Leadership Pathways: Why Every Leader Deserves a Map

Part 1: The Journey

I’ve been delivering leadership training for over a decade now, and one thing never changes: most people who end up leading a team didn’t plan to. They were brilliant at their job, and one day someone said, “Right, you’re in charge now.” No handbook. No warning. Just a new title, a desk in a slightly different spot, and the sudden realisation that everything that made them great as an individual contributor might not automatically make them a great leader.

That gap between being good at the work and being good at leading the people who do the work, is where I’ve spent most of my career. And it’s why I’m such a strong believer in what I’d call a leadership pathway: a deliberate, structured journey of development that meets people exactly where they are.

Let me walk you through what that pathway can look like.

 

The Two Types of Leader I Meet Most Often

Before I talk about programmes and qualifications, it helps to understand the two most common starting points I see walking through our training room doors.

The first is someone who stepped into leadership naturally, perhaps the best operator on the floor, the most experienced person in the team, or simply the one who’d been there the longest. They’ve been leading in some capacity for months or even years, but entirely on instinct. They’ve developed their own approach, which works some of the time, but they can feel the gaps. Difficult conversations get avoided. Team dynamics are muddier than they’d like. They’re not always sure why certain people respond to them well and others don’t. They’ve got experience but no framework to hang it on.

The second is someone brand new to leadership, possibly just promoted, possibly nervous and definitely aware that they’re now responsible for other people’s performance and wellbeing. They might be managing people who were their peers last week. They want to do it well, but they genuinely don’t know where to start.

Both of these people need development but they need slightly different things from it. A good pathway serves both, and every stage in between.

 

Stage One: Essential Team Leadership Skills- The One-Day Launchpad

For anyone stepping into a first leadership role, or for managers who want to reset and build from solid foundations, our Essential Team Leadership Skills day is often the right place to start.

In a single, highly practical day, we work through what leadership actually means in practice, not theory for its own sake, but tools you can use from Monday morning. We explore three key leadership styles and when to use each one. We look at the psychological shift from colleague to leader, which trips up so many new managers who find themselves trying to still be everyone’s friend while also being responsible for their performance.

This course is particularly valuable for people managing former peers. That dynamic, being liked versus being effective, is one of the most common sources of discomfort for new leaders, and we address it directly. One day won’t turn someone into a fully rounded leader. That’s not what it’s designed to do. What it does is give people a clear sense of their role, a handful of practical tools, and the confidence to go back and start leading more intentionally.

 

Stage Two: Supervisory Skills- Building the Fundamentals Over Two Days

If the one-day course is a launchpad, the Supervisory Skills programme is where we start properly building. Across two interactive days, we go deeper into the foundations of effective supervision and team leadership.

We look at leadership styles in more detail, not just what they are, but how to adapt them situationally, because the approach that works brilliantly with one team member might fall completely flat with another. We bring in Insights Discovery to help people understand behavioural differences in themselves and others. It’s one of the most powerful moments in any programme when someone suddenly sees why that conversation they’ve been having the same way for three years keeps producing the same unsatisfying result.

We also spend time on individual performance management, setting expectations, monitoring, having the conversations that supervisors so often avoid. We look at motivation, not just as a concept, but as something practical: what actually drives different people, and how do you use that knowledge to get the best from your team?

For organisations who want to build supervisory capability across a team or department, this two-day programme is a strong foundation. It’s also a natural stepping stone for someone thinking about progressing further.

 

Stage Three: Forefront with (or without) ILM Level 3- Leadership Formalised

This is where things get deeper, and really exciting.

Forefront is our multi-day programme for current or aspiring frontline managers who want to formalise their leadership development and have the option to gain an industry-recognised qualification. It’s one of the programmes I’m most proud of delivering, because I see the transformation happen week by week in the room.

The ILM Level 3 is the right qualification for team leaders, supervisors, and first-line managers who are serious about their development. It’s not just attending training, it involves written assignments that ask delegates to reflect on and apply their learning in their actual workplace. That means the development doesn’t stay in the training room; it has to live in how they lead every day.

Topics include leadership styles and their impact, building and developing high-performing teams, communication and giving feedback, motivation, managing performance, and understanding yourself as a leader through tools like Insights Discovery.

