A three-month work-based programme for experienced managers leading teams through change and transition — developing the facilitative practices that draw sustained performance from a team, applied to a real leadership challenge in their own role.
The leader who can direct is common; the leader who can facilitate — who draws out the capability of a team rather than substituting their own — is rare and increasingly required.
Facilitative Leadership is designed for experienced managers leading teams through change, growth or transition. It moves beyond direction and control to the facilitative practices that enable a team to perform — reading the situation accurately, preparing the ground, developing people, and creating the conditions in which collective performance emerges.
Rather than treating leadership as a body of theory, the programme has each participant apply facilitative practice to a real leadership challenge with their own team over three months — so that capability is built, tested and evidenced in the work itself.
Experienced managers leading established teams through periods of change or growth.
Leaders responsible for guiding a team through restructure, transition or new direction.
Managers who direct effectively but want to shift towards enabling and developing their people.
Senior staff accountable for the sustained performance of a team rather than their own output.
The programme works through nine interrelated themes, each developed against the participant’s own leadership challenge.
Establishing what leadership is and is not, and the assumptions a leader brings to the work of leading others.
Recognising facilitation — enabling others rather than substituting one’s own effort — as the defining act of leading a team.
Understanding how and why facilitative leadership arises, and where it differs from directive and transactional approaches.
Creating the conditions — trust, clarity and readiness — under which a team can be led facilitatively.
Putting facilitative practice into action in the day-to-day work of leading a real team.
Examining one’s own leadership practice and developing it deliberately through reflection and feedback.
Understanding the different domains in which a team performs, and the leader’s part in each.
Building the team’s collective capability so that performance is sustained rather than dependent on the leader.
Reading the particular situation accurately and adapting leadership practice to what it actually requires.
Each participant takes a live leadership challenge with their own team as their work-based project, running it through the WAL formula — K + P1 + Q = P2 — applying facilitative practice rather than studying it in the abstract.
Participants record their decisions, actions and learning in structured monthly reflective reports, building the discipline of questioning and critical reflection on their own leadership practice.
Development is corroborated through a three-way loop between the participant, their line manager and WRIA’s central review — observation, coaching and self-reflection together.
A final report assessing the participant’s development as a facilitative leader, grounded in the evidence of a real leadership challenge.
A team challenge that has been materially advanced through facilitative rather than directive leadership.
Practised capability in preparing the ground, developing the team, and responding to the situation as it actually is.
A reflective leadership practice the participant carries forward into their continuing role.
The participant identifies a real leadership challenge with their team, establishes the relevant leadership knowledge, and agrees the focus and measures with their line manager, under WRIA review.
Facilitative practice is implemented in the work of leading the team, with monthly reflective reporting and continuing feedback from their line manager and WRIA’s central review.
The participant consolidates learning, brings the challenge to a result, and produces a final assessment of their development as a facilitative leader, triangulated against external feedback.
Download the detailed outline of structure, themes, the work-based project and measurement for in-house delivery.
Facilitative leaders draw performance from their teams. The next step builds the discipline to drive ventures and new initiatives through their hardest phases.