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The SeriesLeadership Programme
Leadership Development & Culture Programme

Growing Leaders at Every Stage

A tiered, evidence-based programme that builds self-awareness, strengthens teams, and develops leadership capability from individual contributor through to enterprise leader — anchored in a common strengths language.

Individual Growth Intact Team Development CliftonStrengths Foundation Leadership Circle 360° Four Leadership Tiers Culture Transformation
Self & Individual Contributor New Leader / Team Lead Leader of Leaders Executive / Enterprise
Guiding Philosophy

Leadership is developed, not appointed

This programme is built on a simple conviction: every person in your organisation is a leader in some context, and every leader has the capacity to grow. Our tiered approach meets people where they are and builds capability systematically — from inner awareness outward to enterprise impact.

Common Language, Layered Depth

CliftonStrengths provides a shared vocabulary across the entire organisation. As leaders progress, more sophisticated instruments — LSI, Leadership Circle, Hogan — add depth appropriate to their role complexity.

Inside-Out Development

Lasting leadership growth begins with self-awareness. Each tier deepens the leader’s understanding of their impact on others before expanding to team, system, and cultural influence.

Individual and Collective

Individual coaching and intact team interventions run in parallel. Personal insight that is never applied in the team context rarely sticks. Both threads are essential.

Evidence-Informed, Human-Centred

All tools are selected for psychometric rigour and practical resonance. Data from assessments informs coaching; it never replaces the human relationship at the centre of development.

The Leadership Journey

Four Tiers of Leadership Development

The programme is structured across four tiers that reflect real organisational transitions — each with distinct development priorities, tools, and team-based interventions.

🌱Tier 1

Self & Individual Contributor

All staff · No direct reports · Building personal foundations

🎯
Individual ProgrammeKnow Your Strengths
  • CliftonStrengths Top 5 (or full 34) assessment
  • 1:1 strengths discovery debrief session
  • Personal strengths action plan
  • Monthly strengths journal prompts
  • Strengths-based goal-setting with manager
  • Peer strengths-spotting conversations
🤝
Team ExperienceStrengths in Teams
  • Team strengths mapping workshop (half day)
  • Strengths grid: who brings what to the team
  • Appreciating difference conversations
  • Team charter anchored in collective strengths
  • Quarterly team strengths reflection
📚
Learning PathwaysFoundations of Self
  • Emotional intelligence fundamentals (EQ-i primer)
  • Communication and influencing style awareness
  • Psychological safety & speaking up
  • Resilience and wellbeing practices
  • Introduction to leadership mindsets
CliftonStrengths (Top 5) DiSC (optional)
🌿Tier 2

New Leader / Team Lead

First-time managers · Team leaders · Frontline supervisors · Up to ~3 years in role

🔍
Individual ProgrammeLead with Strengths
  • CliftonStrengths full 34 themes assessment
  • Strengths-based leadership coaching (4 sessions)
  • Understanding strengths in overdrive / blind spots
  • MBTI or DiSC for communication style depth
  • Situational leadership framework
  • Feedback giving & receiving skills
  • Personal leadership brand definition
👥
Team ExperienceBuilding a Strengths Team
  • Team strengths deep-dive (full day)
  • Domain balance analysis: are we Executing-heavy?
  • Strengths-based role alignment review
  • Team working agreements & commitments
  • FIRO-B: interpersonal needs & inclusion dynamics
  • Conflict navigation through a strengths lens
🛠
Learning PathwaysFoundations of Leading
  • Transitioning from peer to leader
  • Performance conversations that work
  • Coaching skills for managers (GROW model)
  • Delegation and accountability frameworks
  • Creating psychological safety in your team
  • Managing up and across
CliftonStrengths (Full 34) MBTI DiSC Management EQ-i 2.0 (optional)
🌳Tier 3

Leader of Leaders

Senior managers · Department heads · Leading teams of teams · Experienced in people management

