Change Mastery® for leaders
Leading others through change starts with leading yourself
A new playbook for leading in times of change and uncertainty.
A practical two-part programme that creates space for leaders to think, work out what change means for them first, so they can lead their teams through it with calm, curiosity and confidence.
Putting the human into change at work.
Leaders are usually the first to hear about a change and the first expected to land it. They're briefed, they understand the plan, and they're asked to bring everyone else with them.
But every change asks something of leaders too: new ways of thinking, letting go of old habits, leading without all the answers.
The old playbook says hold it together and push on. This is a new one, built on the reality of the workplace and ready to use the next day.
2 → 10
Planned changes the average employee went through in a year, 2016 to 2022. Over the same period, willingness to support change fell from 74% to around 40%.
Gartner
A new playbook is needed for leading through change
One that puts the human side of change in the centre
56%
of what people said they get from their most positive leader was hope. More than trust, compassion or stability.
Gallup, Global Leadership Report, 2025
No. 1
Active, visible leadership has topped the list of what makes change succeed for more than 25 years.
Prosci, Best Practices in Change Management
Where it starts
What does this change mean for you?
It's the question leaders are rarely asked. But once you've worked out what a change means for you, your role and the way you lead, everything else gets clearer. You can hold steady for others, talk honestly about what you do and don't know, and give people room to move at their own pace. That's where leading your team through it begins.
THE LEADERS JUGGLE
So many hats. One of them always gets forgotten.
Leading change means understanding it first, believing in it, sometimes shaping it. Then leading your team through it, managing up, bringing peers along, reassuring colleagues, keeping customers steady.
Leading yourself, exploring what this means for you, comes at the bottom of the list. And it's the most important hat to wear first.
Put your own oxygen mask on first. We all know it. We rarely do it.
When leaders give themselves that space, the rest gets easier. They read their teams better, communicate more openly and spend less energy pushing against resistance. It doesn't take a retreat. It takes a little intentional time and the right questions.
The two-part programme
A full programme that creates time to learn, digest and activate
Session one is about you. Then there's time to digest, think and notice what's happening for you and around you. Session two turns all of that into how you lead your team. Built on the Five Steps of Change Mastery®, with practical tools designed to use straight away.
1.
Leading yourself
Space to step back from doing and make sense of the change you're leading.
Change has changed, so leadership needs a new playbook
What your team needs from you now, and how to lead when change is complex and the answers aren’t clear yet.Who are you in moments of change?
How you personally navigate change, and the traps leaders fall into when they haven’t made sense of it themselves.Learning about the Five Steps
How to use the Pause, Mess, Play, Try, Restart framework to think through change, first for yourself as a leader and then with your team.
Digest
Process. Take time to think, reflect, take on board your thoughts.
Observe. Notice how you are responding, what’s going on around you, what's happening in your team,
Try. Try one or two practices on the change you're leading.
Then we bring it into the room.
2.
Leading others
Bring observations into the room, and turn it into what happens next.
Everyone has their own change story
What’s really going on in your team. We might all be in the same sea, but we’re in different boats. We look at the empathy gap, and why every change starts with an ending.Communicating through change
How to talk with your team about change: what to say, when to say it, and how to be honest when you don’t have all the answers.Putting the Five Steps to work
Pausing together, having messy conversations, and running Safe-to-Try Experiments that turn ideas into action.
The Five Steps of Change Mastery®
A framework to think with, grounded in the reality of work.
Pause
reflect and think
When everything speeds up, mastery begins by slowing down. This is about creating space to think, regulating your energy, and tuning into the insightful thoughts that pressure tends to drown out. Not a retreat. A recalibration.
Mess
acknowledge and release
Change is messy, full stop. Trying to skip past that mess doesn't make you more efficient, it just delays you. Naming the emotional complexity of what's happening, and using your own values as an anchor, is what actually accelerates clarity.
Play
explore and create
Here's the bit people are most tempted to skip: creativity and curiosity don't switch off just because things are uncertain, they become essential. This is where change stops being a threat to survive and starts being a laboratory for ideas. Reframe the challenge. Expand what you think is possible. See what shows up when you're not trying to solve it yet.
Try
act and learn
Ideas only become real when they're tested. This step is about designing safe-to-try experiments, taking values-led action, and making small moves that build momentum, even when the whole path isn't visible yet. You don't need the full map. You need the next step.
Restart
integrate and evolve
Change isn't linear, and neither is this framework. Restart is where you integrate what you've learned, decide what actually matters now, and take ownership of your next step with more confidence and direction than you started with.
What changes
Practical from the very next day.
For your leaders
Clarity on how they personally navigate change, and the traps to watch for
Permission and practical ways to pause, think and recharge
Tools to read resistance as information, not opposition
Confidence to communicate honestly when they don't have all the answers
A clear next step, and the next conversation to have with their team
For your organisation
A shared language for change across your leadership team
Leaders who offer honest hope rather than spin
Less time lost to misread resistance and stalled change
Teams that feel seen, at their own pace
Change that is led, not just announced
Who it's for
Leadership teams in the middle of change, or about to be.
Restructures and transformation
When roles, teams or ways of working are shifting and leaders are expected to land it.
New strategy or technology
When the direction is changing faster than people can absorb, from new systems to AI.
Continuous change
When change has stopped being a project and become the job, and everyone is feeling it.
Designed for senior leaders and people managers. Run for a cohort from one team, so the conversation is about your real change.
Game changing experience
“Eleanor is a master at making the complex feel relatable. Our organisation is constantly navigating change, the workshop turned that challenge into an opportunity for growth. Engaging, fun, and refreshingly non-prescriptive, a wealth of research and lets you grab what resonates most. Everyone left feeling empowered with tangible takeaways to navigate their own ‘change journeys’ with confidence. Highly recommended!”
— Anne Simmons, L&D, Utilities Warehouse
“I got so much from the session, more than I was expecting and I realise now how much I needed it. Eleanor was so engaging and had really good insights. I also loved her slides, her choice of representative people on screen. It was all so inclusive and made me, especially, feel relevant and involved. I would love another session, she was wonderful. Someone who couldn’t attend the session asked me how it went. I replied “Simply Brilliant.”
— Attendee, Reckitt Benckiser Group
Bring your teams with you
Once your leaders have been through it, take Change Mastery® to their teams.
Change Mastery for teams
A 90-minute online workshop:
Five steps to think through change, for everyone navigating it.
A three-part workshop series
Three 45-minute sessions:
Pause: All Good Things Start by Stopping
Play: Finding Your Best Ideas in the Chaos of Change
Owning Change at Work
Coaching
121 coaching sessions
For executive and leadership change coaching
Coaches selected for coachee need
Let's talk
What change are your leaders leading right now?
Tell us about your leadership team and the change you're facing, and we'll shape the programme around it.