Visionary Leadership Training Course

Duration 5 days 10 modules · 33 contact hours
Level Intermediate Certificate on completion
Who attends Senior Managers, Department Heads and others
Fee from USD 1,100 KSh 95,000 for Kenyan organisations
Where 52 cities + online See dates by city
Next start 7 Nov 2026 Course code SD-LD-168

Before you join: Participants should have experience leading a team, function, programme, project or major workstream, and should be familiar with their organisation’s strategy, priorities and stakeholder environment.

Dates & prices

Two start dates a month in every city, and live online on weekdays or weekends. Fees are per participant; classroom fees include tuition, materials, lunch and refreshments, and the certificate.

Suggest a date or city

Showing the next six months. Later dates, other cities and private deliveries for your team are available on request.

Course overview

Organisations need leaders who can set direction when evidence is incomplete, priorities conflict and stakeholders expect credible action. A compelling vision is not a slogan or a distant aspiration. It must describe a future worth pursuing, explain the strategic choices required, mobilise people with different interests and translate intent into measurable work. Leaders also need to recognise when established assumptions, operating models and cultural habits no longer support the organisation’s purpose.

This course develops the practical disciplines of visionary leadership. Participants examine purpose, values and strategic intent; scan for trends and uncertainties; build future scenarios; and use future-back thinking to define strategic choices. They learn to create a clear vision statement and strategic narrative, build stakeholder coalitions, communicate through uncertainty and lead cultural and behavioural change. The course also covers execution methods including OKRs, Balanced Scorecard measures, decision rights, change impact assessment and quarterly strategic review.

Teaching combines short instructor briefings with realistic cases, facilitated group work, leadership simulations, peer critique and structured application planning. Cases can be adapted for public institutions, financial services, infrastructure, humanitarian programmes, technology, manufacturing and large corporate functions. Participants leave with a Visionary Leadership Action Pack containing a future-state vision, stakeholder strategy, communication plan, execution roadmap and personal leadership commitments. The five-day instructor-led course is available in classrooms in 50+ cities or live online. Training runs from 08:30 to 16:30 each day, with approximately 6.5 contact hours daily, and participants receive a certificate of completion.

What you will be able to do

  • Construct a future-state vision using scenario planning and future-back thinking
  • Assess external uncertainty using PESTLE, weak-signal scanning and assumption logs
  • Translate strategic intent into clear choices, priorities and measurable outcomes
  • Develop a stakeholder coalition strategy using power-interest and salience analysis
  • Communicate a strategic narrative using message maps and structured storytelling
  • Diagnose cultural barriers using Schein’s culture model and psychological safety principles
  • Plan organisational change using ADKAR, change impact assessment and force-field analysis
  • Produce a vision execution roadmap with milestones, measures, risks and accountable owners

Benefits of attending

For you

  • A clearer method for turning uncertain futures into strategic choices
  • Stronger credibility when presenting long-term direction to senior stakeholders
  • Practical language for explaining difficult trade-offs and change decisions
  • A reusable approach for gaining support beyond direct reporting lines
  • A personal leadership commitment plan linked to observed behaviours and feedback

For your organisation

  • Clearer alignment between long-term purpose, strategic priorities and daily decisions
  • Earlier identification of external risks, weak signals and emerging opportunities
  • Better stakeholder support for transformation, policy or operating-model change
  • More consistent leadership communication during uncertainty and disruption
  • Stronger execution discipline through defined outcomes, decision rights and review cycles

Course modules

10 modules over 5 days

Participants can define the leadership foundations required to set credible long-term direction.

  • Distinguishing vision, mission, values and strategy through an organisational hierarchy
  • Assessing leadership assumptions using Argyris’ ladder of inference
  • Personal leadership purpose articulated through the Ikigai reflection model
  • Adaptive leadership distinguishes technical problems from complex adaptive challenges
  • Values-based decisions tested against declared organisational purpose and commitments
  • Visionary leadership responsibilities during ambiguity, disruption and competing stakeholder demands

Participants can assess external change and develop evidence-based views of plausible futures.