Individual ProgrammeLeadership Circle 360°
  • Leadership Circle Profile (LCP) 360° — self + 10–12 raters
  • Deep debrief: Creative vs Reactive Leadership profile
  • Identifying inner beliefs driving reactive patterns
  • Targeted executive coaching programme (6–8 sessions)
  • CliftonStrengths revisited through leadership lens
  • Personal development plan with 90-day focus areas
  • Optional: LSI 1 & 2 for behavioural style depth
🏗
Team ExperienceHigh-Performing Leadership Teams
  • Team LCP profiles — shared collective view
  • Team strengths & leadership domain mapping
  • Collective reactive patterns & their team impact
  • Leadership team effectiveness deep-dive (1.5 days)
  • Strategic alignment & shared ownership conversations
  • Psychological safety audit
  • Cascade and coaching of their people leaders
🧭
Learning PathwaysLeading Across Systems
  • Leading through complexity and ambiguity
  • Developing your people leaders
  • Organisational politics and influence
  • Culture and climate — your shadow as a leader
  • Strategy execution through people
  • Change leadership and stakeholder management
Leadership Circle Profile (360°) CliftonStrengths (Full 34) LSI 1 & 2 (optional) EQ-i 2.0
🦅Tier 4

Executive / Enterprise Leadership

C-suite · Senior executives · Board directors · Shaping enterprise-wide culture and direction

🔭
Individual ProgrammeExecutive LCP + Hogan Suite
  • Leadership Circle Profile 360° (annual cadence)
  • Hogan Suite: HPI + HDS (derailers) + MVPI (values)
  • Integrated debrief: LCP + Hogan + Strengths synthesis
  • Senior executive coaching programme (10–12 sessions)
  • Succession readiness and legacy conversations
  • Board effectiveness and governance lens
  • Peer advisory group / executive learning community
🏛
Team ExperienceExecutive Team Alignment
  • Collective LCP and Hogan synthesis — the team’s shadow
  • Leadership Circle Inventory (LCI) — culture diagnosis
  • OCI/OEI — current vs desired culture mapping
  • Strengths of the executive team: blind spots and gaps
  • Executive team off-site: strategy, culture & alignment (2 days)
  • Defining the culture the organisation needs to succeed
  • Accountability structures and follow-through rituals
🌐
Learning PathwaysEnterprise Leadership
  • Purpose-driven enterprise leadership
  • Creating and sustaining a strengths-based culture
  • Governing complex, adaptive systems
  • The leader’s role in talent & succession ecosystems
  • Communicating vision across diverse audiences
  • Leading in uncertainty: adaptive leadership practices
Leadership Circle Profile (360°) Hogan Suite (HPI·HDS·MVPI) CliftonStrengths EQ-i 2.0 LSI / OCI (culture)
The Culture Foundation

CliftonStrengths as the Organisational Language

Gallup’s CliftonStrengths is deployed organisation-wide — creating a common language for how people talk about talent, contribution, and difference. It is the culture thread that connects every tier of the programme.

🗣

A Shared Vocabulary

When everyone speaks strengths — from the factory floor to the boardroom — conversations about performance, teams, and growth become richer, more specific, and more human.

Energy & Engagement

Gallup research consistently links strengths awareness to a significant uplift in employee engagement. People who use their strengths daily are more productive and more likely to stay.

🎯

Role Alignment

Strengths data helps managers place people in roles where their natural talents are used — not just their technical skills. Better fit means better outcomes and lower turnover.

🌉

Bridge to Advanced Tools

CliftonStrengths is the accessible entry point. It creates the self-awareness and openness to feedback that makes more sophisticated tools — LCP, Hogan — land with far greater impact.

📊

Team Intelligence

Aggregate team reports reveal domain coverage and gaps. Is the team light on Influencing? Heavy on Executing but thin on Strategic Thinking? This data shapes team design and hiring decisions.

🔁

Positive, Scalable Loop

Strengths-based culture sustains itself: recognition conversations, onboarding, performance reviews, and promotions all reinforced through the same language across the full organisation.

⚙️ Executing

Themes: Achiever · Arranger · Belief · Consistency · Deliberative · Discipline · Focus · Responsibility · Restorative. People strong here make things happen and follow through.

