Leading through transition
Client Context
Some time ago, a local authority was working through a period of significant organisational change that was influencing priorities, planning, and communication across the system. The senior leadership group demonstrated strong individual commitment and generally positive working relationships. However, there were recurring concerns about how consistently the group operated as a team and how collective leadership was experienced.
The organisation commissioned a facilitated programme with its directors to explore these themes more openly and to support a shift in how the team worked together.
The Challenge
While the group functioned effectively at an individual level, it was less consistent in operating as a cohesive leadership team. Several patterns had become evident over time: a lack of shared clarity around the purpose of leadership forums, variability in how challenge was expressed and received, and a tendency for complex discussions to narrow prematurely under pressure.
These dynamics extended beyond the leadership group itself. Decisions that appeared settled at a senior level were not always fully understood or carried consistently down into the wider organisation, led to different interpretations and uneven implementation. In the context of ongoing change, these patterns created a risk to alignment and collective leadership capacity.
The Core Question
How can a leadership group move from effective individual contribution to stronger collective leadership, developing the shared understanding, awareness, and behaviours needed to navigate sustained organisational pressure?
Our Approach
LEEWAY designed a structured programme for the group, informed by themes coming from diagnostic one-to-ones. A combination of discussions, workshops and feedback created space to examine and deepen these themes, to reflect on how the group functioned within the wider system, and to explore how authority, challenge, and participation played out in real time. The programme concluded with both collective and individual commitments focused on strengthening ways of working.
How We Worked
The facilitation combined practical experience with analytical reflection. Methods were used to help the group observe and understand its own dynamics as they unfolded, rather than relying solely on retrospective discussion. Clear agreements were established at the outset to support open and constructive dialogue, including a focus on speaking from experience and maintaining a curious, non-judgemental position.
We focussed at the level of the system rather than individuals, enabling more candid exploration of shared patterns. Where relevant dynamics appeared during the session, they were used carefully to support deeper insight.
Contribution from the Team
The group participated with a high degree of openness, identifying patterns they had previously noticed but not collectively articulated. There was a willingness to reflect on assumptions, recognise the impact of individual behaviours, and consider how these contributed to wider system dynamics.
Emerging Impact
The programme led to a clearer shared understanding of how the leadership group was operating and what would strengthen it. A more consistent language for discussing dialogue and interaction began to take shape, alongside a set of practical commitments to improve how the group worked together.
Tangible outcomes included strengthening the clarity of agendas and materials, developing facilitation approaches, creating more structured space for collective reflection, and exploring simple models to support more balanced participation.
Why LEEWAY
LEEWAY works at the intersection of leadership, systems and behaviour. We help leadership teams see the patterns that are shaping their collective performance, build the shared language to name them, and make the specific commitments needed to shift how they work together. In complex, high-pressure environments — particularly those facing significant structural change — we bring the combination of diagnostic rigour, skilled facilitation and relational depth that is needed to turn insight into sustained behavioural change.