Leadership Academy: The Series

I’m going through Exaze’s Leadership Academy — Batch 1, Beginner to Intermediate, running July–August 2026. Rather than let each session fade the way most training does, I’m writing up what was actually taught after every session: the frameworks, the reasoning behind them, and the examples that made them land.

This post is the index — it gets updated as new sessions happen. Each session is its own post, linked below, and every framework covered so far is summarised at the bottom for quick lookup.

Sessions

• Session 1 — Management vs. Leadership, and the Trust Equation (10 July 2026)
• Session 2 — Personal Commitments, Team Operating Rhythm, and SBI Feedback (17 July 2026)
• Session 3 — Psychological Safety, Stakeholders, and Managing Expectations (24 July 2026)
• Session 4 — Communication Modes and Difficult Conversations (31 July 2026)
• Session 5 — Applying COIN in the Real World, and Coaching vs. Mentoring vs. Managing (7 August 2026)
• Session 6 — Agile Leadership, Ownership, and Deciding Under Pressure (21 August 2026)
• Session 7 onward — added as they happen

Study guides

One-page summaries plus practice questions for each week, ahead of the 28 August assessment.

• Week 1 — Study guide · Assessment practice
• Week 2 — Study guide · Assessment practice
• Week 3 — Study guide · Assessment practice
• Week 4 — Study guide · Assessment practice
• Week 5 — Study guide · Assessment practice
• Week 6 — Study guide · Assessment practice

Quick reference

Every framework covered so far, in one place.

Trust Equation Trust = (Credibility + Reliability + Intimacy) ÷ Self-Orientation. Lower self-orientation is always better — it’s the denominator.

Team Operating Rhythm Weekly 1:1 (30 min, their agenda) · Team Standup (15 min, blockers only) · Monthly Check-in (60 min, the bigger picture, as a group) · Quarterly Review (2 hrs, honest retrospective + next priorities).

SBI Feedback Situation (specific context) → Behaviour (observable fact, not interpretation) → Impact (concrete effect) → Pause (let them respond).

Stakeholder Power/Interest Grid High power + high interest = manage closely. High power + low interest = keep satisfied. Low power + high interest = keep informed. Low power + low interest = monitor.

SCOPE Situation (why we’re doing this) · Constraints (real ones) · Outputs (named deliverables, not activities) · Process (how decisions get made) · Expectations (ask the stakeholder, don’t assume).

Four Communication Modes Up: headline first, confident, no hedging. Across: collaborative, “we” language. Outward: warm, professional, never silent. Down: context-rich — always explain the why.

COIN (difficult conversations) Context (about the issue, not the person) → Observation (video-provable, not interpreted) → Impact (on the work, not a threat) → Next step (specific, then pause for their response).

Project Aristotle — what makes teams work, in order

1. Psychological safety 2. Dependability 3. Structure and clarity 4. Meaning 5. Impact.

GROW (coaching conversations) Goal (what they want) → Reality (what’s actually true now) → Options (possible paths, unjudged) → Will/Way Forward (the actual commitment, by when).

Managing vs. Coaching vs. Mentoring Manage when the task has a correct answer or is urgent (“is this getting done right?”). Coach when the person has the capability but it’s blocked (“what do you think, what’s stopping you?”) — don’t advise, ask. Mentor when someone’s new, transitioning, or wants the bigger picture (“here’s how I’d approach it”). Performance problems: manage first, always.

MoSCoW (prioritisation) Must have · Should have · Could have · Won’t have this time. A Could-have never delays a Must-have; a Should-have never delays a Must-have either. Decision rights: the customer decides Musts on their own requirements; the leader proposes and owns the split for internal team allocation. An MVP can contain many Musts, not just one.

OODA Loop (fast decisions) Observe → Orient → Decide → Act, then re-observe. A loop, not a line — speed of cycling matters more than being right the first time.

Leadership Agility (self-awareness stages) Expert (leads through knowledge) → Achiever (leads through results) → Catalyst (leads through creating conditions for others). No stage is “better” — more awareness and choice.

Agile Leadership Two meanings: leading delivery with clarity (priorities, risks, decisions, who decides, who’s informed) and owning outcomes, not tasks. Deliver in small increments to find failure sooner · build feedback loops to anticipate, not just review · prioritise ruthlessly · name uncertainty explicitly · own outcomes regardless of who did the work.

Ownership Know the status of key deliverables without being asked · raise risks before they’re problems · decide fast within your authority, escalate fast outside it · fix and communicate without blame · still own outcomes you’ve delegated. Most common failure: escalating too slowly because it feels like admitting failure — escalate early instead.

Deciding under pressure Decision quality drops under pressure; the worst crisis decisions tend to land in the first 30 minutes. Any decision made under pressure that’s hard to reverse gets a 10-minute pause and a second opinion first.