Leadership Development
In-house Programs
Strong People Leadership: The Foundation of High-Performing Healthcare Organisations
Effective people leadership is at the core of well-functioning healthcare services and a sustainable, rewarding leadership career.
Healthcare leaders face immense pressure, balancing clinical responsibilities with the complexities of managing teams in environments of high demand, rapid change, and resource constraints.
Many healthcare professionals are promoted into leadership roles based on their clinical expertise, yet often have limited exposure to evidence-based leadership principles. Without a strong foundation in leadership frameworks, they can feel unprepared for the complexities of managing people, driving change, and fostering a thriving workplace culture.
Leaders require exceptional skills to lead themselves and their teams to peak performance and maintain engagement and well being.
Contemporary leadership research highlights the critical role of emotional intelligence, psychological safety, strengths-based leadership, and principles from neuroscience and interpersonal neurobiology. These approaches are essential for creating engaged, high-performing teams and reducing burnout in an overstretched workforce.
Michelle is a leading expert in healthcare leadership development, combining decades of experience with evidence-based strategies. Her work is informed by rigorous research, extensive training, and real-world leadership experience in the healthcare sector. Outlined below are the leadership development programs that she offers. These are suitable for public health and community services as well as private health services and larger private practices.
Relevant Resources
Book & Reading Guides
Leading Above the line is my book about creating psychologically aware, responsible and safe workplaces where leaders and employees thrive.
FREE guides to support you/your team in discussing the themes, examples and insights of each chapter of the book as well as its themes overall are also available.
Just a few of the organisations Michelle partners with
Leadership Development Training Programs
Leadership development
This intensive 2 day Leadership Development program is invaluable whether you are an experienced or emerging leader.
It provides detailed knowledge and practical skills in people leadership, leading yourself, your employees, and your teams. It also explores the relationship between leadership, management, and an understanding of the dynamics of organisational life.
-
The 5 key areas covered include:
Leadership and Management & Leadership Key Competencies Framework
Self-Leadership and Leader Resilience
Psychological Safety
Building Emotional Intelligence
Bringing out the best in others – Building development focussed relationships
-
By the end of this program, participants will be able to:
Understand effective leadership and management principles and identify how they apply to health and human services contexts.
Apply contemporary leadership frameworks and models to strengthen their leadership practice.
Recognise personal agency and authority in leadership roles, and identify key areas for their own professional growth using a leadership competency framework.
Strengthen self-leadership and resilience, using practical strategies to sustain high performance and prevent burnout.
Identify and apply their signature strengths to enhance workplace contribution and satisfaction.
Understand the role of psychological safety in supporting quality care, learning, and performance across teams.
Apply practical strategies to foster psychological safety within their teams and services.
Use an evidence-based emotional intelligence framework to enhance self-awareness, regulate emotions, and support team wellbeing.
Develop emotionally intelligent practices that contribute to a thriving workplace culture.
Build development-focused relationships through authentic conversations that enhance engagement and performance.
Use five core leadership conversations to support, guide and empower staff, peers, and managers.
Give feedback in ways that are constructive and confidence-building, supporting growth and accountability.
Elevate leadership development
In-house Leadership Development programs can be tailored for your workplace and the learning needs of your leaders.
These programs are typically run over 2, 6 or 10 days.
-
Quality leadership development is an excellent investment in your organisation.
Below are examples of topics that could be included in a training program. In your discussions with Michelle, you can finalise the content and length of your program based on the needs of your workplace.
Contemporary leadership overview
Self-leadership - lead yourself first
Building a positive leadership culture
Leading others:
Understanding & relating to others
Leading with emotional intelligence (EI)
Developing others
Managing performance
Leading teams & teamwork
Leading change & navigating conflict
Building a resilient workforce
-
A customised program will build workplace capacity and support your team to thrive. Upon completion of your tailored workshop your workplace will benefit from having a thriving work force and future readiness will result in bringing immense benefits including:
a clearly defined Leadership Model for all participants.
consistent leadership culture
curated workplace culture
organisational agility
Psychological Safety
This can be a full or half day program on Psychological safety is game-changing.
The interpersonal environment of the workplace has a profound impact on so many factors critical to clinical services; quality of clinical care, teamwork, employees’
ability to function optimally, team culture, team
performance, learning from errors and mitigating risk.
-
While workplaces are legislated to provide a psychologically safe workplace, it is known that psychological safety supports workforce wellbeing, employee engagement and workplace culture.
More than ever before, the healthcare workforce need and deserve a psychologically safe workplace. Health professionals are feeling fatigue and frustration due to the environment in which they work.
