Leadership Development Programs

All leaders have room to grow

If you need to equip people with skills and behaviors to lead, where do you start? 

HAVEN Leadership Development Programs 

Strong performers are often promoted into management roles because they excel at what they do. While technical skills are one indicator of leadership potential, managing others requires an entirely different set of skills.

Our research shows that 85% of people promoted into management roles for the first time get no training to effectively make that transition.

What if leadership is a discipline that requires technical training similar to a major or a minor at a university?

Engaging People and Teams

HAVEN has partnered with tech and biotech companies since 2016 to equip and develop thousands of managers and leaders. We design programs to help technical experts develop the leadership skills required to effectively engage people and teams. 

We work with you to design a program that addresses specific management and leadership needs. We draw from our extensive library of proven programs and customize them to align the approach with your organizational culture. The result: deep learning experiences that generate buzz and increase demand for learning within your organization.

Why our approach to leadership development works

Proven Content and Seasoned Presenters

With over 200 years of collective experience in designing and delivering development programs, our internal self-assessment (okay, tinkering) means your training program is never a pilot or a trial run – we know what works.

  • End-to-End Programming 
    HAVEN covers every aspect of program delivery. Our dynamic facilitators wow with engaging content while between-session experiments bring the concepts to life. 
  • Expertise in Technical Environments
    Our facilitators work in virtual and in-person classrooms. We’ve perfected tools and approaches that unlock capabilities, shift mindsets, and improve interpersonal dynamics.
  • All Levels of Leadership
    HAVEN offers development experiences for every stage of leadership – from first-time managers to seasoned executives.
  • Maximum Business Impact
    HAVEN provides case studies, custom exercises, provocative discussions, and coaching in every live session. Learning carries on after the session ends through peer coaching and self-led experiments to improve individual and bottom-line results.

Program and format options

In-house

For groups of 12 or more. In-house training that enables training program elements to be customized for your group’s specific learning needs.

HAVEN Bullet Icon

Go wide: 6 topics in 11 weeks, including ample time for practice and reflection

HAVEN Bullet Icon

Go deep: a deeper dive into a smaller number of content areas to drive mastery of new skills and behaviors

Open enrollment

For a smaller numbers of leaders where foundational management and leadership skills are needed, we offer programs where your participants are combined with participants from other organizations.

Learning on demand

Videos and asynchronous learning.

Let's Talk

Every organization has unique needs.
What are yours?

I am looking to:

Our most popular building blocks

Workshops icon

Workshops

Two-hour interactive sessions where HAVEN facilitators lead discussions and share tools and strategies. Participants try out the tools and work through cases in small groups.
Learning Labs icon

Learning Labs

Heavy practice, facilitator-led, in-the-moment coaching, and fine-tuning of application of tools and concepts.
Case Groups icon

Case Groups

Issue-focused sessions for groups of three to four participants. Each participant brings current cases related to the core content-HAVEN facilitators provide coaching and facilitate peer coaching.
Field Experiments icon

Field Experiments

Two-hour interactive sessions where HAVEN facilitators lead discussions share tools and strategies. Participants try out the tools and work through cases in small groups.
Asynchronous Learning icon

Asynchronous Learning

One or two hours of professionally produced videos covering core content from our programs for cost effective impact.
Light Coaching icon

Light Coaching

A 360 before the program paired with three 1:1 coaching sessions where leaders get targeted support.
Build Your Own Program

Goals and benefits of leadership development

A cadre of managers who understand the importance of their mandate to lead and their responsibility to engage and optimize their teams.

The freedom to inquire, dissent, support, and advocate using language that is understood and accepted across the organization — the awareness to hear ideas that could be missed, to find better logic and context for decisions, to unlock the power of trust, to enjoy work relationships, and to access the strategic advantage of true innovation.

New approaches and behavior patterns for increased efficiency — at HAVEN, we read the latest books and articles to curate and share the highlights with our clients, such as meeting management, focusing and prioritizing, engaging online, delivering and receiving feedback, and finding compromise.

Working relationships that span years and decades — learning together, trying new approaches, and sharing failures and successes builds cooperation among peer groups that later bridges work functions, sustains relational equity for cross-functional decisions, and maintains communication between workstreams.

