LEADERSHIP THAT HOLDS UNDER PRESSURE
Helping leaders build the capacity to lead what’s next
We support leaders at every level to grow the mindset, skills, and presence needed to lead through change, scale with purpose, and shape resilient teams.
Our work blends strategic consulting with transformative learning, helping leaders build the skills, mindsets, and capacity to lead through complexity, scale with intention, and shape resilient, innovative organizations.
Whether you’re navigating a moment of change or building for long-term growth, we co-create experiences that align with your goals and organizational culture.
How we work
We combine strategic clarity with deep leadership development to ensure change lasts:
- Strategic leadership consulting: We support leaders through key inflection points – revitalizing team performance, designing innovation strategies, managing conflict, or scaling during rapid growth.
- Transformational leadership development: We design custom leadership programs that go beyond skills to shift mindset, strengthen culture, and deepen individual and collective impact.
- Expertise-Driven Approach: Our programs are grounded in adaptive leadership, systems thinking, adult learning theory, and decades of real-world leadership experience in fields including diplomacy, entrepreneurship, science, politics, and the military.
Co-Created
Never One Size Fits All
Our most transformative work happens when we build leadership journeys in true partnership. We start by understanding your goals, context, and culture – then design a program where every element reinforces the others.
From high-touch retreats to multi-year programs, we create systems of learning that evolve with your organization and prepare leaders to navigate the now – and shape what’s next.
Inside a Leadership Development Engagement
Our Leadership Development Process
We work with leaders at every level who are shaping change in real time:
- Senior executives navigating transformation or renewal
- Cross-functional teams leading complex initiatives
- Founders and innovation leaders building leadership culture as they grow
- Mission-driven organizations developing strong internal leadership pipelines
We deploy a 6 step iterative process
1: Understand the Landscape: We listen and diagnose your organization’s context, culture, and goals to identify key leadership challenges and opportunities.
2: Co-Design the Journey: Together, we create a tailored leadership development strategy aligned with your organization’s priorities, people, and culture.
3: Launch Targeted Interventions: We deliver experiential programs—such as workshops, simulations, or strategy sprints—to build adaptive and collaborative leadership skills.
4: Layer for Impact: We implement multi-level, sequenced learning experiences (retreats, coaching, peer groups) to reinforce key behaviors and amplify results.
5: Measure, Reflect, Refine: We continuously measure impact, gather feedback, and adjust programs to ensure relevance, effectiveness, and sustainability.
6: Sustain & Scale: We build internal leadership development capacity, providing ongoing alumni programming, coaching, and facilitation support for long-term success.
Example Programs
Transformative Leadership Programs
Bespoke programs designed for high-performing and high-potential leaders. Each is co-created with you – based on interviews, diagnostics, and the leadership challenges your organization is facing.
These programs:
Shift how leaders think, act, and collaborate
Build the skills and trust needed to lead in complexity
Strengthen leadership culture across teams and functions
Example: At The Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, we designed a multi-year cohort program to develop the leadership capacity of top scientists. Now in its 7th year, the program continues to foster cross-disciplinary collaboration and long-term alignment.
Immersive Workshops
Single- or multi-day workshops focused on strengthening leadership, strategy, or team effectiveness. Workshops are experiential, hands-on, and designed to tackle real-time challenges while building leadership muscle.
Choose one or combine several. Topics include:
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Adaptive leadership primers
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Building a strong leadership culture
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Leading through conflict or uncertainty
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Cross-functional collaboration
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Leading for innovation
Workshops help teams connect, build trust, and accelerate progress on shared goals.
Manager to Leader - Cohort Based Training
A 5-month development program for emerging and mid-level managers—focused on real performance, retention, and leadership advancement. Available virtually or in-person.
Features:
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Proven track record of measurable results
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Distinct tracks for novice and advanced managers
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Highly applied, reflection-based format
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Focus on mindset, team leadership, and organizational alignment
Explore:
Pedagogy
Our pedagogy is built on original frameworks developed by Dr. Kirsti Samuels – shaped by decades of real-world experience helping leaders operate under pressure and lead through complexity. Drawing from adaptive leadership, systems thinking, adult development, and organizational change, this approach reflects a body of practice – built, tested, and refined through real partnerships with leaders facing real stakes.