  • Horizon scanning separates trends, weak signals, drivers and predetermined elements
  • PESTLE analysis identifies external forces with strategic consequences
  • Scenario planning develops plausible futures from critical uncertainties
  • Three-horizons planning balances core performance, emerging opportunities and future options
  • Systems maps reveal feedback loops, delays and unintended consequences
  • Assumption logs record evidence, confidence levels, owners and review dates

Participants can formulate a clear future-state vision and the strategic choices supporting it.

  • Future-back thinking converts a desired future into present strategic choices
  • Strategic intent defines the winning aspiration and boundaries for action
  • Playing to Win choices connect aspiration, arenas, advantage and capabilities
  • Vision statements specify beneficiaries, future state, value and time horizon
  • Strategic narrative links purpose, evidence, choices and measurable commitments
  • Vision quality tested for clarity, credibility, relevance and emotional resonance

Participants can build support for a vision among formal and informal stakeholders.

  • Stakeholder mapping plots power, interest, influence networks and likely positions
  • Stakeholder salience assesses power, legitimacy and urgency before engagement decisions
  • Interest-based negotiation separates positions, interests, options and objective criteria
  • Coalition maps identify sponsors, champions, blockers and critical informal influencers
  • Listening sessions surface concerns, local knowledge and implementation constraints
  • Engagement strategies match stakeholder needs, decision rights and communication channels

Participants can communicate strategic direction clearly while addressing uncertainty and dissent.

  • Strategic narratives use context, choice, consequence and call to action
  • Message maps organise core messages, proof points and audience questions
  • Story structure applies situation, complication, resolution and desired future
  • Town-hall communication handles uncertainty without false certainty or speculation
  • Executive presentations connect vision milestones, trade-offs, risks and decisions
  • Active listening paraphrases meaning, tests assumptions and invites dissent

Participants can identify cultural conditions needed to sustain a strategic vision.

  • Culture diagnosis examines artefacts, espoused values and underlying assumptions
  • Schein’s culture model distinguishes visible practices from tacit beliefs
  • Psychological safety supports speaking up, learning and constructive challenge
  • Leadership routines reinforce priorities through meetings, recognition and decisions
  • Role modelling aligns leader behaviour with stated vision and values
  • Accountability agreements clarify commitments, consequences, support and follow-through

Participants can plan and lead the people side of strategic change.

  • ADKAR identifies awareness, desire, knowledge, ability and reinforcement requirements
  • Change impact assessments map role, process, system and behaviour effects
  • Force-field analysis identifies drivers, restraints and practical interventions
  • Transition plans sequence sponsorship, communications, training and reinforcement actions
  • Resistance conversations diagnose loss, uncertainty, workload and trust concerns
  • Change measures track adoption, proficiency, sentiment and operational outcomes

Participants can convert vision into priorities, measures, governance and decision processes.

  • Strategic priorities translate vision into a small number of outcomes
  • OKRs connect objectives, key results, initiatives and review cadence
  • Balanced Scorecard links financial, customer, process and capability measures
  • Strategy maps show cause-and-effect hypotheses behind strategic performance
  • Decision rights use RAPID to assign recommenders, approvers and contributors
  • Portfolio reviews stop low-value work and protect strategic capacity

Participants can develop leadership capacity and shared accountability across their teams.

  • Situational leadership adapts direction and support to follower readiness
  • Coaching conversations apply GROW to goals, reality, options and will
  • Delegation levels clarify authority, guardrails, escalation triggers and accountability
  • Constructive conflict uses inquiry, advocacy and shared fact-finding
  • After-action reviews capture intended results, actual results, causes and lessons
  • Leadership team charters establish norms, decision rules and meeting cadence

Participants can create a practical roadmap for maintaining strategic direction and leadership discipline.