  • Confident leaders who know their mandate and feel ownership
  • Engaged individual contributors who respect their managers
  • Productive performance discussions that improve individual, team, and organizational impact
  • Clearer focus on the right priorities
  • Comfort with debate and greater commitment to decisions
  • More calculated risk-taking, cross-pollination of ideas, and innovation
  • Leaders poised to grow into more complex roles over time

Don’t take our word for it

"The Leadership Foundations program really simplifies communication strategies and helped me reflect on my own strengths and weaknesses as a leader/communicator. I wish I had joined sooner as I think it will help me become a better manager."
B.J., Director, Technology Company
"Thank you for having made this an awesome experience! Super fun, super helpful and lasting content!"
S.H., Director, Technology Company
"I have been thinking CONSTANTLY about the lessons I learned from the program. My project with 7 parallel work streams ongoing and it absolutely would not have happened successfully had I not learned the principles from your program."
A.B., Biopharmaceutical Company
The six short video segments that were sent in preparation are nothing but superb...This this was an excellent way to prepare and I hope we’ll see more of these segments in the future.
K.M., VP of Clinical Development, Biotech Company
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  • Success Story

    Leadership Development Programs
    Leadership Development Programs

    Context

    A group of VPs were working remotely for >15-months, had lost touch with one another personally, and had fallen out of alignment strategically. The organization was growing rapidly, and conflicts were emerging in cross-functional teams at every intersection. The executives feared the organization was lagging behind its goals, and wanted to equip the VPs to level-up and drive the broader organization more effectively.
    Learn More

    The Brief

    A group of VPs were working remotely for >15-months, had lost touch with one another personally, and had fallen out of alignment strategically. The organization was growing rapidly, and conflicts were emerging in cross-functional teams at every intersection. The executives feared the organization was lagging behind its goals, and wanted to equip the VPs to level-up and drive the broader organization more effectively.

    HAVEN Approach:

    HAVEN started by assessing the needs of the learning community. Through candid discussion with the VP-participants, as well as their constituents (execs and direct reports), we aligned on a series of experiences that would help them make progress on their learning priorities. The program offered a combination of in-person interactions to build rapport with one another, and virtual sessions to accommodate hybrid working cultures. The experiences were offered in bite-sized modules over time that could be fit into the busy schedules of a scaling company, with experiments and peer coaching sprinkled in-between plenary modules. Throughout the program, VPs learned to shift their mindsets and behaviors, and discussed how they can cascade this learning throughout the organization. HAVEN also met with the executives for an accelerated review of the content and tools, so that executives could recognize and reinforce the new mindsets and behaviors trained in the program.

    Results:

    Participants reported overwhelmingly that the program was a good use of their limited time. They built stronger relationships with their coworkers, learned important skills to interact productively during challenges, and committed to practicing these new mindsets and behaviors. In a follow-up survey with the constituents of the participants, 70% of direct reports reported “significant” improvement in the leadership effectiveness of the participants, while the executives unanimously pointed to more impactful results for the business after the program. They made a commitment to put a new cohort through this program every 6-months, so that more and more of the organization adopted a uniform language-system and set of tools for leading effectively in their culture.
    Leadership Development Programs

  • Success Story

    Leadership Development Programs
    Leadership Development Programs

    Context

    A multi-billion dollar software company with a culture of promoting from within realized that their managers lacked experience and had never received formal training.
    Learn More

    The Brief

    A multi-billion dollar software company with a culture of promoting from within realized that their managers lacked experience and had never received formal training. Through a routine employee survey, the HR business partner learned that more than 50% of employees hadn’t received feedback in more than a year, and that 30% of the employees said they were surprised by negative feedback. Furthermore, employees did not feel they were coached or mentored often enough (if at all) and said they didn’t know if advancement opportunities were available to them at the company.

    Approach and Results

    HAVEN was chosen as a partner because we were able to move quickly to propose a targeted program that could equip the engineering managers and because the facilitation team had extensive experience teaching leaders and managers in technical environments. Our team launched a 4 module mentoring and development program to more than 100 managers within 4 weeks of the initial discussion. The program included workshops, learning labs, and small-group coaching (case groups) in four areas: productive conversations, feedback, coaching, and development.
    Leadership Development Programs

  • Success Story

    Executive Coaching Client
    Executive Coaching Client

    Context

    Tony never missed a deadline but often, this came at a cost. Tony's career advancement stalled as his relationships across the organization suffered. Read about how Tony transformed his leadership through coaching partnership.
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    CONTEXT

    Tony never missed a deadline. He was revered for his willingness to walk through and was relied on to get the job done. But the cost of that delivery was high - others in the organization often felt disrespected, demotivated, and burnt out when working with him. Tony's career advancement stalled as his relationships across the organization suffered.

