Leadership Training and Development

Transforming Your Leaders and Managers

At Grahame Robb Associates (GRA), we offer bespoke management training and leadership development programmes for developing leaders, future leaders, and managers of all levels, from senior leadership positions and middle management to team leaders and first-time managers. Our programmes focus on enhancing leadership skills tailored to meet your specific organisational needs and the challenges your senior leaders and managers face in their day-to-day working lives. Each leadership development programme is developed in line with your organisational culture, training objectives, business goals, current leadership style and budget and has a range of practical and focused outcomes for all leadership positions.

Leading for Results provides an accessible behaviour change model that’s easily applied in the real world and focuses on what truly matters to deliver consistent performance. Through plenary discussions, practical exercises, and facilitator observations, individuals will utilise GRA’s BASK model to challenge preconceptions and focus on the attitudes, leadership skills, leadership style and knowledge required to enact key behaviours for improved performance linked to a common purpose and your organisational objectives. This leadership training ensures that the leadership development programme is impactful and aligned with the organisational goals impacting all leadership positions.

Building a Shared Vision focuses on creating a compelling, collective vision for your organisation's future. This vision is critical to energising, inspiring, inculcating valuable skills, engaging your employees to work towards a common goal, and creating a platform for a persistent leadership style and long-term success. By utilising a proven framework and gaining guidance from our experienced facilitators, leaders will contribute to assessing the current situation, developing a new vision, and committing to an action plan that operationalises the organisation's strategic objectives. This aspect of leadership training is crucial for any leadership development programme aiming to foster a unified direction. It ensures that not only your current and future leaders develop skills like communication skills but also are able to tackle any challenges that come their way.

Relationship Strategies focus on relationship-building and influencing strategies by enhancing people’s ability to relate to others effectively. Through diagnosing an individual's personal styles and how they differ from their peers and understanding Dr. Tony Alessandra’s Platinum Rule, individuals develop their ability to understand what drives other people and recognise options for communicating with them more effectively. This leadership training component is essential for any leadership development programme aimed at improving interpersonal dynamics.

Self and Team Awareness ensures that leaders and teams are able and encouraged to ‘look in the mirror’ by better understanding their motivations, behaviours, and relationships. They also develop skills to handle senior management responsibilities by enhancing communication skills, strategic thinking, employee engagement and so on. This helps them identify how they differ from others and, therefore, how they can consistently work more effectively with and/or manage them. Through personality profiling and team theory, individuals understand the impact of their contribution to a team and how to identify complementary styles. This leadership training module is a key part of our leadership development programmes.

Decision Making gives individuals, senior management professionals, and leaders the skills needed to make sound, confident decisions by focusing on developing a decision-making process appropriate to different situations, creating a culture to enable effective decision-making, and understanding how to give helpful feedback through elevated communication skills, employee engagement and strategic thinking. Through team challenges and reviews, your people will identify task—and process-related decisions, crucial moments that influenced their quality, the impact of behaviour on decisions, and the effects of competition. This is one of the integral leadership training modules in our leadership development programmes.

Resilience for Results is a leadership module that embraces cutting-edge diagnostic technology, proven tactics and techniques, and practical exercises to provide senior management individuals with the tools they need to enhance their mental, physical, and emotional resilience in the workplace. These adaptabilities enable people to thrive under pressure and to offer a beacon of guidance, support, and strength to others in their team or organisation. This is one of the most popular leadership training modules that helps leaders build resilience as part of an overall leadership development programme.

We often hold back or avoid difficult discussions when someone’s behaviour or performance disappoints us or frustrates us, but why? We worry about getting it wrong, damaging the relationship, or making things worse. Breakthrough Conversations leadership training guides participants through a proven personal development and professional development process that helps them get to the bottom of the real issue, prepares them for how they’ll approach the conversation, and how to end it in a way that creates meaningful actions that lead to long-term change. This leadership training is essential for effective communication in any leadership development programme.

