Course Overview
This 2 Day Advanced Corporate Leadership Training is highly invaluable and specially designed for senior and junior leaders who have already mastered the basics in performance and accountability conversations. The focus is on nuance, difficult conversations, emotional agility, and systemic ownership—moving from theory to advanced application through rigorous role play and peer coaching.
Instructor-Led Discussions: Throughout the course, participants will engage in interactive discussions and roleplays to apply concepts to real-world leadership challenges. The focus will be on practical application, experiential learning, strategic communication approaches, lots of immersive deep cognitive thinking, self-reflection and immersive transformational thinking.
This programme is designed to help leaders strengthen communication, accountability, emotional intelligence, and ownership culture within the workplace. Participants will gain practical leadership tools to navigate difficult workplace conversations, performance reviews, feedback delivery, and people management challenges with greater confidence and clarity.
Learning Outcomes
By the end of this two-days highly interactive programme, participants will be able to:
Master Performance & Accountability Conversations in areas of:-
- Advanced Performance Reviews
- Performance Conversations Lab
- Goal Setting & KPIs That Drive Ownership
- Ownership & Accountability Without Blame Culture
Master Communication, Listening & Feedback as a Leadership System which will cover:-
- Communication Refinement: Language & Emotional Awareness
- Advanced Feedback & Listening Skills
- Integrated Performance Review
- Peer Coaching Integration
The programme also aims to strengthen leadership confidence in handling sensitive conversations, managing performance concerns, and coaching employees towards continuous improvement. Participants will leave the training with actionable leadership tools, communication frameworks, and accountability strategies that can be implemented immediately within their teams and organisations.
Methodology
- (Method – Where Used)
- Role Play / Skills Lab – Performance reviews, bad news delivery, accountability conversations, feedback rewrites
- Peer Coaching – Triad debriefs, blind listening, post-training commitment pairs option
- Performance Review Role Play – Full 15-min simulation with rotating observers on Day 2
The methodology used throughout this programme is highly practical, interactive, and experiential. Participants will actively engage in role plays, coaching exercises, leadership simulations, and reflective learning activities to ensure deeper understanding and practical application of leadership concepts.
Course Content
Day 1: Mastering Performance & Accountability Conversations
Theme: Moving from process-driven reviews to impact-driven, human-centered accountability.
Module 1 : Opening & Warm-Up
- Activity: “The One Thing We Avoid” – Leaders anonymously write down one performance conversation they’ve been avoiding. These set the day’s real-world stakes.
Module 2 : Advanced Performance Reviews: Beyond the Rating
Key Concepts:
- Separating performance data from performance identity
- How to review someone whose results are good but behaviors are toxic
- Calibrating across teams without bureaucratic language
Skill Lab: Review a deliberately ambiguous performance case (mixed metrics, unclear cause). Leaders draft two versions of a review summary: one for HR file, one for the employee conversation.
Module 3 : Performance Conversations Lab (Role Play Heavy)
- Scenario A (Junior leader): An employee meets metrics but has alienated peers. How do you address how they work, not just what they deliver?
- Scenario B (Senior leader): A high-potential manager is under-delivering due to burnout. How do you review without punishing capability?
- Method: Triads (Leader = reviewer / Peer = employee / Coach = observer). 10 min role play + 5 min structured peer feedback.
- Observer checklist: Did the leader separate person from performance? Did they name the gap specifically? Did they leave the employee with clarity or confusion?
Module 4 : Goal Setting & KPIs That Drive Ownership, Not Gaming
- Advanced Topic: Why SMART goals fail for knowledge work. Moving to commitment-based and learning-based goals.
- Key Models:
- Contrasting KPIs: What gets measured vs. what matters
- Ownership loops: “I own X, and I will escalate if Y happens by Z”
- Application: Leaders bring a real KPI from their team. In pairs, they rewrite it to encourage ownership, not just compliance.
Module 5 : Ownership & Accountability Without Blame Culture
- The Language Shift:
- Blame: “Who dropped the ball?”
- Accountability: “What did we assume? What did I miss as a leader?”
- Skill Lab – “The Accountability Pause”: Leaders are given scenarios where something went wrong. First response is recorded. Then they rephrase using accountable language (“I allowed”, “we didn’t design for”, “I didn’t verify”).
- Peer Coaching: Each leader identifies one system where they’ve seen blame cycles. Peer challenges them: “Where did you, as a leader, contribute to that system?”
Day 1 Close & Reflection
- Journaling prompt: “What performance conversation have I been avoiding because I lacked skill, not will?”
Day 2: Communication, Listening & Feedback as a Leadership System
Theme: Language as action. How small refinements in tone, structure, and listening shift team behaviours.
Day 1 Recap & Check-In
- Activity: Leaders share one insight from Day 1 they’ve already applied (even overnight).
Module 6 : Communication Refinement: Language & Emotional Awareness
- Advanced Concepts:
- Register matching: When to use leader voice vs. peer voice vs. coach voice
- Emotional contagion: How your calm or tension spreads within 7 seconds
- “Clean” vs. “Loaded” language: Removing right/wrong, always/never, should/must
- Skill Lab – Rewrite the Room: Leaders are given 5 real sentences from past meetings (some passive-aggressive, some vague, some accusing). They rewrite each in clean, emotionally aware leader language.
- Role Play: One leader delivers bad news (budget cut, project kill). Peer rates them on: Did they name the emotion? Did they avoid false reassurance?
Module 7 : Advanced Feedback & Listening Skills
- The Listening Layers:
- Level 1: Listening to reply
- Level 2: Listening to understand
- Level 3: Listening to what’s not said (hesitation, deflection, silence)
- Feedback Models Reviewed: SBI (Situation-Behaviour-Impact) → upgraded to SBI + Need (What does this person need to hear to act?)
- Skill Lab – Blind Listening: In pairs, one leader shares a real work problem for 3 minutes. The other listens without asking questions or solving. Then summarizes back the emotion, value, and unspoken request.
Module 8 : Integrated Performance Review Role Play (Full Simulation)
- Setup: Each leader receives a fictional employee file (6 months of data, one peer comment, one customer complaint, one weak area, one strength).
- Task: 15-minute performance review conversation with a peer playing the employee.
- Rotating Observer Roles:
- Observer 1: Tracks goal/KPI clarity
- Observer 2: Tracks ownership language (vs. blame/vague language)
- Observer 3: Tracks listening (did they pause? paraphrase? miss cues?)
- Debrief after each round: 5 minutes of structured feedback from all three observers.
Module 9 : Peer Coaching Integration
- Activity – “My One Behavioural Shift”: Each leader writes down one specific language or listening behaviour they will change starting tomorrow.
- Advance Coaching Tools: Gap Analysis, Pacing and Leading Communications
- Activity – Peer Coaching Pairs: Uplifting from where you are to where you want to be
Module 10 : Close & Advanced Application
- Final Round Robin: Each leader shares one thing they will stop doing, start doing, and continue doing.
- Takeaway: One-page advanced leader toolkit (language prompts, listening checklist, accountability audit questions)
