Leadership Foundations Workshop

The Leadership Foundations workshop has been developed as a practical learning opportunity for people in leadership or managerial roles.

Next Workshop: Thu, 20th March 2025 8:30 AM - 4:00 PM AEDT

Location: The Exchange Orana, Dubbo

Leadership Foundation: A Workshop for leaders and managers early in their leadership development.

Leadership Foundations is your gateway to learning the essential knowledge and skills you need to lead effectively. This learning opportunity bridges the gap between leadership theory and real-life practice.

Who is the workshop designed for?

  • first time managers

  • up and coming leaders

  • founders growing their business

  • leadership teams looking for new way to strengthen their performance as a team

“I don’t want to be a micromanager.”

Some people have natural leadership qualities, but no-one has the essential leadership skills needed to effectively lead a team from the start.

Feeling uncertain and overwhelmed is common in the first few years of leading, but knowing how to overcome this hurdle isn’t so clear. Experience can help, but not if you don’t have the necessary skills to be effective in your position of leader or manager.

You may start your own pathway into leadership full of excitement about leading people. But this feeling can quickly fade away as and you start to doubt yourself, feel stressed and freaked out about the mounting sense of responsibility. That’s a difficult headspace to be in and will not lead to great decisions or great reactions.

To be an effective leader, you need to build a foundation of self-awareness and a solid understanding about how you can influence and inspire others. You need to know your strengths and how to work on areas that need more attention.

And you also need skills. Lots of them. And tips. And tricks. A whole toolkit of skills and knowledge that you can draw from each time you face a new challenge.

The Leadership Foundations Workshop teaches you the essential knowledge and skills you need to lead effectively. This learning opportunity provides a connection between the theory of leadership and focuses on developing real-life leadership practices you can implement straight away.

Starting with a strong foundation of leadership skills is a total game changer.

With the right tools, you can make a big impact from the early stages of being a leader.

The Leadership Foundations workshop has been developed as a practical learning opportunity for people in leadership or managerial roles.

Participants learn critical leadership skills that form the essential foundations of being an impactful leader. The workshop is a one-day program designed to provide these tools for early career leaders:

  • build essential leadership skills that prevent costly management mistakes

  • tools for effective team leadership, goal setting and decision making

  • confidence to handle challenges and inspire team members

  • opportunities to network with peers and mentors, building a strong foundation for career growth

Leadership Foundations 2025 will be facilitated at The Exchange Orana, Dubbo.

Thursday, 20th March 2025 8:30 AM - 4:00 PM AEDT

Registrations close Thursday, 13th March 2025

Workshop Content

This workshop is specifically designed for people who are new to leadership or managerial roles.

The workshop is limited to 20 participants to provide everyone an opportunity to actively engage in discussions and address current gaps in knowledge and skills.

Each workshop cohort has included a diverse range of industries and experience.

Participants will walk away with armed with actionable ideas and steps to advance your leadership capability.

Topics we will cover include:

  • Identifying Your Values

  • Defining Your Leadership Style

  • Examining Your Work Habits

  • Develop Your Communication Style

  • Mastering Developmental Feedback

  • Encouraging Effective Team Collaboration

Workshop Outcomes

By participating in this workshop, you will:

Develop Self-Awareness:

Gain a grounded understanding of your leadership identity, defining what it is and what you aspire it to be.

Identify Your Leadership Strengths:

Recognise and leverage your existing leadership strengths as a foundation for growth.

Understand the Impact of Values Alignment

Uncover your core values and explore how they align with your organisation's purpose, vision and values to set the foundation for authentic leadership.

Create Effective Communication Strategies:

Enhance your ability to influence and inspire others towards a shared goal.

Empower Your Team to Perform:

Acquire skills to bring out the best in your team, fostering a culture of collaboration and achievement.

Master the Art of Developmental Feedback:

Learn the crucial skill of providing feedback to drive personal and professional growth within your team.

Create A Professional Development Plan:

Create a personalised plan for continued learning and development of your leadership skills based on your unique needs.

Participant Outcomes

Big groups aren’t for everyone, so I limit the number of registrations to cap it at 20. Participants consistently say how much they value learning in this small group environment.

Every participant leaves the workshop feeling significantly more confident and able to lead a team effectively.

Pre and post workshop evaluations show the greatest impact for participants has been learning how to:

  • effectively manage poor performance

  • communicate more effectively, and

  • provide developmental feedback to others

    Workshop topics we will cover include:

  • Identifying Your Professional Values and how these relate to decision making

  • Defining Your Optimal Leadership Style to understand your strengths and exactly what you need to work on

  • Examining Your Work Habits to be more productive

  • Exploring Your Communication Style so you can talk with even the most difficult communication style

  • Mastering Developmental Feedback because it is really hard to tell someone their performance needs to be better

  • Encouraging Effective Team Collaboration so you have a team that works together, not a group of individuals

Leadership Foundations Workshop Participant 2024 (Strategic Lead, Financial Service)

“The workshop offers valuable time to reflect on your leadership style and being asked questions that made me think about how I lead and the implications of my style.”

Meet Your Facilitator

Dr Belinda Mawhinney

I work with leaders at all stages of their career - from the very start of their journey to working with leaders with decades of experience.

I created Leadership Foundations to teach early career leaders the essentials skills and knowledge they need in their toolbelt to be a successful leader.

I draw on my experiences of being a Social Worker, manager, strategic leader, and researcher (that’s the Dr bit) and roll this up into my consultancy practice. This means I have an extensive range of skills and knowledge based on a combination of experience and formal qualifications.

The workshop has been designed by me and is only ever delivered by me. I adapt each workshop to meet the unique needs of each group of participants to ensure they get everything they need.

After the workshop, participants are able to engage my services to work 1:1, with their leadership team or to work with their whole organisations to improve leadership capabilities and workplace culture.