Our Business Simulations help leaders and teams replicate the real-life business challenges they face in their organisations every day, including customer end goals and strategic objectives. These complex scenarios occur in a physically and emotionally safe environment and provide the perfect platform for teams to put theory into practice, test new skills, enhance professional development, reflect on performance and achievements, and apply that knowledge back in the workplace. This leadership training method is a cornerstone of our leadership development programmes.

Leadership In Action is a leadership skills enhancement programme that provides individuals with a greater understanding of profound leadership skills and how leaders can impact team performance through their decision-making and core actions. This leadership training provides opportunities to apply theory in a practical setting, understand how to balance key needs and adapt to different leadership situations. Individuals will also learn how to give and receive feedback and perfect the art of giving upward feedback.

Action Centred Leadership™ (ACL®) is a leadership development module that provides a great framework for leaders looking to enable their teams to work more effectively as a unit. By taking command of the three areas of John Adair’s model, team leaders will learn how to use each of the elements according to the situation. In turn, leaders will understand how to strike the right balance between managing their team, getting better results, building morale, and improving quality and productivity – the mark of any great manager. This leadership training framework is fundamental to our leadership development programmes.

Coaching Essentials is a leadership skills training programme that helps managers and leaders understand the importance of coaching for the development, growth, and performance of their people. By teaching individuals how to effectively coach their employees—not just to manage them but to increase productivity—your leaders can create an environment of trust and autonomy and deliver better bottom-line results. This leadership training is an essential part of our leadership development programmes.

SLII® empowers managers to become adaptive leaders. Backed by Ken Blanchard’s 40 years of research and an unmatched track record of results, it teaches your leaders how to lead situationally by giving their people the right support or direction at the right time. SLII® enables leaders to build deeper relationships and more meaningful connections with co-workers that create exponential impact, leading to more productive and engaged employees and an organisation that excels. This leadership training model is a crucial component of our leadership development programmes.

Self Leadership teaches individuals the mindset and skills they need to become empowered, proactive self-leaders who take control of their own success and are committed to achieving results for their organisation. Self Leadership builds on the leadership model SLII® and integrates the latest research on the proactive skills required for individuals to be most effective. Team members learn a shared language for discussing their own development and performance, allowing them to have more effective conversations and build more trusting, open relationships with their managers. This leadership training is a key part of our leadership development programmes.

Our Leadership Training Approach

With over 30 years of experience in leadership and management development, we specialise in engaging and memorable experiential programmes. We use a blend of face-to-face training, online learning, outdoor activities, and team challenges. Our goal is to provide practical skills-based training that benefits leaders in the types of challenges they face every day and helps them reach places in their careers they didn’t think were possible. In our opinion, the best way to achieve leadership development is to create training experiences that people feel connected to and that take them outside their normal environment. In engaging with our programmes, participants are invited to step outside their comfort zone, placing renewed faith in their capabilities and the support of their colleagues. This comprehensive approach to leadership training forms the backbone of our leadership development programmes.

Our training centres

GRA owns and operates two purpose-built outdoor training facilities in which our face-to-face training and team activities take centre stage, one within the De Vere Wokefield Estate outside Reading and the other at St. George’s Park, near Burton upon Trent, where we are proud to be the Football Association’s Official Outdoor Leadership Partner. Our centres are designed to support high-impact, experiential learning and professional development programmes and are the perfect location for your next leadership or management programme. These facilities are key to delivering our leadership skills development training and ensuring the success of our leadership development programmes.

Skilled managers make for high-performing teams. Through our customised leadership skills training courses, we help your people unlock their full professional development and leadership potential to grow in their roles, developing their communication and relationship skills, confidence, self-awareness, and ability to perform and thrive under pressure. This leadership training approach is crucial for the effective delivery of our leadership development programmes.

What Do You Mean by Experiential?

