Career Accelerator Programme 2026

What they came in wanting

• Growing into people leadership — moving from hands-on “doer” to confident delegator, and building the confidence to make decisions and lead difficult conversations.
• Handling pressure and the unexpected — staying steady in situations that are ambiguous, fast-moving, or don't follow a script, whether that's on a call, in a meeting, or in a room full of new faces.
• Communicating with impact — giving feedback that lands well, and finding their voice in bigger groups and less familiar settings.

Masterminding — the kinds of challenges brought to the group

Every session includes structured peer masterminding, where each participant brings a live workplace challenge for the group to work through together. To protect confidentiality, individual cases aren't detailed here — but topics have included things like:

• Stepping into a leadership role while feeling too new, junior, or inexperienced to be taken seriously.
• Navigating a challenging conversation with a member of staff in probation about behaviour not performance.
• Supporting a team member through a difficult personal period, and knowing where the boundaries of that support sit.

What the sessions have delivered & closing words (how each session landed)

• Session 1 — Neurodiversity model called SPACES, Karpman’s triangle
  • Participants said: Informative; Relatable; Enlightening; More interesting than expected
• Session 2 — Tuckmans’ team-development stage models (forming/norming/storming etc), Chimp Paradox, and Transactional Analysis
  • Participants said: Really interesting; Focus on self rather than other people; clicked about the conflicts in my brain; refreshing reminder that human, eye opening; lightbulb moment on tuckman
• Session 3 — Brené Brown's – Power of Vulnerability; Cycle of Creation (how we create meaning from moments), neuroscience video
  • Participants said: can’t control others; vulnerability is not a weakness, it’s a strength; lean into the discomfort; knowing to have the fear & do it anyway; knowing you can do it – however uncomfortable

Pushing their comfort zone

Each session also ends with a personal comfort-zone commitment. Recent examples include: having conversations they'd been avoiding; trying a new food or drink; treating a work challenge as something to lean into rather than dodge; and small, deliberate acts of self-permission — practising “feeling the fear and doing it anyway.” Or just getting into action. 

Next steps

We have 2 more sessions in September and October.