💬 Influencing

Themes: Activator · Command · Communication · Competition · Maximizer · Self-Assurance · Significance · Woo. People strong here sell the team’s ideas inside and outside the organisation.

❤️ Relationship Building

Themes: Adaptability · Connectedness · Developer · Empathy · Harmony · Includer · Individualization · Positivity · Relator. These are the glue that holds high-performing teams together.

🧠 Strategic Thinking

Themes: Analytical · Context · Futuristic · Ideation · Input · Intellection · Learner · Strategic. People strong here keep teams focused on what could be, absorbing and analysing information.

Advanced Leadership Tool

Leadership Circle Profile: The 360° That Goes Deeper

From Tier 3 onwards, the Leadership Circle Profile (LCP) is the centrepiece instrument. It is the only 360° tool that integrates leadership competency data with the inner belief systems that drive — or limit — a leader’s effectiveness.

Creative Leadership Competencies

  • Relating — Caring connection, fosters team cohesion
  • Self-Awareness — Authenticity, reflective practice
  • Authenticity — Integrity, courageous authenticity
  • Systems Awareness — Community concern, sustainable productivity
  • Achieving — Strategic focus, purposeful vision
  • Decisiveness — Clear direction, drives results

Reactive Tendencies to Develop

  • Complying — Pleasing, belonging, conservative
  • Protecting — Arrogance, critical, distance
  • Controlling — Perfection, driven, ambition
  • These patterns are rooted in underlying belief systems
  • LCP surfaces the beliefs, not just the behaviours
  • Coaching focuses on the inner shift, not symptom management

What the 360° Process Involves

  • Self-assessment + 10–15 raters (manager, peers, direct reports)
  • Confidential rater responses — 124-item survey
  • Rich visual circumplex profile with normative benchmarking
  • Self-perception vs others gap analysis
  • Narrative comments from raters (verbatim, anonymised)
  • Delivered only by certified LCP practitioners

Using LCP with Teams

  • Aggregate team LCP reveals collective reactive patterns
  • Team strengths and leadership gaps made visible
  • Leadership Culture Inventory (LCI) for whole-org culture diagnosis
  • Enables frank leadership team conversations
  • Action planning grounded in shared data
  • Tracks progress: reassessment at 12–18 months
Step 01
Nomination

Leader nominates raters. Practitioner reviews and advises on balance of rater groups.

Step 02
Survey

Self and raters complete the 124-item online LCP survey. Takes 20–30 minutes.

Step 03
Profile Generation

Rich visual circumplex report generated with benchmarking against global norms database.

Step 04
Debrief

Facilitated 2-hour debrief with certified practitioner. Exploration of data and inner beliefs.

Step 05
Coaching

Multi-session coaching programme anchored in LCP data and personal development plan.

Step 06
Reassessment

LCP repeated at 12–18 months to track leadership growth and embed accountability.

Intact Team Development

Every Tier Has a Team Dimension

Individual development alone rarely changes an organisation. Intact team interventions ensure insights are activated collectively, creating the conditions for sustained culture change at every level.

Tier 1🌱

Strengths Discovery Workshop

A half-day experience where all team members share their CliftonStrengths, build a team strengths grid, and create a team charter that honours their collective talents and acknowledges gaps.

Half DayAll StaffCliftonStrengths
Tier 2⚙️

Team Effectiveness Review

A full-day facilitated session combining strengths domain analysis, a working agreement reset, FIRO-B interpersonal needs exploration, and structured team feedback conversations.

Full DayNew Leader TeamsStrengths + FIRO-B
Tier 2🔄

Manager Cohort Learning Sets

Peer learning circles of 6–8 new managers meeting monthly to share challenges, apply tools, and hold one another accountable. Facilitated by an internal or external coach.

Monthly · 2hrsManager CohortPeer Learning
Tier 3🏗

Leadership Team Deep-Dive

A 1.5-day residential for senior leadership teams. Combines collective LCP debrief, strategic alignment, psychological safety assessment, and creation of a shared leadership development commitment.