Experiential, in its simplest form, means learning through doing or learning through experience, a key part being people’s reflection on those experiences. At GRA, we include practical exercises, simulations, and team challenges into our leadership skills programmes to create more memorable leadership and management training experiences and help participants integrate their knowledge more successfully in the workplace. This experiential leadership training is a vital aspect of our leadership development programmes as it inculcates essential management skills for senior leaders, developing leaders and even future leaders.

To learn more about our experiential approach to leadership training, visit our Why Choose Us page.

How Do You Tailor Your Training to Meet Different Organisational Needs?

At GRA, our aim is to get to know your business as if it were our own so that we can see things through your lens. We do this by taking the time upfront to listen to your leadership development needs and to get a full and rounded picture of your values, culture, goals, and key measures of success.

Once we’re confident we know what you’re looking for, we’ll go away and put together a leadership and management proposal that details a unique leadership skills training solution with elevated enhancement of management skills for you, whether that be through tailoring existing GRA products or by creating a completely new and bespoke leadership development programme that’s more specifically for your organisation or team. We tailor our leadership skills training through content design and our delivery method so we can adapt to suit your requirements, whether you’re looking for a face-to-face, virtual, or blended approach. This tailored approach ensures our leadership training aligns perfectly with your organisational needs and enhances the effectiveness of our leadership development programmes.

We also recommend conducting ‘day in the life’ interviews with a selection of people from your organisation to establish hopes and concerns about upcoming leadership skills training and to allow us to take a deeper dive into people’s day-to-day roles, responsibilities, and individual leadership and management needs.

How Do You Evaluate Your Training?

Like our leadership skills training, we tailor our evaluation strategy to the requirements of each of our customers. We would like to work in partnership with you to ensure we select the best metrics to evaluate the performance of our delivery team, delegate experience, learning transfer, and overall service to ensure maximum ROI for your organisation. We also want to ensure that the leadership and management metrics being assessed are consistent with your values and objectives. This thorough evaluation process is integral to our leadership training and leadership development programmes.
In addition to quantitative metrics, we believe in providing delegates with the opportunity to explore their observations and reflections in more detail and, therefore, recommend incorporating qualitative feedback in the review process.

Should you have one, we can also work with your existing evaluation systems following the training to manage the performance of our delivery team.

Do You Have Any Case Studies We Can Look At?

Yes, we have several leadership development case studies that you can view on our customer stories page, and even more are coming soon!

Do You Have Any Clients That You’ve Worked With That We Can Talk To?

Yes, we would be happy to connect you with some of our trusted clients, past and present. To discuss this further, just give us a call at 01962 571005. Their leadership and management insights can provide valuable perspectives on our leadership training and leadership development programmes.

Do You Have Experience Working with Companies in Our Sector or Industry?

GRA has worked with organisations in various industries over the last 30 years, from manufacturing and pharmaceuticals to public health, technology, banking and insurance, local authority, and more.

Even if we haven’t worked in your industry before, we take the time to listen to and learn from our clients and tailor our leadership development programmes to their specific needs. We may be the experts when it comes to leadership training, but we fully recognise that you are the experts when it comes to knowing and understanding your business. Our adaptable approach ensures our leadership training is relevant and effective across various sectors, enhancing the impact of our leadership development programmes.

Do You Offer Virtual/Online Training?

Yes, we offer a wide range of virtual leadership skills training options and online learning tools. To find out more, visit our virtual learning page. Our virtual leadership training is designed to be as impactful as our face-to-face sessions, ensuring continuity and effectiveness in our leadership development programmes.

Do You Offer a Blended/Hybrid Training Approach?

Yes, we pride ourselves on our ability to offer our clients a complete blended training experience. To learn more, go to our blended learning page. This hybrid approach combines the best of online and face-to-face leadership training, enhancing the flexibility and reach of our leadership development programmes.

What Training Models Do You Use?

We use a range of trusted leadership and development models that we believe in and have stood the test of time. During our 30 years of designing and delivering leadership development training, we have also developed some of our own unique models, which sit within our branded training programmes.