-
The Psychologically Safe Masterclass answers your questions:
- what is psychological safety and what it isn’t
- why psychological safety is so critical for clinical services
- what steps leaders can take to build psychological safety
- what the evidence base is for psychological safety
If you are in a leadership role, developing psychological safety in your workplace can become your superpower; helping you meet the critical needs of your team, your clients and your colleagues.
“This training was absolutely excellent, a really great reflective space to think intentionally about the way we work and lead.
It was so different to what I was expecting - in a good way! Very refreshing and inspiring.
”
Feedback Conversations
Giving and receiving feedback can be the trickiest conversations we have to navigate at work. Avoiding tough conversations can feel easier in the short term, but it often leads to bigger problems later including unresolved issues, poor performance, and even team resentment.
Does your team know
how to receive and utilise feedback?
how to provide constructive and actionable feedback?
what specific areas to give feedback about?
how to articulate and frame feedback so that it will be easy to utilise?
If feedback conversations are managed well, they can be pivotal in supporting optimal learning and development in our colleagues.
-
This full day, highly practical program can be transformational to collegiate relationships and is an opportunity to build trust, strengthen relationships, and create a culture of accountability.
It explores the critical elements required to provide empowering and constructive feedback.
It is a highly practical session that will enable everyone to apply the learning immediately to their own workplace and professional situations. -
At the end of this training, participants will
manage themselves well, so they are confident and not fearful about giving feedback.
understand how to build collegial relationships that can handle feedback in a positive manner.
have a clear strategy and process for preparing for and providing feedback.
know how to provide constructive, impactful and actionable feedback.
Emotional Intelligence
This can be a full or half day program. Emotional Intelligence (EI) describes the ability to perceive, understand and navigate the emotions of oneself, others, and teams.
Well-developed skills in EI assist us to manage these emotions in psychologically aware, responsible and safe ways. EI is correlated with emotional resilience, assisting us to adapt to personal and professional change, maintain energy for a balanced work style and prevent burn out.
Research has demonstrated the power and value of EI in workplaces in terms of:
Organisational and team success
Leadership effectiveness
Staff engagement and performance
Workplace culture
Resilience and workforce sustainability
-
This full day training provides a road map for building practical skills and applying the latest research and wisdom in emotional intelligence.
The program is:
Based on the original Australian based GENOS research and workplace model of EI
Informed by the latest neuroscience
Practical and skill focused
-
Participants will
develop an understanding of key principles and skills of EI.
develop a practical understanding and application of the neuroscience of emotions.
understand how to navigate client relationships with an EI lens
build capacity to deal with clients who are reactive and triggered.
deepen their skills in self-management and self-regulation.
learn how to apply EI skills to interpersonal relationships in the workplace.
build capacity to facilitate tricky conversations with greater self-awareness and confidence.
be better equipped to manage stress and high work demands, through self-management and resilience skills.
In- House Program Inclusions
Further detail
Delivery options
Training can be delivered globally online or in-person at your workplace or designated venue.
The length and delivery method of programs can also be customised e.g. 1/2 day, full day, multiple days; training spread over a period of time, webinars (pre-recorded or live); Q and A sessions.
PARTICIPANTS’ FEEDBACK …..
-
![Speech bubble icon with three dots]()
“I feel compelled to make contact and let you know how much our 2 team leaders enjoyed the Leadership Training day... which is fabulous in itself... but what I notice is even more fabulous. Quite extraordinary. Thank you.”
-Jenni Richardson | National Helpline and Programs Manager | PANDA
-
![Speech bubble with three dots icon]()
"Michelle, what you bring to educating allied professionals is innovative, courageous and inspiring. Thank you for being amazing!"
Participant | Leadership Development Program
-
![]()
"I loved the structure of learning theory and then having the opportunity to spend time as a team to discuss strategies. I also found the crucial conversation and giving feedback section the most helpful as it had practical strategies I can refer back to. Also the resources Michelle provided at the end are amazing!"
In-house participant | Aspect
-
![Speech bubble icon with ellipsis]()
"Michelle’s presentation style is warm and personal, and there were plenty of opportunities to interact and communicate with others in order to support your learning. One of the things I found most valuable was the understanding of the frameworks underpinning leadership skills, and the importance of self leadership."
Heidi Perera | Lifeworks Occupational Therapy
-
![]()
Thank you Michelle for teaching us better ways to Leadership, you have a wealth of Leadership knowledge, and you speak from your heart and professional experience. It’s amazing to learn from you
- In-house participant | Kids First Australia
-
![]()
"I want to thank Michelle for developing herself and the programmes and resources she offers, it is no small feat to do this AND be relevant."
Louise Evans | Aspect
-
![]()
"This was a really wonderful opportunity to learn and grow as a team. I found it particularly helpful to have the breakouts with people within the team as it made the conversations very functional and effective in quickly getting to point (as we all experience similar things daily) and then coming up with solutions together."
In-house participant | Aspect
