The company had just emerged from two bruising years: a business slowdown, a painful round of layoffs, and leadership changes at the very top. Signs of recovery were beginning to appear, yet beneath the optimism was a quieter truth—the culture itself needed healing. If growth was to be sustained, the organization would have to rebuild trust, transparency, and confidence.
It was clear that managers would play a decisive role. They were the ones who carried culture forward in everyday moments: the way they opened meetings, handled conflict, or explained a decision. And so, at this moment of transition, the organization chose to invest not in new processes or systems, but in its frontline and mid-level managers—90 of them across functions and geographies.
This was not framed as “fixing gaps.” Instead, it was about creating space for managers to pause, reflect, and reset how they showed up as leaders. The question was simple: How can we help our managers role model trust and transparency, so that culture becomes lived, not just stated?
Preparing the Ground
Before the first workshop, we set out to listen. In-depth conversations with leaders, participants, and their teams revealed familiar patterns: managers who were technically reliable but reactive under stress, teams that hesitated to speak up, decisions that felt inconsistent. Alongside this, each manager completed a brief emotional intelligence self-assessment, followed by a short debrief that surfaced blind spots.
By the time we met in the first lab, the group was already primed with personal insights and organizational signals. They weren’t walking into a generic program—they were stepping into a journey that was directly connected to their reality.
Stepping Into the Work
The opening session began not with PowerPoint slides but with silence. A guided breathwork exercise invited managers to simply notice where they were. The shift in the room was palpable: leaders who were usually in constant motion found themselves slowing down. Journaling followed, asking them to reflect on moments when they lost composure and what those reactions cost their teams. Using a “wheel of emotions,” they mapped the ways they typically responded—anger, defensiveness, withdrawal—and then imagined what better alternatives could look like.
Later, an art-based exercise gave form to unspoken vulnerabilities. A participant drew a storm to depict his volatility. Another sketched a locked box to represent conversations he routinely avoided. “That exercise broke me open,” one admitted. “Once I saw it on paper, I could no longer pretend it wasn’t there.”
The room was beginning to shift. These were not managers learning theories. These were individuals confronting themselves, and in the process, rediscovering the impact they had on others.
The Arc of Relationships
With self-awareness as the foundation, the next turn in the journey was toward relationships. For half a day, managers immersed themselves in the practice of empathy—not as a soft sentiment, but as a leadership strategy. In role plays, they heard how quickly their tone could shut down a conversation. In perspective-taking exercises, they were asked to argue from their team member’s or stakeholder’s point of view.
The realization was immediate. As one manager put it, “I had always thought empathy meant being agreeable. Now I see it means creating space where problems surface earlier, so they can be solved faster.”
In one particularly powerful moment, a senior manager noticed that in his attempt to “stay efficient,” he often cut people short. When he paused and listened fully, the ideas that surfaced saved him rework later. Trust, he realized, was built not in grand gestures but in everyday listening.
The Breakthrough on Feedback
But empathy alone was not enough. In a culture scarred by layoffs, feedback had become a fragile practice. People hesitated to give it, and when they did, it often triggered defensiveness. Recognizing this, the organization devoted an entire lab to feedback—both receiving and giving.
In one exercise, managers role-played receiving tough feedback. Many instinctively argued back or justified themselves. The facilitator paused and asked: “What if feedback is not judgment, but data?” Practicing again, managers tried listening, asking clarifying questions, and simply saying thank you. The energy shifted: feedback conversations began to feel less threatening and more constructive.
On the giving side, they practiced moving from vague platitudes to clear, respectful, actionable statements. One participant reflected, “I realized how I receive feedback sets the tone for my team. If I get defensive, they’ll shut down. If I stay open, they’ll stay honest.”
Slowly, feedback began to be seen not as an annual ritual but as an everyday act of trust-building.
Thinking Clearly in Complexity
The final lab turned toward decision-making. Managers were introduced to Daniel Kahneman’s idea of System 1 and System 2 thinking: the fast, intuitive responses that serve us well in some contexts but mislead us in others, and the slower, more deliberate thinking that catches bias and brings clarity.
In live dilemmas drawn from their work—client escalations, cross-functional disputes, resource trade-offs—managers saw how quickly System 1 took over. They acted on instinct, authority, or past patterns. Then, using structured tools like the OODA Loop and cost–risk analysis, they shifted into System 2. The difference was striking.
“For the first time, I realized how much I live in System 1,” one manager said. “Now I can choose when to slow down into System 2—and my decisions are sharper.”
This wasn’t about discarding intuition. It was about knowing when to pause, check assumptions, and involve others. Over time, managers came to see that clear, transparent decisions didn’t just solve problems—they rebuilt confidence in leadership.
Carrying It Back
Workshops, of course, are only as useful as what happens after them. To anchor the learning, each manager created an Individual Development Plan—small, personal commitments they could carry into their work. Some pledged to pause before responding under stress. Others committed to acknowledging every idea before critiquing it.
Between labs, managers received nudges: short reflections, journaling prompts, or challenges to try one behavior differently. These micro-reminders kept the learning alive.
The impact soon became visible. Teams noticed their managers explaining decisions instead of simply announcing them. Conflicts that once escalated quietly were now addressed earlier. A junior employee noted, “My manager actually asked for my feedback—and listened. That’s new.”
A senior leader captured the change: “I see managers calmer, clearer, more empathetic. Their teams are trusting them again. That’s the culture we need for growth.”
What Changed
Across the six months, over 90 managers went through this journey. More than 2,000 hours of collective learning created not just a program, but a movement within the organization. Participants consistently rated the sessions in the top boxes, and every single one said they would recommend them. Internal demand grew so quickly that a repeat cohort was commissioned.
But the deeper impact lay in the intangibles. Managers spoke of “life-changing” and “transformative” experiences. They described being able to regulate their triggers, receive feedback with openness, practice empathy with confidence, and make decisions with clarity. Their teams, in turn, began to feel safer, more engaged, and more included in decision-making.
Or, as one participant summarized: “This wasn’t training. It was transformation. I don’t just manage differently—I think, feel, and decide differently now.”
Conclusion
At a fragile but hopeful moment of recovery, the organization chose to bet on its managers—and that bet paid off. By guiding them through a journey of self-awareness, empathy, feedback, and critical thinking, the company gave its culture a reset.
The true lesson is that leadership development is not about a set of slides or skills. It is about creating spaces where managers can see themselves differently, experiment safely, and carry those experiments back into everyday leadership. The ripple effect of such spaces is profound: calmer conversations, more honest feedback, clearer decisions.
And in those everyday acts lies the rebuilding of trust, transparency, and resilience—the very qualities that will carry the organization into its next chapter of growth.