Well-known models we use are, but are not limited to, the following:

70-20-10 for L&D
Tuckman’s Stages of Group Development
Herzberg’s Two Factor Theory
Kolb’s Cycle of Experiential Learning
Belbin Team Role Theory
SLII Model
MBTI Four-Factor
Honey & Mumford Learning Styles
Thomas Kilmann Conflict
Covey’s Circles of Influence
HeartMath Coherence
HeartMath Domains of Resilience
Platinum Rule
Johari Windows
McGregor’s X & Y Theory
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Baddeley & James’s Political Intelligence
SMART Goals
SWOT & Pestle

These leadership and management models underpin our leadership training and are integral to the success of our leadership development programmes.

Do You Use Psychometrics as Part of Your Training?

Yes, some of our leadership skills training programmes include psychometrics or behavioural assessments and 360-degree tools, such as Belbin, MBTI, GPI, and insights. We know that there can be a stigma around psychometrics. Therefore, we always want to assure our clients and delegates that those we include as part of our training are ones with which we have had many years of experience and wholeheartedly trust in their theory.

We would also never assume the narrative that these tools exclusively define anyone’s personality or behaviour and are only ever used as additional training aids. At no point is anyone made to complete something they don’t understand or made to share the results of an assessment with someone they don’t wish to. These tools are used to enhance strategic thinking and our leadership training and provide deeper insights as part of our leadership development programmes.

How Much Does Your Training Cost?

The cost of our training depends very much on what type of programme you’re interested in, how much you want us to tailor it to your specific needs, how many people it’s for, and the time constraints. However, we will always aim to put together a training package that suits both your needs and your budget, and we will be as flexible and transparent as possible when it comes to outlining and discussing costs with you. Our pricing for leadership training is competitive and designed to provide the best value for your leadership development programme.

If you want to enquire about costs for a training programme, please get in touch with us by calling 01962 571005 or email us via enquiries@gra.uk.com

At What Locations Do You Offer Training?

We can provide training at any number of locations, whether your offices, one of our training centres, one of our partner hotels, or any other venue of your choice. GRA also delivers training globally and has worked in over 28 countries in just the last seven years. Our leadership training can be conducted anywhere, ensuring accessibility and convenience for your leadership development programme.

Can You Connect Us to Hotels/Venues Where We Can Host Our Training as Part of Your Offering?

Yes, we are partnered with and work alongside a number of fantastic hotels and venues that we would happily connect you with. We can also facilitate this on your behalf as part of our leadership development service if you prefer.

If you would like to talk to our team about this, please give us a call on 01962 571005.

How Many People Can You Accommodate in Your Training programmes?

This completely depends on the method we use and the type of training we deliver.

Typically, our face-to-face training programmes can hold 5 to 30 delegates in a single classroom. Any number above 20 will usually require multiple facilitators, as will leadership development programmes that include outdoor activities. Groups over 30 will typically be delivered in cohorts, but this is dependent on the type of face-to-face training we’re delivering for you.

Our online/virtual leadership development training classes are slightly smaller and tend to accommodate anywhere from 5 to 15 delegates in a single classroom. Numbers above 15 would typically require us to deliver in cohorts, but again, this is subject to the type of online training we’re delivering for you. Most of our virtual training sessions include both a facilitator and a moderator. As a minimum, more facilitators are likely to be required for higher numbers. This flexibility in our leadership training ensures that our leadership development programmes can cater to various group sizes and needs.

For Team-Building events, we can accommodate 5 to 200 delegates at any one time, location and schedule permitting. See our Team-Building FAQs for more information.

Is All Your Training Delivered In-House?

All our leadership development training is delivered either by our experienced in-house team or by one of our equally experienced and trusted associate training teams. We will never take on any training that we don’t have the capacity to facilitate within these teams. If we can’t accommodate what you’re looking for, we will always be upfront and honest about it and will point you in the direction of other providers that may be able to help you if we can. Our commitment to quality leadership training ensures the effectiveness of our leadership development programmes.

