Compass workshops
Most leadership workshops hand people a model and hope it survives the drive home. These start somewhere different - with a direction on the compass that matches what your team is actually facing right now, and a practice they can use immediately.
Seven directions.
Start wherever your people are.
Two ways in
Each workshop takes one direction of the Kokoro Compass and works it through properly: the idea, the conversation about where it's missing, and what changes in practice. Run one on its own, or build a series across several directions.
FOR ORGANISATIONS
Bring it to your team
Choose the directions that fit where your people are. Delivered in-person, virtually or as part of a wider programme, and tailored to your context and industry.
FOR INDIVIDUALS
Join an open cohort
Open sessions for founders, small business owners and leaders without a training budget behind them. Dates announced through the newsletter.
The workshops
IKIGAI - NORTH
What are you actually leading toward, and does your team know? Working through the gap between stated purpose and the priorities people can see in your calendar.
Good for: teams post-restructure, new leadership groups, strategy resets.
Leading with purpose
MA - NORTHEAST
Why the pause is a leadership skill, not a luxury. How to build space into decision-making when everything rewards speed, and what it costs when you don't.
Good for: teams under sustained pressure, leaders in reactive cycles.
The mindful edge
SHOSHIN - EAST
The expertise that got you here can stop you seeing what's in front of you. Holding what you know lightly enough to lead in conditions you haven't met before.
Good for: technical leaders, innovation teams, experienced groups facing something new.
The curious leader
WABI_SABI - SOUTHEAST
Most leaders are quietly performing a version of leadership that doesn't fit them. What becomes possible when you stop, and lead from what's actually yours.
Good for: emerging leaders, women's leadership programmes, identity transitions.
Leading with authenticity
KINTSUGI - SOUTH
What to do with the hard things. Turning setbacks into something a team can actually draw on, rather than something everyone works around.
Good for: teams through change or loss, post-restructure groups, resilience programmes.
The resilient leader
WA - SOUTHWEST
Harmony isn't agreement. Building the kind of alignment and trust that lets a team disagree well and still hold together when the pressure comes on.
Good for: leadership teams, culture work, cross-functional groups.
Building belonging
KAIZEN - WEST
Why big transformation rarely sticks and small adjustments do. Building sustainable change into how a team works, rather than launching another initiative.
Good for: operational teams, continuous improvement cultures, founders and SME leaders.
The 1% leader
KEIKO - NORTHWEST
Keiko is the direction that makes the others useful. Understanding an idea isn't the same as leading differently, and the gap between the two is closed by practice - not insight. So Keiko isn't a separate workshop. It's built into every one: the part of the session where the idea becomes a commitment, and the commitment becomes something people return to when the workshop is long over.
The eight direction: the practice
Delivery formats
Half a day is the standard shape and the one I recommend - enough time for the conversation to get honest. Shorter conference and offsite versions work well where the session sits inside a wider agenda. Bespoke workshops on other leadership themes can also be designed on request.
Case study · Conference workshop · Leadership boundaries
A national women's leadership conference wanted a workshop on boundaries - a topic often handled either too softly to be useful or too rigidly to be realistic for people leading in complex, under-resourced organisations.
Challenge
A workshop designed around the honest tension rather than the tidy answer: what boundaries cost, why they are harder for some leaders than others, and how to hold them without withdrawing care. Built for a large, mixed-seniority room, with structured small-group conversation so participants worked on their own situations rather than a hypothetical one.
Approach
Participants left with specific language for conversations they had been avoiding, and a practice for noticing where their own boundaries were slipping. The session format has since been adapted for other conference and in-house audiences.
Outcome
Workshops can be booked as a single session or as a series across several directions. Let's talk about where your people are and which directions would serve them best.
Find the right direction for your team
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Navigate with me
Every week, a quiet moment to pause and think about what leadership really asks of us.
I share a direction of the compass and ideas drawn from Japanese philosophy, stories from my coaching work, and the small practices that make the biggest difference.