Brave Leadership: One Year Leadership Development Programme for Women

We are offering a unique blended transformational programme that is all about uncovering, celebrating, and nurturing your power as a female leader. This programme is about unleashing your brilliance, as well as identifying and enabling greatness in others. It will also create, and connect you to, a network of inspirational women.

This programme will consist of the following facilitated sessions across one year:

  • 1 day (10am-4.30pm) in person at Happy’s HQ in London
  • Monthly 2.5 hour (10am-12.30pm) online sessions over 10 months
  • 1 day (10am-4.30pm) in person finale, at Happy’s HQ

The programme will also require commitment to self-study and collaboration with fellow participants. We will provide a social learning platform to enable connection with your cohort, and an extensive library of learning resources.

Course Overview

Bravery in leadership isn’t about bold gestures—it’s about the everyday actions that build trust and integrity.

This course gives you space to reflect on your leadership style and develop the skills to lead with courage and compassion. You’ll explore how to tackle difficult issues, speak up when it matters, and make decisions that align with your values—even when they’re tough.

Through interactive exercises and peer learning, you’ll build confidence to step forward as a leader who inspires others to do the same.

 

Why take this course?

  • Understand what brave leadership looks like in practice
  • Build confidence to have difficult but important conversations
  • Learn how to balance courage with compassion and empathy
  • Strengthen your resilience and decision-making under pressure
  • Create a culture where openness and trust can thrive

Who is this course for

This course is ideal for:

  • Managers, team leaders and senior professionals
  • Leaders navigating complex or challenging organisational contexts
  • Anyone wanting to lead with greater authenticity and courage

 

Why developing female leaders matters

According to a Harvard study into leadership, at every level, women were rated by their peers, their bosses, their direct reports, and their other associates as better overall leaders than their male counterparts.

And yet, a 2020 Mercer analysis of over 1,100 organisations worldwide found that women are still vastly underrepresented in more senior positions:

  • Executives: 23%
  • Senior Managers: 29%
  • Managers: 37%
  • Professionals: 42%
  • Support Staff: 47%

 

The same Harvard study shows that leadership skills are strongly correlated with organisational success factors such as talent retention, customer satisfaction, employee engagement and profitability.

 

So, what is your organisation doing to develop and support the aspirations of your female leaders?

Our vision is to enable and empower a network of brave female leaders to be the best they can be—to shine, to inspire, to empower, to challenge and to innovate.

Duration

12 day

Classroom size

12 approx.

Location

Online|Classroom

Certificate

1 Certification

Experience

Intermediate

What you will learn

  • Become a credible leader that inspires trust
  • Understand what enables people to work at their best
  • Psychological safe workplaces where people are able to take risks and truly collaborate
  • An inclusive environment that values everyone for their diverse perspectives and talents
  • High performing teams working to their strengths & to a common goal
  • An agile and responsive team working within clear values and principles
  • Greater trust and autonomy for your people
  • High levels of accountability within the team, enabling them to deliver high quality on time
  • A more engaged and motivated team
  • Greater innovation and greater productivity
  • Practical skills that you will be able to transfer to your workplace
  • Raise the level of happiness in your team

How much does it cost?

Option 1

Standard

Standard course rate

£4450

per person (+VAT)

Option 2

SMEs

Discounted rate for companies with less than 250 staff

£3795

per person (+VAT)

Option 3

Public Sector

Discounted rate for public sector organisations, eg. councils

£3025

per person (+VAT)

Option 4

Large Charities

Discounted rate for charities with 31+ staff

£2240

per person (+VAT)

Option 5

Small Charities

Discounted rate for charities with 30 or less staff

£1680

per person (+VAT)

Group Training

If you have three or more learners, We can tailor the content to your team, and host the training remotely, at your workplace or here at Happy’s HQ in Aldgate, Central London.

Curriculum & Key Themes Covered

This course will be taught in the latest version of the software. We can train this in older versions if needed – please get in touch for more information and availability.