What Happens if We Need to Reschedule or Cancel Our Training with You?

Our cancellation policy for any leadership development programme is clearly outlined in our T&Cs when forming an agreement with you, so please check this to see how you would be affected if you were to cancel. Rest assured that we will be as flexible as possible when it comes to rearranging and rescheduling training dates, and we have a fantastic administration team who would be happy to talk to you.

If you need to talk to us about cancelling or rescheduling your training, please give us a call on 01962 571005. Our customer-focused approach ensures that our leadership training and leadership development programmes can be adapted to your needs.

What Is Currently in Place to Protect Those Who Attend Training at Your Centres from COVID-19?

Our COVID-19 protocols are constantly changing and evolving in line with government guidelines. Click here to see our most up-to-date protocols. If you have leadership development training already booked with us, our administration team will clearly outline anything you need to know about safeguarding against COVID-19 prior to your arrival at either of our Outdoor Centres.

If you have any additional questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us at 01962 571005 or email us at enquiries@gra.uk.com. We are committed to ensuring the safety and well-being of all participants who attend our leadership training and leadership development programmes.

This is why we do what we do

"I thought it was outstanding! The staff have been amazing, really knowledgeable and used activities to highlight the evidence behind the
models."

- Anna Kilmartin, SJP Graduate

This is why we do what we do

“In comparison to the workshops we have done in the past, I found this one to be the most rewarding and certainly the best organised and most fun! I know from speaking to others that this sentiment is shared among the group. Thank you GRA!”

- Laurence Chetwynd, Customer TrainingExecutive

This is why we do what we do

“I had only heard positive remarks about GRA prior to attending this course, so I was not surprised by the quailty of the training that was delivered.”

- Amy Johnson, SJP Apprentice

This is why we do what we do

"Making learners feel comfortable and secure when joining a session is just as important online as it is face-to-face. The team at GRA achieved this by taking the time to familiarise learners with their platform and provide individual technical support as needed without disrupting the flow of the session."

- Sam, The FA Group

This is why we do what we do

"Our programme with Grahame Robb Associates, using the experiential business simulation, challenged our leaders and significantly increased levels of trust in a way that enabled great peer-to-peer and coaching conversations. We believe this has been a pivotal building block to support them in achieving their full potential as leaders; enhancing self-awareness and strengthening our leadership community in Tech Data.”

-Michelle Ford, Talent and Development Manager

This is why we do what we do

“To deliver a virtual week of induction was definitely unknown territory for us, however, working with GRA, this was easily achieved! The variety of sessions such as self & team awareness and personal branding, were thoroughly engaging and were a perfect complement to our internal sessions.”

– Gill Ireson, Early Careers Development Manager

This is why we do what we do

“On behalf of all of us at HSO we would like to thank GRA for the great support you provided in helping to make our ‘One Team training conference’ a great success. Your professionalism, willingness to ‘make it work’ all helped to make our event at St. George’s Park such a success. Nothing was too much trouble, and your support was brilliant! We have received so much positive feedback about the entire event, a fantastic time was had by all attendees. We look forward to working with you again in the future.”

– Jacky Duggan, HR Team Administrator

This is why we do what we do

“I would like to thank the GRA team for all their help organising our event again this year. The group was double the amount we had last year and we have had fantastic feedback from all staff from the UK, US and India offices. Please pass on our thanks to all the instructors and organisers. It was amazing how they remembered us from last year and it was great to have the same instructors as last year too. I already have staff asking about next year.”

–Laura, Finance Manager, Healthcare organisation

This is why we do what we do

“We needed to give our staff the opportunity to get to know each other better. In asking GRA to undertake the task, I knew we’d get creativity and purpose, but the laughter, courage, spontaneity and sheer sense of having fun together exceeded my hopes and made for a hugely successful programme. I have nothing but positive feedback – a real testament to GRA.”

