Leadership development systems

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Support, reinforce, and sustain behaviour change.

Programs fade, systems endure

I help organisations stop spinning their wheels with traditional, one-off leadership programs by building a leadership development system (LDS).

An LDS is the sum of the deliberate choices an organisation makes about how leadership is developed in service of its purpose, values, and strategy. It’s all the initiatives, activities, methods, processes, and practices that leaders experience and engage with, not just as individuals, but collectively.

I can help you strengthen your system by auditing your current state, recommending and implementing targeted solutions, and supporting internal teams to achieve lasting results.

Get in touch to learn more.

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The LDS Wheel

I created the LDS Wheel for HR leaders and senior decision makers looking to maximise their organisation’s investment in leadership development.

Based on the latest research and more than 20 years of practice, the LDS Wheel visualises how effective leadership development systems come together. Like any wheel, each part matters:

  • In an effective LDS, all dimensions interact, influence, and strengthen one another, with the whole becoming greater than the sum of its parts.

  • These provide the LDS with structure and balance (Adaptability, Coherence, Scope, Integration, Continuity).

  • These two enablers (Sponsorship and Evaluation) hold the system together and ensure it moves forward.

Together, these parts promote a more holistic, integrative approach to leadership development than programs alone, weaving it into your organisation’s DNA to continuously shape how leaders think, act, and collaborate.

If you don’t know where you are, how can you get where you need to go?

Leadership development audit

A Leadership Development Audit helps to uncover what’s really getting in the way by assessing the whole system.

Using the LDS Wheel to guide data collection and analysis, running a Leadership Development Audit helps you:

  • Engage and educate stakeholders on a more strategic approach to leadership development.

  • Diagnose strengths and gaps in your current approach — where the “wheel” is balanced and connected, and where it wobbles, slows, or stalls

  • Align leadership development with business priorities, ensuring it is not an HR side project but a lever for strategy execution.

  • Maximise return on investment by shifting resources away from fragmented initiatives toward system-strengthening practices.

  • Embed accountability by making sponsorship and evaluation visible parts of leadership development.

  • Build a roadmap for improvement, prioritising 1–2 dimensions to focus on over the next 12–18 months, guided by a clear, practical report that highlights which enablers and barriers to address and the actions to take next.

The result: leadership development that sticks, compounds, and delivers value.

Consulting

Support with what needs to happen next.

Following the Leadership Development Audit, I can help you test and validate findings with stakeholders to shape your leadership agenda, align it with business priorities, and implement high-impact interventions.

With deep expertise in organisational development in addition to leadership development, I can help you develop practical, evidence-informed strategies to enhance your LDS that address root causes, not just symptoms.

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Create the conditions where leadership can truly thrive.

Insights & case studies

Insights
The LDS Wheel design notes: Closing the gaps in leadership development
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The LDS Wheel design notes: Closing the gaps in leadership development
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The LDS Wheel is about bridging research and practice to close the gaps that have held leadership development back for decades. It connects what we know with what we do — ensuring leadership development not only inspires but endures.

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The LDS Wheel: Building effective leadership development systems
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The LDS Wheel: Building effective leadership development systems
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Even the best-designed leadership programs can’t carry the weight of transformation alone. What’s really needed is a leadership development system: one that becomes part of how the organisation operates day-to-day. The LDS Wheel shows you how.

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Why it pays to swim with the current when developing leaders
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Why it pays to swim with the current when developing leaders
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When supporting leaders in changing their behaviour for the better, at first glance, ‘swimming with the current’ sounds counterintuitive, right? Here are four reasons why it’s not.

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Case study: Setting the tone from the top
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Case study: Setting the tone from the top
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Following the development of brand-specific leadership frameworks for Dan Murphy’s, BWS, and ALH Hotels, I was invited to take things a level higher, supporting Endeavour Group to embed leadership development more broadly across the enterprise.

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