Leadership Foundations
An in person workshop developed as a practical learning opportunity for people in leadership or managerial roles.
Next Workshop: March 2026
Location: Tamworth
Leadership Foundation: A Workshop for leaders and managers early in their leadership development.
Leadership Foundations is your gateway to learning the essential knowledge and skills you need to lead effectively. This learning opportunity bridges the gap between leadership theory and real-life practice.
Who is the workshop designed for?
first time managers
up and coming leaders
founders growing their business
leadership teams looking for new way to strengthen their performance as a team
“I don’t want to be a micromanager.”
Some people have natural leadership qualities, but no-one has the essential leadership skills needed to effectively lead a team from the start.
Feeling uncertain and overwhelmed is common in the first few years of leading, but knowing how to overcome this hurdle isn’t so clear. Experience can help, but not if you don’t have the necessary skills to be effective in your position of leader or manager.
You may start your own pathway into leadership full of excitement about leading people. But this feeling can quickly fade away as and you start to doubt yourself, feel stressed and freaked out about the mounting sense of responsibility. That’s a difficult headspace to be in and will not lead to great decisions or great reactions.
To be an effective leader, you need to build a foundation of self-awareness and a solid understanding about how you can influence and inspire others. You need to know your strengths and how to work on areas that need more attention.
And you also need skills. Lots of them. And tips. And tricks. A whole toolkit of skills and knowledge that you can draw from each time you face a new challenge.
The Leadership Foundations Workshop teaches you the essential knowledge and skills you need to lead effectively. This learning opportunity provides a connection between the theory of leadership and focuses on developing real-life leadership practices you can implement straight away.
The Leadership Foundations workshop has been developed as a practical learning opportunity for people in leadership or managerial roles.
Next Workshop: March 2026
Location: Tamworth
Starting with a strong foundation of leadership skills is a total game changer.
With the right tools, you can make a big impact from the early stages of being a leader.
The Leadership Foundations workshop has been developed as a practical learning opportunity for people in leadership or managerial roles.
Participants learn critical leadership skills that form the essential foundations of being an impactful leader. The workshop is a one-day program designed to provide these tools for early career leaders:
build essential leadership skills that prevent costly management mistakes
tools for effective team leadership, goal setting and decision making
confidence to handle challenges and inspire team members
opportunities to network with peers and mentors, building a strong foundation for career growth
Leadership Foundations 2026 will be facilitated in Tamworth, NSW.
Be the first to know the details by joining the waitlist here.
Got a new leader with great potential but needs to develop their skills?
Leadership Foundations teaches all the essential leadership skills needed to effectively lead a team.
communication
delegation
difficult conversations
feedback
building trust
The workshop tackles both the management (task and resource focused) and leadership (people focused) parts that make up effective leadership.
The Bigger Problem
You may have more experienced leaders in your business who can act as mentors. But this will only take your up and coming leaders so far.
Mentors are great for sharing what they did, how they did it and what the outcomes was for them. But this can be a limiting learning opportunity. Unless you want to create a company of cookie cutter leaders all making the same mistakes, this isn’t a sustainable learning and development strategy.
Learning leadership skills on the run in the workplace is great in theory. But the reality is there are always competing demands that get in the way of having those important leadership development conversations.
Hey bosses, this bit is for you.
A Learning Opportunity for your Leadership Team
Leadership teams can achieve significant impact when they perform as a collective. And learning together is an excellent strategy to get the ultimate bang for your buck.
If you are looking for a practical and action focused professional development opportunity for your leadership team in 2025, get in contact for more details about the group bonus offer.
This workshop will not only fast-track your leaders as individuals - it will also help your leadership team to think collaboratively about the opportunities for action after the workshop.
Workshop Content
This workshop is specifically designed for people who are new to leadership or managerial roles.
The workshop is limited to 10 participants to give everyone an opportunity to actively engage in discussions and address current gaps in knowledge and skills.
And it’s a great opportunity for super shy people too.
Participants will walk away with actionable ideas and steps to grow their leadership capabilities.
Topics we will cover include:
Identifying Your Professional Values and how these relate to decision making
Avoid being a micromanager by identifying the best leadership style for you
Examining Your Work Habits to become more productive
Develop Your Communication Style so you can work with everyone (even that difficult one)
Mastering Developmental Feedback because it is really hard to tell someone their performance needs to be better
Encouraging Effective Team Collaboration not a group of individuals working in silos
Workshop Outcomes
By participating in this workshop, you will:
Develop Self-Awareness:
Gain a grounded understanding of your leadership identity, defining what it is and what you aspire it to be.
Identify Your Leadership Strengths:
Recognise and leverage your existing leadership strengths as a foundation for growth.
Understand the Impact of Values Alignment
Uncover your core values and explore how they align with your organisation's purpose, vision and values to set the foundation for authentic leadership.
Create Effective Communication Strategies:
Enhance your ability to influence and inspire others towards a shared goal.
Empower Your Team to Perform:
Acquire skills to bring out the best in your team, fostering a culture of collaboration and achievement.
Master the Art of Developmental Feedback:
Learn the crucial skill of providing feedback to drive personal and professional growth within your team.
Create A Professional Development Plan:
Create a personalised plan for continued learning and development of your leadership skills based on your unique needs.
Participant Outcomes
Big groups aren’t for everyone, so I limit the number of registrations to cap it at 10. Participants consistently say how much they value learning in this small group environment.
Every participant leaves the workshop feeling significantly more confident and able to lead a team effectively.
Pre and post workshop evaluations show the greatest impact for participants has been learning how to:
effectively manage poor performance
communicate more effectively, and
provide developmental feedback to others
Who attends?
This workshop has been delivered annually over the past 4 years to participants from a diverse range of organisations and levels of experience including:
human services (government)
early childhood education
retail
real estate
animal health
insurance
financial services and
agribusiness.
Leadership Foundations Workshop Participant 2024 (Strategic Lead, Financial Service)
“The workshop offers valuable time to reflect on your leadership style and being asked questions that made me think about how I lead and the implications of my style.”
““I appreciated the format delivered in a relaxed vibe where we had animated discussions and sharing of valuable insights with other attendees.
Belinda’s perspective (from her Social Work background) brought this content to life for me, as previously all my professional development has been from business theory perspective.
I still regularly ruminate on my own core values identified in this workshop (9 months later) and how this shapes my personal and professional life. The collaborative approach to leadership development was practical and relationship based, offering tools to improve:
Communication at an individual and team level
Understanding of group dynamics and development
Undertaking brave conversations with a tried and tested framework.
I have found working with Belinda to be insightful and extremely helpful. I can whole heartly recommend her Leadership workshops to anyone looking to elevate their leadership journey, whether they’re new to the role or seasoned leader.”
Leadership workshop participant 2024, Strategic Leader in Financial Services industry.
Meet Your Facilitator
Dr Belinda Mawhinney
I work with leaders at all stages of their career - from the very start of their journey to working with leaders with decades of experience.
I created Leadership Foundations to teach early career leaders the essentials skills and knowledge they need in their toolbelt to be a successful leader.
I draw on my experiences of being a Social Worker, manager, strategic leader, and researcher (that’s the Dr bit) and roll this up into my consultancy practice. This means I have an extensive range of skills and knowledge based on a combination of experience and formal qualifications.
The workshop has been designed by me and is only ever delivered by me. I adapt each workshop to meet the unique needs of each group of participants to ensure they get everything they need.
After the workshop, participants are able to engage my services to work 1:1, with their leadership team or to work with their whole organisations to improve leadership capabilities and workplace culture.