Inhouse leadership training · Europe-wideDecisions that stick. A team that moves without being pushed.
Insight is cheap and tools are a commodity. What changes a team is leaders who know why they are deciding, say it in a way people can follow, and change one behaviour that is still there a month later. That is what a SkillDay leadership training is built to produce.
How a leadership day runs
Six steps, from the honest start to the behaviour that is still there a month later.
We develop leadership training specific to your organisation — directly applicable, for a lasting shift in behaviour and mindset.
Any format, from first-time team leads to executive boards: a single day, a series over a quarter, or an offsite for the whole leadership team. Delivered across Europe, in English or German, on site or live online.
Designed on your team’s real situation and live cases — never a catalogue day delivered unchanged.
Everything introduced is applied the same day, to the work that is already on their desk.
One named behaviour per leader, a trigger in the real week, and a review four to six weeks later.
What a leadership training actually has to deliver.
Leadership programmes fail when they hand out instruments and hope. Two things reliably change a team’s output: how its leaders think about their job, and whether they are pointing in the same direction. Everything else is supporting material.
Mindset shift
Leaders stop administrating and start deciding. Fewer concepts, applied properly, beat a catalogue of models nobody uses.
- Relevance — separating the work that matters from the work that fills the calendar
- Decisiveness — deciding with 70 per cent of the information, on purpose
- Ownership — the team’s result as the leader’s result
Alignment
Alignment is not a workshop output on a flipchart. It is relationship and trust between the people who have to carry the decision.
- Relationships — leaders who actually know how the others work
- Trust — enough of it to disagree in the room instead of in the corridor
- Shared language — the same words for priority, done and good enough
A leadership team that thinks differently about its job and is aligned enough to act on it — visible in what they do differently in the weeks after. That is the outcome every day is designed against, and the one we ask about in the follow-up.
Tools are a commodity. Frameworks, matrices and templates are included, and they are the easy part — they are handed over, not celebrated.
Before, during, after — one honest arc.
The same six phases carry every leadership day, whatever the module mix. The work starts before the room and is only finished when a behaviour has visibly changed in the weeks after.
Every design starts from a jobs-to-be-done question: what is this leadership team hired to get right, and what is in the way of that today?
Leadership training outline — eight blocks to build your day from.
Block A is the structure of the day itself. Blocks B to H are the module library: we pick two or three per day with you, based on the intake conversation. Nothing here is a fixed agenda.
The six phases in detail
Before
- Intake call with the sponsor
- Jobs-to-be-done framing of the leadership job
- Short pre-survey or three one-to-one calls
- Goal and success criteria agreed in writing
- Module selection from blocks B–H
During the day
- Onboarding: expectations and the honest status quo
- Core concepts, kept few and applied immediately
- Practice on the group’s own live cases
- Alignment round: rules, priorities, shared language
- Commitments made visible and personal
After
- Documentation of decisions and agreements
- Habit design: trigger, routine, review
- Follow-up session after four to six weeks
- Toolkit: templates, guides, checklists
- Sponsor debrief on what moved and what did not
Mindset shift
Alignment workshops
Feedback and difficult conversations
Emotional intelligence
Time and self-management
Innovation and problem solving
Change, habits and processes
Essentials in one day. Advanced when the team is ready.
Most teams start with the one-day essentials and add the second day once the first commitments have survived contact with reality.
Mindset and alignment
The honest status quo, the core concepts, feedback practised on real cases, and a first round of shared rules and commitments. Two modules from blocks B–H, chosen with you.
- Onboarding and status quo
- Core leadership concepts
- Two selected modules
- Alignment round and commitments
- Toolkit and documentation
Depth and durability
Harder cases, longer practice, and the work of making it stick: process and meeting redesign, habit design, and the review cadence the team will actually keep.
- Advanced cases from the group
- Difficult conversations at length
- Process and meeting redesign
- Habit and ritual design
- Follow-up session after four to six weeks
What is different four weeks later
Not what was covered. What the team does differently once the room is empty and the calendar is full again.
- Each leader has changed one behaviourNamed by them, visible to the team, reviewed in the follow-up.
