Real Leadership Comes From People, Not Playbooks

The Unconventional Leadership Program
Your leaders have the technical skills. But are they connecting with their teams? Building a culture that attracts and retains your best people? The Unconventional Leadership Program (ULP) develops self-aware leaders who create clarity, lead from a full cup, and think beyond the next quarter, building legacy, not just meeting targets. These are the human skills that drive real, lasting results.
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The Challenge You’re Facing

You see it every day. Leaders who are great at technical work but struggle to build trust with their teams. Talented people leaving because they don’t feel connected. Collaboration that stays surface-level because no one’s had the time or space to go deeper.

Your people are capable of more. But leadership skills like self-awareness, creating clarity, and thinking about long-term impact aren’t learned from a handbook. They’re developed through practice, reflection, and real conversation with peers facing the same challenges.

That’s what the Unconventional Leadership Program provides: a cohort-based experience where your leaders don’t just learn concepts, they practice them together, hold each other accountable, and develop the self-awareness and people-first mindset that transform how they lead.

Talent Magnet Challenge You’re Facing

What Is the Unconventional Leadership Program?

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Talent Magnet cohorts of leaders
The Unconventional Leadership Program brings together cohorts of leaders for a customized journey that goes beyond theory. Through facilitated discussions, real-world application, and peer accountability, your team will develop the human skills that drive results: self-awareness that improves decision-making, clarity that aligns teams, the ability to lead from a sense of abundance rather than exhaustion, and long-term thinking that builds sustainable success.

Designed for Your Team

  • Small cohorts (typically 10-12 participants) ensure deep connection and personalized attention.
  • Customizable content addresses your specific leadership challenges and culture.
  • Peer accountability creates lasting behavior change and long-term thinking that extends beyond the program.
Talent Magnet Designed for Your Team
Talent Magnet Guided by Experts

Guided by Experts

  • Led by experienced TMI faculty backed by years of executive leadership expertise.
  • Grounded in proven frameworks and decades of executive leadership insight, not trendy buzzwords.
  • Focused on practical application to your real leadership challenges.

Delivery Options

  • On-site at your location, at Impact Cowork (Park Ave), or at off-site locations such as The Living Room .
  • Experiential options available, including our partner, Camp Joy .
  • Adaptable schedule and format to fit your organization’s rhythm and needs.
Overview of various program delivery methods.

Who is the Unconventional Leadership Program for?

The Unconventional Leadership Program adapts to whoever you need to develop:

Senior Leaders & Executives

Build strategic thinking, executive presence, and the ability to lead through complexity and change.

Managers & Directors

Develop the human skills that turn technical experts into effective leaders who build trust, develop talent, and drive results.

High-Potential Emerging Leaders

Accelerate development for your next generation of leadership, preparing them for expanded scope and responsibility.

Custom Training

Need something unique? We can design custom training for specific audiences, skill gaps, or organizational challenges that don’t fit traditional leadership levels.

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Flexible Formats. Focused Impact.

Most leadership programs force you to fit their schedule and structure. But your team’s reality doesn’t stop for a two-day offsite, and your budget doesn’t always align with rigid packages.

Choose your rhythm:

Monthly

2-3 hour sessions
sessions for steady, sustainable growth

Bi-Monthly

4-6 hour sessions
covering two topics for deeper exploration

Quarterly

Full-day sessions
covering three topics for intensive development
Each program includes 12 core topics delivered over the course of a year. Want to go deeper on specific challenges? We can extend any topic or work with you to develop programming that addresses your needs.  What’s more, the ULP offers the option to continue the cohort beyond the first year in ways that build on the foundation.

Optional add-ons include:

A group of people engaged in discussion around a table during a leadership development workshop.
  • 1-on-1 executive coaching for personalized support
  • Experiential learning sessions (including our Camp Joy partnership)
  • Custom assessments to measure progress and impact
Investment varies based on your format, location, and customization needs. We’ll design a program that fits your goals and your budget.
Participants working together at a workshop.

A Curriculum that Sparks Real Change

Most leadership training teaches concepts your leaders will forget by Monday. Our curriculum is built differently. Each topic is designed to develop self-awareness, create clarity, and foster long-term thinking – the skills that actually transform how leaders show up every day.

Sample Topics from Our
Leadership Curriculum

We start by understanding your specific leadership challenges and organizational goals. Then we work with you to select, sequence, and customize the topics that address what your leaders actually face.

Leading Unconventionally: Identity Before Role

Clarify personal leadership identity and values.

 Align leadership presence with organizational expectations.

Understand how identity drives decisions and behavior.

Establish a shared language for leadership across the cohort.