At its core is a belief that leadership must be learned in context: not just through insight, but through action, feedback, and reflection. Participants engage with real challenges, rehearse high-stakes decisions, and stretch how they think, act, and influence across teams and systems.
This is not generic leadership training. It’s a distinctive, field-tested pedagogy that builds the kind of leadership capacity organizations actually need – deliberate, adaptive, and deeply human.
Experiential – Built around doing, not just knowing
Contextual – Grounded in your team’s specific realities
Strategic – Linked to tangible business outcomes
Human-centered – Focused on trust, collaboration, and clarity under pressure
Our leadership development is underpinned by three core frameworks:
Leadership Judgment Matrix
The Leadership Judgment Matrix is a situational judgment tool that helps leaders calibrate their response to the complexity and urgency of the moment. By mapping challenges across two axes—uncertainty and urgency—the matrix distinguishes between four types of leadership contexts: routine execution, strategic planning, adaptive change, and high-stakes ambiguity. The upper-right quadrant, known as The Fog Zone, represents conditions of intense pressure and limited clarity – where conventional leadership tools often fail. In this space, leaders must stabilize systems, regulate themselves, and engage others with presence and clarity. The matrix builds the practical discernment needed to match leadership action to the realities of complex, contested environments.
Insight 4 D Framework
Our pedagogy is grounded in the Insight 4D Framework, developed by Professor Kirsti Samuels through her work in conflict-affected settings and her teaching at Columbia University. The Insight 4D Framework provides a structured approach to leadership development that integrates both internal and external dimensions of practice. By systematically mapping Self Insight & Self Action, and System Insight & System Action, it helps leaders build the capacity to observe themselves and the systems they are part of, recognize default patterns under stress, assess what a situation truly requires, and respond with skill and intention.
Adaptive Leadership
We use the Adaptive Leadership framework, developed at Harvard Kennedy School by Professor Ron Heifetz, and grounded in decades of research, to help clients clearly diagnose complex challenges, engage stakeholders effectively, and build strategies that enable lasting success.
This framework helps leaders understand stakeholder perspectives, anticipate emotional responses to loss and change, and create effective holding environments for adaptive work. By strategically layering these concepts – often in real time – we build leaders’ skills to navigate complexity, collaborate effectively, and achieve lasting impact.
SystemSight Protocol
The SystemSight Protocol is a five-step diagnostic method for surfacing what’s really going on beneath complex leadership challenges. It trains leaders to move from instinctive reaction to systemic understanding – mapping visible symptoms, hidden reinforcers, stakeholder perspectives, and adaptive tensions – before designing interventions that fit the moment. It builds the muscle of system insight, and prepares leaders to see clearly before they act.
Experiential Learning
We believe people learn best through experience—especially when the goal is not just to know about leadership, but to practice it. Our programs are grounded in experiential learning because leadership challenges rarely come with clear instructions or perfect information. To prepare for that reality, participants engage in case studies, simulations, role plays, and peer consultations that reflect the ambiguity, conflict, and stakes of real-world decision-making. These experiences are paired with structured reflection, so students don’t just go through the motions—they pause, analyze, and integrate lessons from what happened. The result is more than insight. It’s transferable skill. Participants walk away not just with new ideas, but with tested tools, feedback-informed self-awareness, and the readiness to lead with greater clarity and confidence in the moments that matter.
Our Leadership Lab Philosophy
Leaders are often asked to perform in high-stakes environments without ever having had the chance to rehearse. The Leadership Lab Philosophy rejects the myth that good leadership is simply innate or reactive. Instead, we treat leadership as a discipline – one that requires practice, experimentation, and reflection under pressure. Our programs provide a deliberate practice space where participants engage in live case consultations, adaptive simulations, and real-time feedback. These lab conditions are designed to surface leadership instincts, stretch decision-making capacity, and build the kind of presence that holds steady when clarity breaks down. The goal isn’t flawless performance – it’s preparing leaders to meet complexity with judgment, adaptability, and grounded confidence when it counts.
Thrive in Complexity
“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”
We help leaders expand their capacity to thrive amidst complexity, enabling them to embrace ambiguity, navigate tensions skillfully, and act decisively - even under pressure.
“This work didn’t just teach me how to lead. It changed the way I see leadership.”