    HAVEN APPROACH

    Tony and his coach started by examining what makes him so effective on delivery. Why was he able to succeed where others couldn’t? And which of those attributes could be recalibrated to achieve better relationship results without compromising on the critical task results? The coach collected 360 feedback to understand his current impact, others' perceptions and requested actions. From there, Tony used his coach as a thought partner to identify specific behaviors that might achieve better relationship results. Tony and his coach explored what needed to shift in Tony’s mindset to enable these shifts in behavior, and then designed experiments for him to run and iterate on. Over time, Tony become more comfortable with this new pattern, to the point where it started to feel like his natural default.

    RESULTS

    In Tony’s follow-up 360, respondents consistently reported improvement in their ability to work with Tony, indeed some even reporting that it’s become enjoyable. They started to request him on their collaborations because it didn’t also come with major drawbacks for them. Tony was promoted 6-months later, and continues to check in with his constituents on a bi-annual basis to ensure he’s balancing both task and relationship results regularly.
    Executive Coaching Client

  • Success Story

    Executive Coaching Client
    Executive Coaching Client

    Context

    Jane recently joined a company as CEO knowing it needed to evolve. She sought out coaching to help her engage and align with others around her new plans. Learn how HAVEN helped Jane to face current challengesand expand her leadership repertoire.
    Learn More

    CONTEXT

    Jane recently joined a company as CEO knowing it needed to evolve and the importance of committing to a strategy. Her inherited executive team, however, interpreted her steadfastness as inflexible and invalidating. This difference was being noticed by the Board and employees alike. Jane sought out coaching to help her engage and align with others in her strategic vision.

    HAVEN APPROACH

    Coaching started by encouraging Jane to empathize with the experience of her executive team. Through inquiry and observation, Jane began to appreciate how her intentions to save the company from the chaos of an ever-changing strategy were not matching her impact on the team that was now feeling diminished and annoyed. She and her coach explored ways to keep the organization focused while also involving and enrolling her colleagues where appropriate. Jane learned to clarify when the organization was in “brainstorming mode” and when decisions were finalized and the company was in “execution mode.” This clarity helped her executive team understand when it was helpful to provide input and debate, and when it was necessary to commit to implementation.

    RESULTS

    In follow-up discussions, the executive team reported feeling more included in the strategic debate, and also appreciated the clarity of knowing when the debate was over and it was time to commit. Because the executive team gained alignment, the broader employee-base gained clarity and confidence in the organization’s approach, which allowed the Board to back away from the day-to-day and operate at a higher-level. All the while, Jane gained versatility in her leadership style that will help her face the challenges of the future.
    Executive Coaching Client

FAQs

Choosing an executive coach is a big decision. Some say qualifications matter most; others say chemistry is most important. At HAVEN, we think both are necessary. That’s why all our coaches have formal coach training and business experience and represent a versatile set of coaching styles. Yet, there’s one more consideration essential to making this investment worth it.

It depends. Coaching is expensive and only worth it for some. Complete this scorecard to help you decide. [Trevor: Answer code yes/no/not sure]

  • Does the recipient want coaching?
  • Does the recipient need to develop to achieve his/her/their goals?
  • Is the recipient capable of change?
  • Can the recipient make the time to invest in coaching?
  • Would the organization be receptive/supportive?
  • Is coaching a last-ditch effort to “save” recipient from termination? [reverse coded where yes calculation would go into no score]
  • Does the organization have the budget for coaching?
  • Have (or will) internal supports been provided like feedback and mentoring?

[If 70% or more are yes]: Great, it sounds like coaching may well be a smart investment in this time. If you want to discuss further and/or get to know our coaches, complete this quick form and we will get in touch.

[If 70% or more of answers are no]: From our experience, it doesn’t sound like coaching is the right intervention in this instance. We’d hate for you to invest finite resources on something with such a questionable return but if you think there is a case for coaching, reach out to us to talk.

[If no clear winner or most answers are unsure]: From our experience, positive answers to these questions are proportional to the success of the partnership. As such, we’d encourage you to uncover these answers before you determine if coaching is the right step at this time.

Help your leaders to

increase impact

Schedule Your Consultation

Igniting Exceptional Performance in Leaders and Teams 
info@havenhumanassets.com

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