– Tom Hall, Director, Alitex

This is why we do what we do

“GRA were brilliant and I would thoroughly recommend them for anyone who is looking to do a corporate team building event. The staff were so helpful and patient with my colleagues and everyone got so much out of the day.”

- Anna Frazer, HR Advisor, Prescient

This is why we do what we do

“I would like to thank the GRA team for a very enjoyable and productive experience. It is not often that we engage with a company that is so in tune with what we are trying to achieve, it was such a great understanding of the goals and objectives!”

- Gary Marsh, VP for EMEA Sales, Microchip

This is why we do what we do

“GRA’s facilitators have a lovely balance of professionalism and approachability to what they do. We worked together from the start to design and deliver a series of really experiential workshops as part of our graduate programme. Our own facilitators and the participants had nothing but praise for the knowledge, flexibility and responsiveness that the team from GRA brought to our events and the feedback has been fantastic with many saying it’s the best training they’ve been on.”

- Sarah Rudder, Learning & Development Consultant, Thales

This is why we do what we do

“GRA’s Outdoor Leadership Centre was a great addition to the things we worked on in training, so it’s certainly something I would do with the team again.”

- Steve McNamara, During his time as England Men’s Rugby League Manager

This is why we do what we do

“The best virtual training session I have attended. I was very impressed! GRA were good at making everyone feel at ease, lowering the barriers to engaging in discussions and creating a very positive and knowledgeable atmosphere.”

– Miki Van Kooji, Msc Student International Management, Kings College London

This is why we do what we do

“The vision programme our senior team attended was extremely effective and efficient, and i have received so much positive feedback about how much everyone enjoyed working with Grahame and his team! We will definitely be staying in touch on future collaboration!”

– Samantha Barrass, CEO, Business Banking Resolution Service

This is why we do what we do

– Samantha Barrass, CEO, Business Banking Resolution Service

This is why we do what we do

“Thank you for a very enjoyable 2 days! Due to the pandemic, this was not our plan A, but I thought it was a terrific plan B. I very much enjoyed meeting all our staff and despite the remote working conditions I sensed an espirit de corps that I really wasn’t expecting.”

- Caroline Barr, Non-Executive Director, Business Banking Resolution Service

This is why we do what we do

“I enjoyed the residential programme we did with GRA at St. George’s Park very much – it was great to learn about our inherent personality traits and their translation to best-suited roles in a team. I think I speak on behalf of all of us when I say that the two days spend with GRA were fun-filled yet fruitful, relaxing yet productive. I would like to extend my thanks to you for organising this and especially to Joe, who led a fantastic session. I look forward to further training with GRA and coming back to St. George’s Park in the future!”

- Mrinalini Chakrabarty, Engineering Graduate, Collins Aerospace

This is why we do what we do

“I was a total cynic when it came to 'outward-bound' training as I had seen so much that was fun, but not really relevant to learning anything new about yourself. I am very passionate about learning events that have a purpose and being able to demonstrate measurable change in the people who have attended them. Since attending a Leading Change event with GRA, where I saw a level of skill provided by the facilitators to really draw out the learning from the outdoor events that I had not witnessed at anywhere else, I have been waiting for an opportunity to use them. It presented itself this year and we have just completed out first trainee scheme induction event and plan to run one every year for the foreseeable future as they did such a good job!”

- Lindsey Arnold, Learning & Development Manager, Telford Homes Plc

This is why we do what we do

“When we met GRA, we were intrigued by the energy, enthusiasm and knowledge that the team possessed. We knew instantly that they were the perfect match for Kyocera when they introduced their ‘Challenge by Choice’ policy, providing a safe learning environment for our employees.”

- Julia Allen, Learning & Development Manager, Kyocera

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Transforming Your Leaders and Managers

This is why we do what we do