What I love about this programme is what happens in the room between delegates. They come from different industries, manufacturing, healthcare, retail, construction, professional services, and they bring their problems with them. The peer learning that happens around a shared challenge is often as valuable as the content itself. I hear it in testimonials regularly: people didn’t just learn from us as trainers; they learned from each other.

I often hear from delegates who have been in leadership roles for years without any formal training. They’ll say something like “I wish I’d done this years ago.” That’s bittersweet, but it’s also a reminder that it’s never too late, and the impact of getting proper development doesn’t diminish just because it arrives later in someone’s career.

 

The Coaching Pathway: ILM Level 3 and Level 5 in Effective Coaching

Alongside the leadership and management route, there’s a parallel pathway that many managers find transformative: coaching qualifications.

Leadership has shifted enormously in the last decade. The old directive model where a manager tells people what to do and checks they’ve done it is increasingly giving way to a coaching culture, where leaders ask great questions, develop people’s thinking, and unlock capability rather than just directing it. The best leaders I work with have made that shift. And the ILM coaching qualifications are the most robust way to develop that capability formally.

Our ILM Level 3 Certificate in Effective Coaching is ideal for team leaders and managers who want to use coaching as a core tool in their leadership practice. It’s practical and applied; you’ll be coached and you’ll coach others, with real feedback built into the process.

For those in more senior positions, or those wanting to build a professional coaching practice alongside their management role, the ILM Level 5 Certificate in Effective Coaching takes things significantly further. It develops the depth of self-awareness, the range of tools, and the professional reflective practice that distinguishes a truly effective coach.

The coaching pathway isn’t separate from the management pathway. The two complement each other beautifully. A manager who has done the ILM Level 3 in Leadership and Management and then goes on to the ILM Level 3 in Coaching isn’t just doubling their qualifications; they start to lead in a fundamentally different way.

 

Stage Four: Drive with ILM Level 5- Senior Leadership Development

At the top of the pathway sits Drive with ILM Level 5 Award in Leadership and Management, and it represents a significant leap in depth, in challenge, and in the kind of leader it develops. Drive is designed for middle and senior managers: heads of department, functional leads, programme managers, or specialists who are stepping into broader leadership responsibilities. Across six days, the programme moves well beyond the mechanics of managing people and into the territory of strategic leadership, how to think and act at a more senior level, how to influence across an organisation rather than just within a team, how to lead through uncertainty and complexity.

We use Insights Discovery at a deeper level here, exploring not just individual styles but how leaders can create the conditions for others to thrive. We look at stakeholder management, strategic thinking, leading innovation and change, and how to translate a vision into action that actually delivers results.

I’ve had delegates come to Drive having already completed Forefront, which is a joy, because the depth of insight they bring is extraordinary. I’ve also had delegates come to Drive as their first structured leadership development, often experienced managers who feel ready for the challenge. Both paths work, but there’s something particularly powerful about someone who can look back across the whole journey: from understanding their leadership style for the first time, to now leading strategic change across an organisation.

 

Elevate- Leadership Development for Women

One more pathway deserves a specific mention: Elevate, Women in Leadership.

This programme exists because the data is clear: women face specific systemic challenges in leadership that aren’t always addressed in generic programmes. Elevate uses a strengths-based, evidence-backed model to help women develop their authentic leadership style, leading with purpose, clarity and impact, while also addressing the very real structural and cultural barriers that many women encounter in their careers.

It’s not about telling women they need to change to fit a leadership mould that was largely built around a different demographic. It’s about helping women lead in a way that is genuinely theirs and giving them the tools and confidence to do so effectively. For organisations serious about developing inclusive leadership pipelines, Elevate is a vital part of the mix.

 

So, that’s the potential ‘how’ and in Part 2 of my blog, I’ll share my thoughts on why leadership development matters at every level of an organisation, not just at the top, and what the real cost of getting it wrong looks like.

 

 

 

 

Matt Reed
Matt is a Trainer, Coach and Consultant at Jarrold Training, specialising in leadership and management development, coaching and team performance. He works with leaders and organisations to turn learning into practical improvements in leadership, performance and the workplace.