  • Vision execution roadmaps sequence outcomes, milestones, dependencies, risks and owners
  • Leading indicators detect progress before lagging performance measures change
  • Risk registers assign probability, impact, response actions and accountable owners
  • Quarterly reviews test strategic assumptions and reprioritise committed work
  • Personal leadership commitments specify behaviours, feedback sources and review dates
  • Peer accountability partnerships sustain practice beyond the training programme

Exercises and examples are adapted to each cohort's sectors and roles.

What you take back to work

  1. Future-state vision statement template
  2. Scenario planning and assumption log template
  3. Stakeholder coalition map
  4. Strategic narrative and message map
  5. Vision execution roadmap
  6. Personal leadership commitment plan

Who should attend

  • Senior Managers — translate organisational direction into credible priorities and action
  • Department Heads — align functions, teams and resources behind a shared future state
  • Programme Directors — lead complex transformation with multiple stakeholder interests
  • Public Sector Leaders — build support for long-term policy, service and reform objectives
  • Transformation Managers — connect change plans to strategic purpose and leadership behaviour
  • High-Potential Leaders — prepare for broader enterprise leadership responsibilities

Skills and tools covered

Strategic foresightVision formulationStakeholder mobilisationChange leadershipStrategic communicationExecution governance

Tools and standards

PESTLE analysis, Scenario planning, ADKAR model, Balanced Scorecard

How the course runs

Training methodology

The course uses short briefings to introduce frameworks, followed by case analysis, small-group application, facilitated discussion and leadership simulations. Participants test strategic assumptions, interpret competing stakeholder positions, draft vision statements and practise difficult communication moments. Instructor feedback focuses on clarity of choices, credibility of evidence and practical implementation. Individual application planning connects the methods to a current strategic issue, while peer review exposes participants to alternative perspectives from other functions and sectors.

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have experience leading a team, function, programme, project or major workstream, and should be familiar with their organisation’s strategy, priorities and stakeholder environment. The course assumes confidence contributing to management discussions and making decisions with incomplete information. Prior study of leadership theory, strategic planning, finance, change management or scenario planning is not required. Participants will gain more value if they bring a current organisational challenge, strategic priority or proposed change they can use as an application case.

A typical training day

08:30 – 10:30First session
10:30 – 10:45Refreshment break
10:45 – 12:30Second session
12:30 – 13:30Lunch and networking
13:30 – 15:00Third session
15:00 – 15:15Refreshment break
15:15 – 16:30Workshop and daily review

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in East Africa Time, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

  • Instruction by a practitioner facilitator
  • Full course workbook and materials
  • Exercise files, templates and case studies
  • Refreshments and lunch on classroom deliveries
  • Certificate of completion
  • Post-course application plan

Frequently asked questions

You should have experience leading people, projects, programmes or a functional area. No formal leadership qualification or prior study of strategy, change management or scenario planning is required.

Bring a current strategic priority, proposed change, service challenge or growth objective from your work. You will use it to develop practical materials such as a stakeholder map, strategic narrative and execution roadmap.

The course suits managers moving into broader leadership roles and leaders responsible for setting direction beyond their immediate team. It is particularly relevant where change requires support from senior leaders, peers, partners or external stakeholders.

General leadership courses usually focus on managing people, communication and personal effectiveness. This course concentrates on creating a credible future direction, mobilising support and turning that direction into governed execution.

Participants can use the templates for strategy refreshes, transformation programmes, policy implementation, service redesign and business-unit planning. The final application plan identifies the first actions, stakeholders, measures and review points needed after training.

Each day runs from 08:30 to 16:30 and includes about 6.5 contact hours. Time is divided among instructor input, case work, group exercises, simulations, feedback and application planning across the ten modules.

Questions about this course?

Ask about dates, fees, group bookings or running it for your team. Our training team replies by email.

Ask on WhatsApp info@skillsetdevelopment.com

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