Manager and Leadership Development

Support for managers and senior leaders doing the job of leadership. Practical, people-first, and useful on Monday.

Most managers were never shown how to lead people

Most people become managers because they were brilliant at their job. Then overnight the job changes completely. Suddenly they’re responsible for someone else’s confidence, development and performance, and nobody showed them how.

So they improvise. One to ones become project updates. Problems get solved by the manager because it feels quicker than coaching someone through it. Feedback gets softened until it means nothing. And the same issues keep coming back.

It’s not about capability. It’s about never having been given the tools.

We work with managers and senior leaders at every level, from people stepping into their first management role, to middle managers navigating the messy middle, to SLTs who’ve stopped functioning as a team. The work is always practical, always bespoke, and always designed around the situations your people are genuinely facing.

of managers say they've never had formal training for the role

0 %

1 in 2

employees leave managers, not organisations

3

levels we work across: rising stars, middle managers and SLTs, each needing a different approach

Bespoke

every programme is designed around your team’s specific situations

"The best training workshop I've attended in a long time. Simple, clear and valuable."

Attendee, Impression Digital

Useful on Monday

Nice isn't the same as kind. And comfort isn't the same as support.

In almost every organisation we work with, there are conversations that aren’t happening. Feedback that gets softened until it means nothing. Decisions that feel made in the room but somehow aren’t. People nodding when they should be pushing back.

None of this is because people don’t care. It’s because nobody has given them the tools and the confidence to handle it differently. That’s what we’re here to change.

Who we work with

Three groups. One goal. Leaders who make an impact.

Track 01: Rising Stars

First-time managers and rising stars

For people stepping into leadership for the first time. They’re brilliant at their job. Now they need to learn a completely different one. We help them understand what leadership looks like in practice, build confidence in having direct conversations, and develop a style that feels like them.

Track 02: Middle Managers

Middle managers

The people doing the hardest job in any organisation. Accountable up and responsible down, often without enough support in either direction. We work with them on giving feedback that lands, holding difficult conversations, coaching their team rather than fixing problems for them, and managing up as well as down.

Track 03: SLTs

Senior leadership teams

SLTs often come to us saying they need help with strategy or communication. Somewhere in the first session, someone says: “Honestly, I think we’ve stopped telling each other the truth.” We work with senior teams on alignment, decision-making under pressure, challenging each other directly, and functioning as a leadership team rather than a collection of individual leaders.

Example topics we cover

Every programme is tailored. These are the areas we come back to most.

Programmes are always designed around your organisation. The list below gives you a feel for the kind of work we do, not a fixed menu.

01

Giving and receiving feedback

Why feedback doesn’t always land, and how to make it stick. Understanding relationship, truth and identity triggers.

02

Difficult conversations

How to have the conversations that aren’t happening, without the fallout.

03

Moving from fixing to coaching

Shifting from solving your team’s problems to helping them solve their own, and why that matters long term.

04

Decision-making under pressure

How to stay clear and make good calls when things are moving fast.

05

Expectations and accountability

Setting clear expectations and following through, without the awkwardness.

06

Leading through others

For SLTs: thinking about what you’re equipping your managers to do, and whether they can do it.

07

Listening as a leadership skill

Why 92% of people think they’re good listeners, and what gets in the way.

08

Values in practice

What your values mean when things get hard, and how leaders model them day to day.

How this works

Bespoke programmes, built around your organisation

🕐

Half-day or full-day sessions

A focused session on one or two areas, built around your team’s specific situations. Right for teams that need a reset, a starting point or a provocation.

📋

Tailored programmes

A structured series of sessions over weeks or months, allowing time for practice, application and follow-up. Designed from scratch around your people.

👤

1:1 coaching

Individual support for managers or leaders navigating specific challenges, transitions or moments of pressure. Works alongside group sessions or as a standalone.

👥

Community and cohort programmes

For co-working spaces, membership organisations and communities running leadership development for their members. We design and deliver the programme. You bring the people.

“We knew we were a strong team, but HappyHQ’s SLT training and framework showed us exactly where the gaps were. How we were making decisions, how ownership was being shared, where we were avoiding the harder conversations. It gave us a way into the work that was practical from the start.”

CEO and Founder, Sunshine The Social Agency

CEO and Founder

Sunshine The Social Agency

Why people love it

What changes, and why it stays changed

01 Tailored scenarios, not generic training

Every session is built around the situations your managers are facing right now. No off-the-shelf content, no theory for its own sake.

02 The work is useful on Monday

People leave with frameworks and approaches they can use in their next one to one, their next difficult conversation, their next team meeting.

03 Honest without being uncomfortable

We create the kind of environment where people can say the thing they’ve been avoiding. That’s usually where the most useful work happens.

04 It changes more than just the individuals

When managers get better at their jobs, the whole team feels it. Retention improves, decisions get made, and the culture starts to reflect the values you want.

Who this is for

Built for the people doing the hardest jobs in any organisation

Whether you’re a founder who needs their senior team to function better, an HR lead investing in your managers, or a community running leadership development for your members, this is designed around you.

What changes

You see the difference in the room pretty quickly

Managers stop avoiding the conversations that need to happen
Feedback lands better and gets acted on
Teams become less dependent on their manager to solve every problem
Senior leaders start functioning as a team, not as individual contributors
Decision-making gets faster and cleaner
The same issues stop coming back

“I thoroughly enjoyed the session and came out of it feel re-energised and excited to be what was taught into practice. Fran and Janine instantly set up a safe space meaning myself and the others in the room opened up and felt comfortable discussing our own worries and it felt as though both Fran and Janine took this time to really understand each individual and ensure that the rest of the session would be useful for every one’s need. It was great that the exercises were perfectly applied to our daily work scenarios making it easy to understand how to integrate the tips and skills into our day-to-day work.”

Agency training programme participant

Ready to invest in your leaders?

Get in touch to talk through what your team needs. Every programme starts with a conversation.

Or email hello@happyhq.co.uk