Leadership consulting for the real world
We work with mid-size and growing organisations across England to develop leadership capability that sticks. No buzzwords, no generic frameworks. Just honest, practical consulting grounded in how your people really work.
Start a conversationWho we are
We started this practice because too many leadership programmes produce binders, not behavioural change. Our founding team spent a combined 28 years inside corporate HR and operations before launching Authentic Leadership Advisors. That experience taught us what most consultancies get wrong: they design for the boardroom presentation, not for the Tuesday morning when a manager has to give difficult feedback to a struggling team member.
Our base is in England, and we serve clients across the UK. Most of our engagements run between three and nine months. Some clients come back annually for refresher work or to onboard new leaders into the approach we built together.
We keep our client roster deliberately small. At any given time we work with eight to twelve organisations. That constraint lets every engagement get senior-consultant attention from start to finish, rather than being handed off to junior staff after the pitch deck is signed.
What we do
One-to-one coaching for C-suite and senior directors. Sessions run fortnightly over a six-month arc. We use recorded 360 feedback from your direct reports, peers, and board members as the starting dataset, then build a development plan around two or three specific behaviours you want to shift.
When a senior team disagrees on direction but nobody says so in the room, decisions stall. We facilitate structured alignment sessions over two to four days, producing a written operating agreement that clarifies decision rights, meeting cadence, and escalation rules.
Designed for managers who have been in role less than two years. The programme runs over twelve weeks with four in-person workshops and weekly peer-coaching triads. Participants leave with a personal leadership model they wrote themselves, not one we imposed.
We map your leadership pipeline against your strategic plan for the next three to five years. The output is a named succession slate for each critical role, with development actions already scoped and budgeted. We revisit the slate with you every six months.
Before you can fix a culture problem you need to describe it accurately. We run confidential interviews with 15 to 30 people across levels, then present a thematic analysis with direct quotes (anonymised). Clients tell us this report alone is worth the engagement fee.
Restructures, mergers, and technology shifts all require leaders to behave differently than they did last quarter. We embed alongside your leadership team during the transition, coaching in real time rather than reviewing from a distance after things go sideways.
How it works
We spend two to three weeks listening: interviews, observation of meetings, review of engagement data. No surveys with 85 questions. We talk to people.
We draft a development plan tailored to your context. You review it, challenge it, and we revise. The final plan includes timelines, costs, and success metrics.
Workshops, coaching sessions, and team facilitations happen on your site or at a venue we arrange. We handle all logistics and materials.
Three months after delivery ends, we return for a review. We measure behavioural shifts against the baseline and recommend next steps, if any are needed.
Client feedback
"They spotted a dynamic in our leadership team that we had been dancing around for two years. Within six weeks we had an honest conversation about it, and within three months we restructured reporting lines. Revenue in that division is up 14% year-on-year."
"The emerging leader programme changed how our new managers think about feedback. Before, they avoided it. Now they ask for it. That shift alone justified the investment."
"We hired them for succession planning and ended up also running a culture diagnostic. The diagnostic report was brutally honest, which is exactly what our board needed to hear. We have referred two other companies to them since."
Common questions
Get in touch
Whether you have a specific challenge in mind or want to explore what leadership consulting could look like for your organisation, we are happy to have an initial conversation at no charge. Reach out by phone, email, or the form here.
Address
United Kingdom, England, Crooks End, OI63 5LL, 75 Crist Way
Phone