Leadership Workshops
Research-led workshops for leadership teams:
from insight to alignment and action.
Parental leave is not simply a mid-career issue for HR to manage. How an organisation treats people as they become parents sends a powerful signal about who can build a long-term career there – to those taking leave today and to the earlier-career talent watching what happens next.
I work with leadership teams to develop a sharper understanding of why parental transitions matter to talent, performance and the future leadership pipeline – and to examine how their own organisation may be helping or hindering successful careers after leave.
Grounded in my doctoral research, specialist coaching practice and first-hand experience of high-performance careers, these sessions combine evidence, challenge and facilitated discussion. The aim is not simply to raise awareness. It is to move leadership teams from insight to alignment, and from alignment to action.
Designed for demanding professional environments
Generic conversations about work-life balance rarely reflect the reality of high-performance careers. My work is particularly designed for leadership teams in environments where performance expectations are high and careers are built through complex combinations of output, relationships, sponsorship, reputation and opportunity.
These are not lecture-style training sessions. I combine original research and evidence with the commercial realities of demanding professional environments, using discussion, challenge and practical application to help leaders examine what happens in their own organisation.
Workshop formats
Sessions can be designed around the needs of the organisation and may include:
- Leadership team workshops and facilitated discussions
- Executive committee and senior leadership sessions
- Partner or Managing Director forums
- Offsite sessions
- Workshops informed by findings from a Soaring Birds parental talent consultancy project
Sessions can range from focused interventions around a specific issue to deeper workshops that enable leadership teams to examine their organisation’s parental talent pipeline in more detail.
From conversation to change
The most effective leadership sessions create enough challenge to shift the conversation, while remaining grounded in what leaders can practically do differently.
The objective is to create a shared understanding of the problem, a common language for discussing it and greater clarity about where responsibility sits – moving parental leave out of the margins of the HR agenda and into the wider conversation about talent, performance and leadership.
Common topics
Every session is tailored to the organisation and its priorities, but common areas include:
- The parental talent pipeline – Why parental leave can become a critical point of attrition and career derailment, particularly for senior female talent.
- The reality behind the policy – Where apparently strong parental policies can be undermined by everyday culture, assumptions and management practice.
- The success equation – How interruption affects the relationships, sponsorship, visibility and access to high-value work on which progression depends.
- The role of managers – How well-intentioned assumptions and everyday decisions about work, opportunity and progression can materially shape a parent’s trajectory.
- Retention and progression – What distinguishes organisations that simply bring people back from those that enable them to rebuild momentum and continue progressing.
- Leadership accountability – What leaders can do differently, individually and collectively, to create meaningful change.