1.5 DaysSenior LeadersLCP + Strengths
Tier 3🪞

Culture Shadow Audit

Leaders examine their collective shadow — the culture they are creating through their behaviours. Uses LSI Organisational Culture Inventory (OCI) data alongside team LCP profiles to surface gaps between intent and impact.

Half DayLeader of LeadersLSI + LCP
Tier 4🏛

Executive Culture Lab

A 2-day executive off-site integrating LCI culture diagnosis, Hogan derailer insights, and strengths gap mapping. The output is a co-created culture blueprint with individual and collective commitments.

2 DaysExecutive TeamLCI + Hogan + LCP
Tier 4🔗

Cross-Tier Cascade Programme

Structured cascade where each leader tier delivers a strengths-based development experience one tier down. Creates shared language, builds manager capability, and embeds culture throughout the hierarchy.

OngoingAll TiersCliftonStrengths
All Tiers📅

Quarterly Strengths Pulse

A 60-90 minute quarterly team ritual: celebrate strengths in action, explore where overdrive is showing up, and identify one strength the team wants to develop or deploy differently next quarter.

90 mins · QuarterlyAll TeamsCliftonStrengths
Programme at a Glance

Full Programme Matrix

A consolidated view of tools, interventions, and cadences across all four tiers for individual and team development.

Tier Audience Primary Assessment(s) Individual Intervention Team Intervention Coaching Cadence
Tier 1 · Self All staff · Individual contributors CliftonStrengths Top 5 Strengths discovery debrief · Personal action plan Strengths Discovery Workshop (half day) Strengths conversation with manager Onboarding + annual refresh
Tier 2 · New Leader First-time managers · Team leads CliftonStrengths Full 34 · MBTI or DiSC Strengths coaching (4 sessions) · Leadership foundations programme Team Effectiveness Review (full day) · Manager cohort learning sets 4 coaching sessions over 6 months First 12 months in role + annual
Tier 3 · Leader of Leaders Senior managers · Dept heads Leadership Circle Profile (360°) · CliftonStrengths · EQ-i 2.0 · LSI (optional) LCP debrief · Executive coaching programme (6–8 sessions) · Development plan Leadership team deep-dive (1.5 days) · Culture shadow audit · Cascade to Tier 2 6–8 coaching sessions over 9–12 months Annual LCP cycle · Quarterly team sessions
Tier 4 · Executive C-suite · Senior executives Leadership Circle Profile (360°) · Hogan Suite (HPI·HDS·MVPI) · CliftonStrengths · EQ-i 2.0 Integrated LCP + Hogan debrief · Executive coaching (10–12 sessions) · Peer advisory group Executive Culture Lab (2 days) · LCI culture diagnosis · Cross-tier cascade 10–12 coaching sessions annually Annual LCP · 18-month Hogan refresh · Quarterly team
Implementation Roadmap

Phased Rollout

A 24-month implementation pathway that builds capability progressively, starting with leadership alignment and cascading across the organisation.

Phase 01
Months 1–3

Foundation & Design

  • Stakeholder engagement & programme co-design
  • Executive sponsorship secured
  • Internal capability assessment
  • Practitioner certification planning (LCP, CliftonStrengths)
  • Technology & logistics setup
  • Communication strategy developed
  • Pilot cohort identified (Tier 3)
Phase 02
Months 4–9

Executive & Senior Leader Launch

  • Tier 4: Executive LCP 360° rollout
  • Executive Culture Lab off-site
  • Hogan assessments for executive team
  • Tier 3 pilot: LCP 360° for senior managers
  • Leadership team deep-dive sessions
  • Executive coaching programmes begin
  • Internal coach capability begins building
Phase 03
Months 10–18

Manager & Organisation Cascade

  • Tier 1: CliftonStrengths organisation-wide rollout
  • Strengths workshops for all teams
  • Tier 2: New leader programme launches
  • Manager cohort learning sets established
  • Strengths embedded in onboarding
  • Performance & development processes aligned
  • Quarterly Strengths Pulse rituals embedded
Phase 04
Months 19–24

Embed & Sustain

  • LCP reassessment: Tier 3 & 4 leaders
  • Culture pulse: measure shift since baseline
  • Succession & talent review integration
  • Internal facilitator certification complete
  • Programme evaluation & ROI analysis
  • Strengths embedded in recruitment & selection
  • Year 3 strategy & evolution planning
Measuring What Matters

Success Indicators

A balanced measurement framework spanning engagement, culture, leadership effectiveness, and organisational performance — assessed at individual, team, and system levels.

