they stay changed.
“I have been banging on to my husband for years how good your training was.”
Vanessa Law, Business Owner (sixteen years after the programme)
People change personally, not just professionally.
The shift does not happen at a skills level. It happens at the level of how people understand themselves. Their patterns, their responses, their impact on others. When that changes, the change is sustainable. It becomes who they are.
“Attending these sessions has really helped me to grow and improve both personally and professionally.”
Hassanatu Brereton, Nurse, London North West University NHS Trust
The brain is at the centre of everything we design.
Our programmes are built on neuroscience and psychology. Not as a talking point, but as the foundation of every session. We understand how habits form, what drives motivation, and why people resist change. Sessions are designed to work with the brain, not against it.
“You do not so much teach as lead people into a different way of thinking. That is what makes the difference. Because you have discovered it yourself, it changes the way you think and work.”Chris Claydon-Butler, Managing Director, Tunstall Healthcare
The results show up where it matters.
Better leadership produces better business outcomes. That is not a claim. It is what our clients tell us, consistently, long after the programme has ended.
“It really has made a positive impact and helped drive accountability, improve culture, and ultimately led to much improved efficiency, waste reduction and financial performance.”
Brian Harrison, Executive Head of Operations, Dr Oetker UK
Case Study: Dr Oetker UK
Dr Oetker UK had ambitious plans for their leadership and management teams. They wanted leaders who could genuinely inspire their people, drive accountability, and build a culture of engagement that would outlast any single programme.
They also understood the commercial reality. Staff turnover carries a significant cost, estimated at between £21,000 and £40,000 per leaver. Investing in the quality of leadership was not just the right thing to do. It made clear business sense.
“It really has made a positive impact and helped drive accountability, improve culture, and ultimately led to much improved efficiency, waste reduction and financial performance.”
Brian Harrison, Executive Head of Operations, Dr Oetker UK
Case Study: The Programme
Advance Performance designed a multi-month leadership development programme built around four areas: personal performance, personal leadership, leading individuals, and leading teams. Delivered over 12 to 18 months across multiple cohorts, it combined training days, behavioural profiling, one-to-one coaching, 360-degree feedback, and peer accountability sessions. Every element was designed to change daily habits, not just inspire better intentions.
The results were felt across the business.
Let’s talk about your organisation
Every programme starts with a conversation. No pitch, no pressure. Just an honest discussion about what is happening in your business and whether we can help.
See it in action
Read how we helped a major UK food manufacturer transform leadership accountability, culture, and business performance across their entire operation.
Explore our programmes
Difficult conversations rarely exist in isolation. See how our full range of team development programmes work together.