- Priorities mean the same thingUrgent, done and good enough carry one definition across the team.
- Feedback is given, not postponedPractised on their own live cases until it is uncomfortable and then normal.
- Decisions are made and written downIn the meeting, by the person with the mandate, with a date attached.
- A few concepts are in daily useFew enough to remember, applied the same day they are introduced.
- Disagreement happens in the roomEnough trust to say it at the table instead of in the corridor.
Start with why. End with a behaviour.
Most trainings begin at the what — the models, the matrices, the handouts. This one begins at the why, because that is the part a team can follow.
A team moves when it understands its leaders
Not when it is told, incentivised or reorganised. Understanding is what turns a decision into movement — and it is the thing leadership programmes skip fastest.
An honest day, then one behaviour that holds
The status quo named out loud, a few concepts that carry most of the job, practice on the team’s own live cases. Each leader leaves with one named behaviour, attached to something that already happens in their week, said out loud to the peers who will notice, and reviewed four to six weeks later.
A leadership day, designed for your team
One training day, optionally two, in English or German, on site or live online. Modules chosen with you, materials and documentation included, follow-up session and sponsor debrief built in.
Every leadership training comes with everything around the day.
Each training day comes as a complete package. All formats are bookable individually, on site or live online.
Design
Intake call with the sponsor, jobs-to-be-done framing, a short pre-survey or one-to-one calls, and a design of the day agreed with you in writing.
Facilitation
A full training day for 8–14 leaders, in English or German, on site or as two live online blocks on two days.
Materials
Training materials and the toolkit: templates, guides and checklists for the modules covered on the day.
Documentation
Decisions, rules and commitments written up and sent to the group, so nothing depends on people’s notes.
Follow-up
A session four to six weeks later: what held, what did not, and what the team adjusts now.
Sponsor debrief
An honest read-out for the sponsor on what moved, what is still open, and what the team needs next.
Two trainers, one standard.
Jörn Steinz and Oliver Pasdzior run the leadership trainings together — in English and German, on site and live online, across Europe.
Jörn Steinz
Jörn led teams and client work at Accenture and XING AG before he trained anyone — daily management under time pressure, in front of decision-makers who push back. The material in these days is what held up when the consequences were his.
Since 2012 he has run leadership trainings for corporate teams across Europe, in German and English. Short input, straight into your people’s own live cases, then an honest reflection round. Your leaders leave with structures they use on the next working day.
Oliver Pasdzior
Oliver works where transformations actually stall: the human side of change. Accountability, collaboration and trust are what decide whether a leadership decision gets carried out or quietly ignored — and that is the part he is brought in for.
In the room he takes the contentious conversation the team has been avoiding and moves it to a shared view, a decision and a named owner. Your leadership team leaves with action that holds and follow-up you can measure.
Leadership training — the usual questions
What is a leadership training at SkillDay?
An inhouse training day designed around your leadership team’s real situation. It starts with an honest look at the status quo, works through a few core concepts on the group’s own live cases, and ends with one named behaviour per leader that is reviewed four to six weeks later.
How long does a leadership training take?
One day covers the essentials. Teams that want depth add an optional second day, and some run a series over a quarter or an offsite for the whole leadership team. We design the format around the goal, not the other way round.
Can the leadership training run online?
Yes. On site anywhere in Europe, or live online as two blocks of about 3.5 hours on two days. The exercises are built for both settings, so nothing is cut in the online version.
Which topics can the leadership training cover?
Mindset shift, alignment, feedback and difficult conversations, emotional intelligence, time and self-management, innovation and problem solving, and change and habits. We select two or three blocks per day with you in the intake call.
How many leaders can take part?
Eight to fourteen works best: enough perspectives for a real discussion, small enough that everyone practises. Larger groups are possible with a second trainer.
In which languages do you deliver?
English and German, by both trainers, with the materials in the language of the group.
Which behaviour should be different in six weeks?
Answer that in a few sentences and you get back a proposed design for the day — modules, arc and the behaviour it is built to change — with an offer, and an honest answer if a training is not what the problem needs.
SkillDay · Jörn Steinz · jsteinz@skillday.com · skillday.com