THE COLLABORATIVE LEADERSHIP SYSTEM CURRICULUM
Build the Management Capabilities Your Company Now Needs
Three deliberately sequenced workshops help managers solve the right problems, lead individuals effectively, and build stronger teams—without constant senior-leader intervention.
Help managers carry more of the company's weight
As a company grows, management becomes more demanding.
Decisions involve more people. Roles and handoffs become less clear. Managers encounter problems they have never faced before. Without shared ways to diagnose problems, delegate, coach, make decisions, and handle difficult conversations, too much work continues to roll uphill.
Senior leaders find themselves:
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Stepping into decisions managers should be able to make
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Revisiting problems that were supposedly resolved
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Managing around weak delegation or inconsistent follow-through
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Intervening in conflicts and performance problems
The Collaborative Leadership System gives managers practical, shared ways to think, communicate, and act. They learn the same frameworks, practice them together, and apply them to consequential work—becoming increasingly able to solve problems together and carry more of the company’s weight.
The sequence moves outward: managers first strengthen their own judgment and problem-solving, then learn to develop individuals, and finally learn to guide teams.
Completed together, the workshops create something isolated training cannot: a shared management system.
Three stages of development. One coherent system.
01 — LEADERSHIP FOUNDATION
Leadership and the Middle Path
Managers develop the thinking, communication, and collaborative problem-solving foundation beneath the rest of the curriculum.
They learn to:
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Diagnose underlying causes rather than react to symptoms
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Examine problems through individual, relational, and organizational lenses
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Avoid common thinking traps
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Create clear agreements and navigate difficult conversations
The result is a shared language and disciplined process for solving consequential problems together.
02 — LEADING INDIVIDUALS
Leading One-to-One
Managers learn how to help other people perform, develop, and solve problems more independently.
They learn to:
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Work effectively across different styles
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Delegate with the right balance of direction and autonomy
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Give feedback and coach for performance and development
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Help others solve problems without taking the work back
The result is more capable people who can carry greater responsibility with the appropriate guidance and support.
03 — LEADING TEAMS
Leading Teams
Managers bring these capabilities into the more complex, one-to-many environment of team leadership.
They learn to:
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Align teams around a shared mission and working agreements
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Understand how group dynamics affect performance
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Diagnose and address team-performance problems
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Facilitate productive meetings and collaborative problem-solving
The result is a more capable, coordinated team that can think clearly and act together.
“My team now has a shared language for solving problems and tools for having more ‘data-rich’ conversations.”
–Peter Bui
Senior Software Engineer
Patreon
Workshops introduce the system. Application builds mastery.
Insight alone rarely changes what managers do when the pressure returns. That is why the Collaborative Leadership System does not end when a workshop concludes.
Learn and practice
Experience the frameworks, practice the skills, and receive feedback.
Apply to real work
Use the tools on consequential decisions, conflicts, performance concerns, and recurring problems.
Reflect and refine
Return for mastery sessions to strengthen judgment, troubleshoot challenges, and practice again.
This repeated cycle of learning, application, and refinement helps turn useful concepts into reliable management habits.
Proven curriculum. Experienced facilitation.
The workshops incorporated into the Collaborative Leadership System were developed by Chris Holmberg of Middle Path Consulting, a globally recognized designer of leadership and organizational-development programs.
Refined over decades and used in more than 160 technical startups and Fortune 100 companies, the curriculum combines durable management principles with practical frameworks managers can use immediately.
Russ Powell brings decades of experience in human-performance improvement, leadership development, and facilitation. He helps managers apply the curriculum to the consequential situations they face inside their own company.
“Russ brings a highly disciplined approach to development and a learner-centric approach to facilitation. This combination differentiates him from many in the field. I endorse him without reservation.”
—Chris Holmberg
Founder
Middle Path Consulting
Designer of the Middle Path workshops
Build a management team that solves the right problems
As these shared practices take hold, companies can experience:
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Fewer recurring problems and unnecessary iterations
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Clearer ownership and stronger follow-through
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Better delegation, feedback, and coordination
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More senior-leader time for strategic work
The larger outcome is a management team that solves the right problems—skillfully, collaboratively, and without constant senior-leader intervention.
Let’s talk about what your management team is facing and whether the Collaborative Leadership System is the right next step.
Not ready to talk? Complete the Management System Diagnostic
Looking for a public workshop?
The three core programs are also offered periodically through public cohorts.
Visit the individual workshop pages for upcoming dates, prerequisites, program details, and registration information.