Your leadership brand

This programme is all about maximising your leadership scope of influence and progression. During this programme, you will gain the confidence, knowledge and sustainable skills to make the transition to greater professional impact.

At Happy, we support an inclusive definition of ‘women’ and this programme is open to anyone who is cis, trans and nonbinary for whom womanhood is part of their gender identity or experience.

 

  • Daring to lead, and to do it brilliantly
  • Understanding your assertiveness style — combining strength and compassion
  • Identifying and understanding your unique combination of strengths
  • Your leadership code of ethics, values, and purpose
  • Building your personal authentic brand
  • Expressing yourself positively, even in difficult situations
  • Building trust and credibility
  • A user guide for working with you

Personal presence

  • Reframing imposter syndrome
  • Developing your Emotional Intelligence
  • The stories you tell yourself that hold you back
  • Managing the likeability expectations of being a woman in business
  • Bringing your ‘people pleaser’ into check
  • Enhancing your self-belief — understanding how and where you add value
  • Becoming a force for greatness — having and demonstrating courage
  • Building the three resilience energies — physical, mental, and emotional to support your wellbeing
  • Understanding the process of building sustainable habits and changing behaviours long term, to embed the learning and create real action

Powerful communication

  • Discovering your own communication style and understanding others’, to maximise your influence
  • Identifying your default way of communicating, Cat or Dog, and how to adapt to maximise impact
  • Developing your presentation skills through practical experience

Empowering others

  • Raising awareness of how our own behaviour can impact the female leaders around us
  • Advocating for each other — becoming a mentor of others
  • Creating a culture of high performance
  • Leadership focused on people
  • Creating psychological safety at work
  • Working adult to adult — understanding transactional analysis
  • Becoming a Multiplier of your people’s talents (Liz Wiseman)
  • Enabling trust and autonomy, successfully delegating and holding people to account
  • Understanding Unconscious Bias

Effectiveness

  • Being productive, not just busy
  • Leading in a crisis — understanding the tendency to take a narrow view and using techniques to think strategically
  • Facilitating principle-led decision making

As a woman

  • Identify the challenges and opportunities of working and leading in a predominantly man’s world
  • Making the right choices for yourself
  • Identifying your personal career aspirations and what you need to achieve them
  • Taking control of your career progression beyond the linear
  • Addressing the challenges in the career cycle of a woman, e.g. returning from childcare leave, menopause, taking carers leave
  • Sharing your experience, supporting one another generally, and finding unique perspectives on your challenges through this leadership network
  • Partner with an accountability and support buddy

Leading the team

  • Leading remote teams and facilitating great remote meetings
  • Using Liberating Structures to enhance the involvement, collaboration and output of your teams
  • Creating Time to Think: Listening to Ignite the Human Mind (Nancy Klein)
  • The 5 dysfunctions of a team and what to do about them
  • Creating a team that works to its strengths
  • Building and nurturing the resilience of your team
  • Recruiting the right team members and ensuring their induction is a motivating experience
  • Enabling your team to innovate and generate creative ways to tackle problems
  • Guiding your team through complex change
  • Creating high-performing teams that everyone wants to be a part of

Building relationships

  • Having great 1 to 1’s with your people
  • Coaching your team to success by empowering them to discover their own solutions
  • Providing positive and constructive feedback that leads to action and solutions
  • How to have those conversations that feel difficult but matter

Self-Reflection and Feedback

Each participant will complete self-reflection surveys at the start of the programme, half-way through and at the end of the programme around your confidence, skills and behaviours. In addition, you will be able to identify a key group of stakeholders who will be asked to provide feedback on their experience of you as a colleague and your leadership style.

Supporting Resources

All resources used in the programme will be available through the sessions and beyond, along with an extensive library of eLearning and other resources to enhance offline and online learning. There will be a variety of ways to connect with each other and your facilitators throughout.

Our Facilitation Style and Ethos

Making it effective — research shows us that the effectiveness of any learning programme can be boosted by what happens before and after each learning session. The facilitated online and in person sessions are only one part of making the learning effective. The development journey starts on joining the programme and the personal network that is created lasts a lifetime.

