Leadership Consulting services
Below is a detailed look at each service we offer, what it involves, and who it is for. If something here matches what you need, get in touch and we will set up a scoping call.
Executive coaching
Our coaching is for people who already hold leadership positions and want to get better at specific aspects of the role. This is not a course with modules and certificates. It is a private, structured conversation between you and a consultant who has managed teams, budgets, and crises in real organisations.
Each session lasts 75 minutes. We start by reviewing what happened since we last spoke: what you tried, what worked, what did not. Then we focus on a single challenge you bring. That might be a difficult conversation you need to have with a direct report, a board presentation you are preparing, or a pattern you have noticed in how your team responds to pressure.
Between sessions, you complete a short exercise. These are not academic. One recent client spent a week asking every direct report the same question at the end of each one-to-one: "What is one thing I could do differently to make your work easier?" The answers reshaped how she ran her weekly team meeting.
Who this is for
CEOs, managing directors, heads of department, and newly promoted senior managers. We have coached leaders in technology companies, NHS trusts, legal firms, and construction businesses. The sector matters less than the willingness to be honest about what is not working.
Team diagnostic and realignment
When a leadership team is not functioning well, the symptoms are obvious: meetings that run long without decisions, the same arguments surfacing month after month, and key people quietly disengaging. The causes are harder to see from inside.
We begin by interviewing each member of the team individually. These conversations last 45 minutes and cover three areas: how decisions get made, how conflict is handled, and where accountability breaks down. We guarantee confidentiality for individual responses. Nobody is quoted by name in our findings.
After the interviews, we map the patterns. Common findings include: the team has no shared understanding of who owns which decisions, two or three members dominate discussions while others stay silent, or the team avoids disagreement in meetings but argues by email afterwards.
We present these findings in a half-day workshop with the full team. The second half of the workshop is practical: we work together to create a written set of operating agreements (who decides what, how disagreements are escalated, what information is shared and when). The output is a one-page document that the team can refer to in real meetings, not a 40-slide deck.
Typical timeline
Interviews take one to two weeks. The workshop happens within ten days of completing interviews. Follow-up check-ins happen at 30, 60, and 90 days to see whether the agreements are being followed and to adjust anything that is not working.
Leadership capability assessment
Generic 360-degree surveys produce generic results. We build each assessment around the competencies that matter for your organisation right now. If you are a fast-growing technology company, we weight the assessment towards delegation, hiring decisions, and managing ambiguity. If you are a public-sector body preparing for restructuring, we focus on communication during change, stakeholder management, and resilience.
The process works like this. We agree on six to eight competencies with the sponsor (usually the HR director or CEO). We design a questionnaire of 30 to 40 items, each tied to observable behaviours rather than vague traits. Respondents (typically the leader's manager, four to six peers, and four to six direct reports) complete the questionnaire online. The whole process takes about 15 minutes per respondent.
We score the results and benchmark them against our database of 1,200 UK leaders who have completed similar assessments since 2017. The leader receives a written report and a 60-minute debrief session with one of our consultants. The report identifies two or three development priorities and suggests specific actions for each.
What makes this different from off-the-shelf tools
Tools like Hogan or MBTI measure personality traits. They are useful, and we sometimes incorporate them as an optional add-on. But personality does not change much. Our assessment measures behaviour, which does change. A leader who scores low on "gives timely, specific feedback" in January can score significantly higher by June if they practise deliberately.
Workshop facilitation
We design and run half-day or full-day workshops for leadership teams. Each workshop is built from scratch around a specific question or challenge the team is facing. We do not have a library of off-the-shelf workshops that we rebrand for each client.
Recent workshop topics have included: how to run effective one-to-one meetings (for a group of 12 newly promoted team leaders at a logistics company), how to make faster decisions without losing buy-in (for the senior leadership team of an Edinburgh-based software firm), and how to give feedback that people actually hear (for clinical leads in an NHS trust).
Workshops are interactive. We use short exercises, role-play, and structured discussion. Participants leave with a written summary of what was agreed and a personal action they have committed to in front of the group. We follow up individually by email after two weeks to ask how the action went.
How we build a workshop
Briefing call
We speak to the sponsor for 30 minutes to understand the context: what prompted the request, who will be in the room, and what a good outcome looks like.
Design and review
We draft the workshop plan and share it with the sponsor for feedback. This usually takes three to five working days. We revise until the sponsor is satisfied.
Delivery
On the day, one of our consultants facilitates the session. For groups larger than ten, we bring a second facilitator at no extra cost.
Follow-up
Within 48 hours, we send a written summary of key discussions, decisions, and individual commitments. Two weeks later, we check in with each participant by email.
Succession planning support
Losing a key leader without a ready replacement is one of the most disruptive events an organisation can face. We help you identify which roles are most critical, assess internal candidates against the requirements of those roles, and build development plans that prepare them to step up within 12 to 18 months.
This service is included in our Partnership package but can also be purchased separately. We typically work on two to four roles at a time. For each role, we interview the current holder, review the job requirements, and assess two or three potential successors using our capability assessment framework.
The output is a confidential succession map showing readiness levels (ready now, ready in 6 months, ready in 12-18 months) and a development plan for each candidate. We review the map with the sponsor quarterly and adjust it as circumstances change.
"We brought them in after our operations director resigned with four weeks' notice. Within three months, they had assessed two internal candidates, coached the stronger one through the transition, and helped us restructure the reporting lines. The new director has been in post for a year now and the team is performing better than before."
— Finance director, manufacturing company, Central ScotlandReady to talk?
The first step is a 30-minute scoping call. It is free, and there is no obligation. We will ask about your situation, share relevant experience, and tell you honestly whether we think we can help. If we are not the right fit, we will suggest someone who might be.
Call us on 024 0854 0733 or email [email protected].
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