📈
↑21%
Average increase in employee engagement linked to strengths-based management (Gallup, 2023)
🎯
LCP
Annual Leadership Circle Profile rescore tracks creative leadership growth against global norms
🤝
eNPS
Employee Net Promoter Score tracked bi-annually as a leading indicator of culture health
🌡
OCI
Organisational Culture Inventory (Human Synergistics) baseline and 18-month rescore
🏆
↓19%
Target reduction in manager-related voluntary turnover over 24 months
💬
360°
Rater-perceived leadership effectiveness improvement tracked at individual and tier level
🔬
Psych
Psychological safety pulse surveys in each intact team — quarterly, 5-item measure
📋
90-Day
Post-programme 90-day manager check-in: behaviour change observed and self-reported
Through the Practice Lens · The Throughline · The Frames · The Questions · The Weather

Leadership development is learning to see your own “as we are.”

Every leader reads their team through filters — their history, their strengths in overdrive, what this week has cost them. Those reads arrive instantly and feel like facts. This journey runs inside-out because a leader who has never seen their own filters will spend a career confidently mis-reading the people in front of them. The instruments aren’t assessments for a file. They are mirrors, made safe.

We don’t see things as they are — we see them as we are. The practitioner’s rule applies doubly to leaders: my reads are weather too.
CliftonStrengths · All tiers

Names the default filters

Your Top 5 are the lens you were already looking through — and strengths in overdrive are the first weather warnings: the Achiever who reads rest as laziness, the Harmoniser who reads challenge as conflict.

Leadership Circle · Tiers 3–4

Surfaces the weather patterns — safely

The reactive tendencies — complying, protecting, controlling — are weather patterns worn as leadership style. Normed, 360-sourced and framed as development, the LCP lets a leader look at their own recurring weather without shame — and see what the climate needs from them instead.

LSI & Hogan · Tiers 2–4

Reads the History & Identity dials

Where the patterns were written — the two dials of the feeling equation that turn ordinary events into decades-old files.

EQ-i & 360° · All tiers

Reads the wave — and how it lands

The ninety-second wave is physiology, not character. And every 360 answers the question the equation makes unavoidable: your weather is someone else’s event.

The tiers, across the four frames

T1 · Operations of self — meet your own weather before leading anyone else’s. T2 · Engagement — read a team’s different weathers to the same event; never correct someone’s weather while they’re standing in it. T3 · Outcomes — hold your leaders accountable for their climates, not just their numbers. T4 · Change — at this altitude your weather doesn’t stay yours: it becomes everyone’s forecast.

The three questions, at every tier

Whatever the tier, a leader’s people are always asking: “Whose priorities matter?” (power & control) · “Who has my back?” (care, closeness & kindness) · “Do I matter to you?” (respect & recognition). Most resistance and disengagement is one of these three being answered badly — usually without the leader noticing it was asked.

The full engine behind this lens lives in As We Are — the five-part series, the frames and questions on the practice’s method, and the reference model in Deep Dive 04 · Learning, Leadership & Succession. The question this section wants to leave with you: which of your leaders’ weather patterns is currently writing your climate?

This programme framework is designed to be adapted to your organisation’s context, culture, and capacity. All assessments should be administered by certified practitioners. Tools should complement — never replace — the skilled human relationships that are the heart of development.

Where this connects on the site

This kind of programme, in your organisation? hello@thepeoplepractice.au →

Growing leaders at every stage

This programme is the method in the open. When you’re ready to run it on your organisation, it starts with a conversation.

Start the conversation →
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