Monash Foundations of Leadership (NEW)
Master core leadership skills to succeed in your first management role
Newly-appointed leaders must make the shift from being an individual contributor within an organisation to achieving key outcomes at the helm of their own teams. Mastering key leadership skills, and adopting the right mindset, is critical to their success in doing so.
This three-day short course has been specifically designed to help newly-promoted or first-level managers with the common challenges of:
- Building credibility as they move from individual contributor to leader
- Managing the balance between team members and competing organisational priorities
- Building trust within their teams, plus a group commitment to achieving outcomes
- Developing interpersonal skills to navigate change and build key relationships with direct reports, peers and senior leaders.
This intensive, immersive course begins with a comprehensive 360-degree feedback tool to personalise the learning journey for each participant. The program is further augmented by personalised coaching and peer mentoring to extend and embed your learning.
2026 dates
Foundations of Leadership will run face-to-face over three days from 1 – 3 June.
Location
750 Collins Street, Docklands
Course fee
$4,250
Monash alumni and staff receive a 20% discount.
- Monash staff: Contact us to receive your discount code.
- Monash alumni: Visit the Alumni Portal to access your exclusive code.
Save on staff training with our Professional Development packs
Ready to plan your team's future? We've got short courses that suit all your needs.
Through our Professional Development packs, you can pre-purchase short course seats at discounted partner rates.
Who should attend
This course is designed for newly-promoted, first-level and early-career managers.
Digital badging
Upon successful completion of this course, you will be awarded a digital badge to share with your network. Find out more about digital badges.
Foundations of Leadership will teach you:
- How to capitalise on your leadership strengths and address developmental challenges.
- The essential leadership skills of building trust and influence, giving effective feedback, managing conflict and aligning staff commitment to goals.
- Evidence-based strategies and tactics for applying your insights and learning directly to your leadership role.
The course focuses on three key areas:
Leadership Within: Mastering self-awareness
- Understanding your own personality strengths and blind spots.
- How to adapt behaviours to meet the personality preferences and motivations of others.
- Increasing your awareness of how current leadership is perceived.
- Identifying leadership behaviours that are working and behaviours to develop.
Leading with Agility and Influence
Understanding leadership versus management mindsets, and when to exercise leadership, management and followership.
- How to build trust and influence in a leadership role.
- Identifying and understanding communication styles.
- Facilitating effective feedback for learning, performance and collaboration.
- Understanding how to use an agile approach to lead change.
Leadership in Action
- Understanding and applying motivational coaching for performance and development conversations; when to delegate and when to direct.
- Creating psychological safety and accountability.
- Defining performance goals and fostering commitment from others.
- Integrating your learning into a personal development plan.
- Setting a targeted development pathway for your continued leadership growth.
Over three days you’ll participate in a series of in-person intensive group sessions with our expert facilitator. You’ll also engage in personalised coaching, targeted leadership assessments, online coursework, peer mentoring and within-role learning assignments to deepen your learning.
Stage |
Format |
Timing |
Details |
| Preparation activities | Online | Four weeks prior to in-person sessions |
Attend online program introduction and briefing with faculty and cohort Complete online personality profile and 360-feedback assessments |
| Group intensive sessions | In-person | During program | Leadership Within: Mastering Self-awareness One-day seminar |
| Group intensive sessions | In-person | During program | Leading with Agility and Influence One-day seminar |
| Group intensive sessions | In-person | During program | Leadership in Action One-day seminar |
| Coaching | Individual | Four weeks post-group intensive sessions |
Individual coaching for 60 minutes × 1 |
Martin Boult
Associate
Martin has worked as a psychologist, manager, consultant and researcher in the field of executive leadership and organisational psychology since 1998. He started his career as a clinical neuropsychologist and transitioned to organisational consulting with private and public sector businesses in Australia and internationally.
Martin partners with leaders individually and in groups to help them enhance their leadership, psychological awareness, team effectiveness and career progression. He specialises in supporting leaders to develop their executive interpersonal skills, address team dynamics, lead people of different personality styles, lead change initiatives, increase emotional resilience, facilitate conflict management, and prepare early-career managers for senior leadership.
Martin is regularly engaged by executive leadership teams and boards to help them achieve business objectives by aligning their leadership, strategy and cultural norms. He delivers customised solutions for diverse organisations from finance, media, health, government, professional services, transport, scientific and technical sectors. He creates psychologically safe learning environments where people can challenge assumptions and make constructive changes.
Martin is an associate faculty member of Executive Education and MBA programs in Australia and overseas. With a reputation for engaging audiences with practical insights about human psychology, Martin’s work is featured in national media, podcasts, international conferences, corporate events and online learning forums. His clients value his ethical, professional and fun facilitation style, frequently entrusting him with ongoing engagements. He focuses on using evidenced-based ways to improve his clients’ lives by integrating his experience working with leaders and teams from diverse cultures and his ongoing research on leadership, team performance and workplace well-being.
Martin has a Doctorate in Psychology from the University of Melbourne. He draws on his previous experience as a clinical neuropsychologist, business manager, the latest research and his deep expertise of eighteen years as a master certification trainer for a suite of world-renowned leadership and psychological assessments, including The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI®️ Step I and II), EQ-i®️ 2.0 emotional intelligence, Center for Creative Leadership 360-Assessments, FIRO-B®️ Interpersonal skills, Workplace Big-5 profile, 16PF®️ profile, CPI-260®️ Personality Assessment, the Strong Interest Inventory.