FOUNDATION & SELF-AWARENESS: Building the Inner Leader

  • Clarify personal leadership identity and values.
  • Align leadership presence with organizational expectations.
  • Understand how identity drives decisions and behavior.
  • Establish a shared language for leadership across the cohort.
  • Increase awareness of leadership strengths, blind spots, and patterns
  • Understand how behavior impacts trust, morale, and results
  • Identify default responses under stress
  • Build feedback literacy
  • Lead without burnout or depletion
  • Build rhythms that support sustained excellence
  • Recognize signs of stress and overload
  • Model healthy leadership for others

RELATIONSHIPS & INFLUENCE: Connecting & Building Trust

  • Build trust intentionally and consistently
  • Strengthen credibility across teams and peers
  • Understand the components of trust in leadership relationships
  • Repair trust when it is strained or broken
  • Communicate with clarity, empathy, and purpose
  • Adapt communication styles across audiences
  • Navigate difficult and high-stakes conversations
  • Reduce noise, assumptions, and misalignment
  • Recognize and regulate emotional responses
  • Read the emotional climate of teams
  • Respond rather than react
  • Use emotional intelligence to strengthen relationships

TEAM DYNAMICS & PERFORMANCE: Creating High-Performing Environments

  • Create clarity around roles, priorities, and expectations
  • Establish healthy accountability without micromanagement
  • Navigate performance conversations with confidence
  • Align individual accountability to shared goals
  • Understand human responses to change
  • Lead transitions with clarity and compassion
  • Reduce resistance and disengagement
  • Maintain momentum during sustained change
  • Establish team norms that support trust and performance
  • Navigate conflict constructively
  • Address issues early before they escalate
  • Foster psychological safety

STRATEGIC THINKING & LEGACY: Leading Beyond the Moment

  • Improve decision-making in ambiguity and uncertainty
  • Balance speed, inclusion, and quality
  • Understand decision fatigue and how to manage it
  • Make values-aligned decisions under pressure
  • Think beyond day-to-day execution
  • Align individual work to organizational strategy
  • Balance short-term demands with long-term impact
  • Translate strategy into action
  • Define the legacy leaders want to leave
  • Understand leadership impact beyond formal authority
  • Lead with purpose and long-term thinking
  • Commit to continued growth beyond the program
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Why Companies Need Unconventional Leaders

Talent Magnet ULP unconventional leaders
Conventional leadership training creates leaders who can execute. But execution alone doesn’t build the kind of culture that attracts and retains your best people.
Your organization needs leaders who:
  • Bring self-awareness to understand how they show up and the impact they create
  • Create clarity that cuts through noise and aligns teams around shared goals
  • Think beyond the quarter to build strategies and cultures that last
  • Lead from a full cup so they can truly invest in developing others
These are unconventional leaders. Self-aware, people-focused, and committed to sustainable excellence. And they’re exactly what creates the kind of workplace people don’t want to leave.
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Frequently Asked Questions

How long does the Unconventional Leadership Program last?
Most programs include 12 sessions delivered monthly, bi-monthly, or quarterly based on your preference. We can customize duration and format to fit your organizational needs.

We recommend 10-12 participants for optimal engagement and connection. We can accommodate groups as small as 5, and will consider larger cohorts after careful discussion about learning effectiveness.

It depends on your goals. Sometimes mixing levels creates valuable cross-pollination. Other times, level-specific cohorts allow for more targeted development. We’ll help you decide what’s best for your organization.

ULP is unconventional by design. We prioritize people over performance metrics, develop self-aware leaders who lead from a sense of abundance, and focus on sustainable excellence rather than quarterly wins. We integrate leadership development with self-care and accountability, not just skills training, and measure behavior change and impact to help you see the difference your investment has made.

Absolutely! We can add off-site experiences at Camp Joy or other locations as part of your ULP program.

Pre- and post-program evaluations, manager assessments, and tracking against specific development goals. We focus on behavior change, not just satisfaction scores.

Ready to Build an
Unconventional Team?

Change won’t slow down, but your team can learn to lead through it with confidence and clarity.
Let’s explore how the Unconventional Leadership Program can help your organization lead differently, think deeply, and thrive sustainably.

Schedule a Conversation
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Ready to Build an
Unconventional Team?

Change won’t slow down, but your team can learn to lead through it with confidence and clarity.

Let’s explore how the Unconventional Leadership Program can help your organization lead differently, think deeply, and thrive sustainably.

Schedule a Conversation

Or Try a
Single Session

Not ready for a full cohort commitment? Book one team training session, drawn from our ULP curriculum and led by an expert TMI facilitator, and see the approach in action.

Book a Group Training Session
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