Leadership Development

The New Rules of Influence

A program for leaders and managers navigating influence in compressed, high-stakes environments.

The Problem

Influence used to take time. Years of corridor conversations, lunches, and long meetings where authority built up gradually. That world is gone. Influence now happens in moments, not over months. The moments that matter are usually the ones with the most at stake.

Most leaders are still running on the old playbook.

It’s sharpest in the middle. A manager now sits between a leadership layer that keeps asking for more and a team that no longer grants authority by title, expected to mediate between generations who want different things from work and read authority in different ways. Most were promoted for being good at the work, not trained to lead it. They absorb the pressure from above and hold the room below, often in the same hour. For the manager in the middle, influence isn’t one skill among many. It’s the job.

Why the Old Playbook Doesn't Hold

The old playbook was built on three assumptions: that you walk into a room with permission to speak, your authority intact, and an audience already inclined to listen. None of those assumptions hold anymore.

The meeting used to be where authority showed up. It wasn’t where it was made. The runway has gone. AI has narrowed what knowledge work pays for. Hybrid work has cut out the unstructured time where credibility used to accumulate. You meet a client for forty-five minutes video call and that’s the relationship.

The three things the old frameworks took for granted, permission, regulation, and standing, now have to be established inside the moment itself. That’s a different skill.

The leaders and managers who hold a room now are the ones who can read what the moment needs, stay clear under pressure, and earn authority through what they contribute rather than what their job title says.

That’s what this leadership development program teaches.

What This Program Builds

Three capabilities, sequenced.

Formation.

A stable, integrated sense of who someone is professionally. What they value, what they’re building, who they are at their best. Without it, communication is performative, decisions are avoided, and small setbacks are read as verdicts on their character and future.

Judgment.

The capacity to make sound calls when conditions are ambiguous, hierarchy is unstated, and the answer isn’t in the playbook. Judgment is what entry-level work demands daily, what AI will replace, and what organisations often don’t know how to develop deliberately.

Resilience.

The capacity to stay present, coherent, and effective under pressure. To recover from conflict, ambiguity, or failure, and sustain performance over time without burning through.

Formation builds the foundation. Judgment uses it. Resilience sustains it.

These three capabilities can be built directly in the cohort. The structural conditions that make them easier or harder to sustain, leadership, manager capability, and the way the institution actually supports its people, sit upstream of this program. Those are addressed through Advisory.

Three Formats

FORMAT ONE

Keynote

60 minutes

For conferences, offsites, and first-exposure rooms.

The frame shift.

FORMAT TWO · THE CAPABILITY BUILD

Workshop

90 minutes

For intact teams and leadership cohorts.

The capability build.

FORMAT THREE

Combined

Half-day

Keynote and workshop together. The flagship.

Frame plus capability.

Three Formats

A keynote provides insight. A workshop builds the capability. Together, they lead to sustained change.

Keynote (60 minutes)

For conferences, offsites, and first-exposure rooms. The frame shift.

Workshop (90 minutes)

For intact teams and leadership cohorts. The capability build.

Keynote and Workshop Together

The flagship. Usually delivered as a half-day.
A diagnostic phase can be added to tailor it to your cohort.

Every delivery is built around your team, your sector, and the specific moments your people face.

Three Formats

A keynote provides insight. A workshop builds the capability. Together, they lead to sustained change.

Keynote (60 minutes)

For conferences, offsites, and first-exposure rooms. The frame shift.

Workshop (90 minutes)

For intact teams and leadership cohorts. The capability build.

Keynote and Workshop Together

The flagship. Usually delivered as a half-day. A diagnostic phase can be added to tailor it to your cohort.

Every delivery is built around your team, your sector, and the specific moments your people face.

testimonials

What My Clients Say

Madeline’s workshop will leave you inspired. You will want to hug and engage with all your fellow participants once the session is through. You will want to apply what you learned the second you walk out the door!

Peter

Director of Sales

This workshop was truly insightful to provide me with more knowledge and understanding about my core values and how I am presenting myself to those around me. I learned a lot about how I show up currently and how else I can show the other aspects and facets of myself.

Leah

Attorney

Madeleine is engaging, inspirational and down to earth. She gave me tangible tools to use to align myself with my personal and professional goals. Thank you!

Emelie

Architect

Incredibly inspiring, motivational, and helpful. I already feel like I’ve leveled up in my personal growth with just one workshop!

Niki

Attorney

I really enjoyed all aspects of Madeline’s workshop. I liked the focus on identifying personal values and connecting skills and talents to personal values. I loved how the skills and values were transformed at the end into a personal statement of purpose. This really helped me to clarify things.