Everything we facilitate is designed to ensure complete individual involvement and participation. This stimulates thinking and challenges assumptions. Our aim is to create a multi-sensory engaging experience, which will usually include: small and large group discussion, individual and group reflection, case studies and examples, quizzes, questionnaires, videos, practical stories as well as opportunities to real play (rather than role play!) and practice the techniques learnt.

Book now

Brave Leadership There are currently no upcoming public course dates available. Please email our team on hello@happy.co.uk and register your interest for this course. We'll let you know as soon as a date is available.

Please note that your booking is not secured until you checkout. All prices listed in the shopping cart are excluding VAT.

If you are booking at a discounted rate (for example, if you are from a charity), you will see this on the final stage of the shopping cart after you have set up your account or logged in. Discount codes can also be added on this final page.

Testimonials from Happy learners

Choose the Learning Experience That Suits You

Everyone learns differently — that’s why we offer flexible options to fit your needs. Whether you prefer learning from the comfort of home, engaging in dynamic face-to-face sessions, or a blend of both, you’ll find the format that helps you thrive.

Online

Online

Learn live with your facilitator and group through Zoom, with full access to our online learning hub.

Learning
Style:

Interactive sessions, self-paced resources, videos and activities you can return to at any time.

Collaborations:

Work with peers through breakout rooms, group discussions and optional study circles.

Benefits:

1.Flexible bite-sized learning you can fit around a busy schedule.
2.Build supportive connections, wherever you are.
3.Great for remote teams or hybrid workplaces.

In-Person

Online

Take part in face-to-face sessions delivered at our Happy HQ in london

Learning
Style:

Interactive, hands-on sessions with space to reflect, practise skills and share insights.

Collaborations:

Join breakout sessions and small groups for shared learning and support.

Benefits:

1.A focused space to fully engage away from day-to-day distractions.
2.Energising group environment with real-time feedback and support.

Blended Programme

Online

A combination of in-person and online learning to fit your schedule.

Learning
Style:

Live sessions paired with online materials, tasks and group activities.

Collaborations:

Ongoing team support and shared learning both in and out of the classroom.

Benefits:

1.The best of both worlds — structure and flexibility.
2.Time to absorb, reflect and apply learning between sessions.

What are Happy's online training like?

“Really worked well as an online experience. Good interaction with other course members. Really well facilitated.”

past attendees

Watch this short video to see how we bring our sessions to life online — with interactive, hands-on learning delivered via Zoom, designed to keep your team engaged and energised.

Looking for private group training

If you have three or more learners, a private group training could be cheaper.

We can tailor the content to your team, and host the training remotely, at your workplace or here at Happy’s HQ in Aldgate, Central London.

The Happy guarantee

We want everyone to go away from our courses feeling as though they have learnt useful, practical skills that they can use straight away when they go back to work.

If you don’t feel that your training has been useful or if you are unhappy in any way, please get in touch with our Customer Services team within 30 days of the course.

We will be happy to offer you additional support and training free of charge to help you to gain the skills you need, or if you’d prefer, a full refund.

Why choose Happy?

Because happiness works

Joy leads to success, every time,

Expert-led and hands-on

Our award-winning training isn’t just theoretical. It’s packed with practical tools you can use straight away.

B Corp certified and proud

We don’t just talk about impact — we live it. As a B Corp, we’re committed to making workplaces better for everyone.

Classroom or live online learning available

Both available for public and private dates.

The small print

For Live Online Interactive Learning sessions (webinars)

All learners will need to install Zoom on their machines. Full technical requirements are on the Zoom website. Your link will be included in your joining instructions once you have booked your place — if you haven’t received this email then please contact our team.

Learners should log into the session 10 minutes before the start time to ensure that they have downloaded and set up Zoom correctly. The course will start precisely on time and it may not be possible to go back over material missed by late arrivals. Unfortunately you will be asked to leave and attend a different day if you arrive more than 15 minutes late for online sessions, and more than 30 minutes late for classroom sessions.

