Leadership Development Consultants – Newcastle & Sydney

Are the leaders in your organisation engaging and inspiring others to be their best?When people at the top step into the right leadership role (not just a management title), the rest of your organisation's challenges start to fall into place.Based in Newcastle and working with organisations across Sydney, the Hunter Region and beyond, our leadership development consultants help you grow leaders who bring out the best in themselves and their teams.

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How Leadership Development Works

Today’s most effective leaders share some critical qualities. They’re positive, emotionally intelligent and able to adapt as situations change. They invest in growing their people, develop tomorrow’s leaders and bring everyone together around a shared purpose.

DDI’s Global Leadership Forecast found that organisations with high-quality leadership are 13 times more likely to outperform their competition. And Gallup’s data shows that managers account for 70% of the variance in team engagement.

Getting leadership right isn’t optional – it directly shapes your culture, retention and results.

Our tailored leadership development training programs help you explore the key facets of successful leadership – from building trust and fostering a growth mindset, to goal setting, performance conversations and feedback. We’ll help you identify where your leaders are now, where the gaps are, and how to close them.

What Is Leadership?

Leadership is the ability to influence, motivate and enable others to contribute towards shared goals.
It’s not about job titles or organisational charts. It’s about how you show up, how you communicate, and how you bring out the best in the people around you – so you can achieve outcomes, together.

Great leadership can be learned. It’s built through self-awareness, deliberate practice and a genuine commitment to growing others. That’s what our leadership coaching and development programs are designed to support.

Why Invest in Leadership Development?

When leaders know how to coach, give feedback, hold people accountable and create psychological safety, teams perform better. When they don’t, you see the symptoms everywhere: disengagement, high turnover, conflict, and good people leaving.

Leadership development isn’t about sending managers to a one-day course and hoping something sticks. It’s about building a leadership culture – one where your people managers have the skills, confidence and support to lead well every day.

Our Approach to Leadership Development

Every organisation is different, which is why we don’t do off-the-shelf training. Our leadership development programs are tailored to your context, your people and your goals. Here’s how we typically work:

StepAdvantage™ – Our Signature Leadership Program

Looking for a structured leadership development program? StepAdvantage™ is our signature offering, designed for emerging and established leaders who want to grow their capability and confidence.

StepAdvantage™ Foundations

Ideal for new and emerging leaders stepping into their first leadership roles. Build the foundational skills you need to lead with confidence from day one.

StepAdvantage™ Accelerate

Designed for experienced leaders ready to take their impact to the next level. Deepen your leadership capability and learn to lead through complexity.

Diagnostic tools for leadership

As part of our leadership development training programs, we may ask your people to spend some time completing the following diagnostic tools.

Global Leadership Wellbeing Survey (GLWS)

Measures the social-emotional, physical, intellectual and spiritual wellbeing of leaders in your organisation.

Team Management Profile (TMP)

Gives you insights into how you prefer to work and how you're likely to interact with others in the workplace.

Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQ-i 2.0)

Measures an individual's emotional intelligence. It's based on 15 competencies grouped into five composites.

Life Styles Inventory™ (LSI)

Uses self-assessment and colleague feedback to identify your thinking and behavioural styles (strengths and weaknesses).

Learn more

The one on one coaching provided by Seed has been pivotal in my effectiveness as a Senior Executive. The sessions have provided me with skills to advance my relationship and communication capability as well as developing myself as an authentic and intentional leader. What a great ongoing experience!

Senior Leadership Team Member
Atwea College

‘'If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.' — John Quincy Adams’

What We Deliver

We work with organisations across not-for-profit, government, education, healthcare and professional services. Our leadership and management courses in Newcastle (and beyond) cover:

  • Leadership & management essentials (foundational skills for new and emerging leaders)
  • Leader as coach (developing a coaching approach to bring out the best in your team)
  • Giving and receiving feedback (practical frameworks for feedback that lands)
  • Managing for performance (setting expectations, having difficult conversations, building accountability)
  • Building high-performing teams (creating the conditions for teams to thrive)
  • Leading through change (guiding your people through transitions with clarity and confidence)
  • Leadership with wellbeing (sustaining performance without burning out)
  • Leading with emotional intelligence (building self-awareness and relational skills)
  • Influencing without authority (leading when you’re not the boss)
  • Leadership excellence in virtual teams (leading distributed and hybrid teams effectively)

Your Leadership Development Consultants

Seed People Consulting is led by Stacey Kelly (Stace) and Julia Fiore (Jules), and between us we’ve spent years helping leaders at all levels grow their capability and confidence. We’re fully accredited in a range of psychometric and diagnostic tools – including the Global Leadership Wellbeing Survey (GLWS), Team Management Profile, EQ-i 2.0 and Life Styles Inventory – and we’ve worked with organisations of all sizes, from local Newcastle businesses to national not-for-profits and government agencies across Sydney and beyond.

We’re not the kind of consultants who run a workshop and disappear. We roll up our sleeves, work alongside your leaders and make sure what they learn actually translates into how they lead.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Leadership development is the process of growing an individual’s ability to lead others effectively. It typically involves building self-awareness, developing key skills (like communication, coaching and feedback), and learning to adapt your leadership approach to different situations and people. At Seed, our leadership development programs combine diagnostic assessments, practical workshops and coaching to help leaders grow their capability and confidence.

Leadership training typically refers to short-term skill-building – a workshop or course focused on a specific topic. Leadership development is broader and longer-term: it’s about growing someone’s overall capability to lead, which usually involves a combination of training, coaching, feedback and on-the-job application over time. Both have their place, but lasting change usually requires development, not just training.

It depends on your goals. A single workshop can be delivered in half a day or a full day. Our structured programs like StepAdvantage™ run over several months with multiple sessions, giving participants time to learn, apply and embed new skills. For leadership coaching, we typically work with individuals over 3–6 months. We’ll help you design a program that fits your timeframe and objectives.

We’re accredited in several diagnostic tools including the Global Leadership Wellbeing Survey (GLWS), Team Management Profile (TMP), Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQ-i 2.0) and Life Styles Inventory (LSI). These help us understand your leaders’ strengths, development areas, working preferences and wellbeing – giving us a clear starting point for development.

Our programs are designed for people at all stages of their leadership journey – from emerging leaders stepping into their first management role, to experienced leaders looking to refine their approach or tackle new challenges. We also work with senior leadership teams on strategic alignment and leading through change.

Absolutely. While we’re based in Newcastle, we regularly work with clients across Sydney, the Hunter Region and throughout Australia. We deliver a mix of in-person and virtual workshops, coaching and programs to suit your organisation’s location and needs.

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