Please ensure you read our Terms and Conditions before booking for our payment terms and cancellation policy.

For classroom sessions

All public classroom sessions take place at Happy’s HQ in London at Robert Dolan House, 9 Alie Street, London E1 8DE. Please see our Contact Us page for full directions and a PDF map.

The course will run from 10am to 4:45pm (lunch is served 1pm to 1:45pm — we offer a choice of 3 cold bowl dishes). Please be careful to arrive by 9:45am for registration and refreshments. The course will start precisely on time and it may not be possible to go back over material missed by late arrivals. If you arrive over 30 minutes late you may be asked to leave and attend another day.

Please ensure you read our Terms and Conditions before booking for our payment terms and cancellation policy.

FAQs

Our learning sessions are thoughtfully designed to be inclusive of all learners by accommodating a variety of learning styles and preferences. We recognise that individuals process and engage with information differently, so each session includes a range of practical exercises that allow participants to interact with the material in ways that best suit them. Whether through hands-on activities, visual aids, group discussions, or individual reflection, we strive to create a supportive and flexible learning environment where everyone can thrive. Learn more about ways that we can support your learning here.

If you are eligible for a discounted rate you will see this on the final stage of the shopping cart after you have either logged in or set up your account (if you are a new user). Discount codes can also be added on this final page. 

 

If you have any issues, get in touch with our friendly team for help.

For our public dates, if you give us at least 14 days’ notice, you can rebook on another date or cancel your place at no extra cost. For less than 14 days, there is a charge – please see our Terms and Conditions for full details. If a colleague can take your place, no extra fee applies (even if it’s at the last minute).

 

For private group bookings, there is no charge if you give us at least 28 days’ notice. Cancellations after this time will incur 100% of the cost of the course. Please speak to your Account Manager or email speak to our friendly team.

For our digital skills courses, we provide one PC per learner, so you do not need your laptop.

For all courses, we provide all supporting materials, such as manuals, pens, sticky notes and refreshments, so you don’t need to bring anything with you. 

Lunch is provided on full-day courses, but not on half-day courses.

We are based at Robert Dolan House, 9 Alie Street, London E1 8DE. We are just 5 minutes’ walk from Aldgate and Aldgate East.

 

Please see our Contact Us page for a map and directions, or search on Google Maps for Happy Ltd. [can this link jump down to the map/directions section under the form?]

 

For private group bookings, we can hold this course at Happy, inhouse at your workplace, or at a location of your choice, as long as you have a suitable space.

We are based at Robert Dolan House, 9 Alie Street, London E1 8DE. We are just 5 minutes’ walk from Aldgate and Aldgate East.

Please see our Contact Us page for a map and directions, or search on Google Maps for Happy Ltd. [can this link jump down to the map/directions section under the form?]

For private group bookings, we can hold this course at Happy, inhouse at your workplace, or at a location of your choice, as long as you have a suitable space.

We accept all credit and debit cards through Stripe (including American Express). You can also pay by invoice, both for our public dates and private group bookings. Your invoice should be emailed to you at the time of booking. If you haven’t receive this please contact our team.

After attending your course, you will receive a certificate of attendance.

 

If your chosen course is certified by the CPD Certification Service, you can track and log your hours of learning using the myCPD Portal.

Want more ideas for creating happy, productive workplaces?

Sign up for our Happy Manifesto newsletter and discover fresh ways to ignite joy and productivity at work. Get expert tips, insights, and ideas that challenge the norm—straight to your inbox. Join our movement and start your journey for a trust-based, values-led organisation.

Want more ideas for creating happy, productive workplaces?

Sign up for our Happy Manifesto newsletter and discover fresh ways to ignite joy and productivity at work. Get expert tips, insights, and ideas that challenge the norm—straight to your inbox. Join our movement and start your journey for a trust-based, values-led organisation.