You built the business.
Now become the leader your next stage of growth demands.
Executive Impact is an exclusive leadership excellence programme for Greater Manchester, built for ambitious business owners and senior leaders who are ready to build businesses that thrive without depending on them every minute of every day.
Most SME owners don't fail because of poor products or poor ideas. They plateau because the business has outgrown the person leading it.
- If you're working longer hours than ever...
- If every important decision still lands on your desk...
- If your team still waits for your approval...
- If growth feels harder than it should...
You're not alone. You're simply leading today's business with yesterday's leadership habits.
Leadership itself is being rewritten. AI is compressing decisions into hours, hybrid teams span time zones, and your best people have more options than ever. Closer to home, Greater Manchester leaders are absorbing rising employment costs and a wave of new legislation, all at once.
The leaders who grow through it are the ones who've built the capacity, team and presence to lead through it - that's why we've created a programme built to develop exactly that, in a small, focused cohort of Greater Manchester leaders.
The challenge is that the world you're leading in is BANI, not just VUCA.
These situations are all too familiar in business today - and they're taking a toll on our health, our people and our leadership.
Who it's for, what it is, when it runs and where it's held.
Who it's for
- Business owners, founders and senior leaders responsible for growth and people
- Cohorts capped at a maximum of 14 leaders
- Open to GMCC members and newly promoted managers stepping up into senior leadership
What it is
- An exclusive leadership excellence programme for Greater Manchester, delivered across three in-person days plus a Sustainment Follow-up
- A chance to step yourself and your business up for growth and opportunity across Greater Manchester - backed by DiSC profiling, coaching and a small peer group throughout
- Co-facilitated by Sally Anne Smith and Wayne Jones OBE
When it runs
- Autumn 2026 cohort, four dates in total
- Day One: Monday 7 September
- Day Two: Thursday 24 September
- Day Three: Monday 5 October
- Sustainment Follow-up: Monday 26 October
Where it's held
- All three in-person days held centrally in Manchester at a GMCC member venue
- Easy to reach by road, rail or tram from across the Northern Powerhouse
- Fully catered throughout, with refreshments and lunch provided each day
- Sustainment Follow-up needs no travel
Invest once. Use it for years.
Full programme: three in-person days, the online sustainment session, DiSC profiling, all workbooks and materials.
The member rate for Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce businesses, everything included, at a preferential price.
Prices are per leader and include all in-person days, the online sustainment session, DiSC profiling, workbooks and materials. Room hire is provided complimentary via GMCC member venues. A place is confirmed by application, not by payment alone.
Three days. Three shifts in how you lead.
Pre-Programme Awareness
This stage sets the foundation before the group even meets, so Day One starts from a place of insight rather than a standing start.
- A DiSC profile
- A Leadership Snapshot: your current horizon
- A personal 1:1 with your Coach
- A Leadership Evaluation survey
- SMART goals set for the sessions ahead
- A clear understanding of the 3.5 days ahead
Connect: Lead Yourself
Day One starts with you, not your business, building the self-awareness and presence every other day builds on.
- Group DiSC profile debrief and self-awareness
- A values exercise: your four non-negotiable leadership values
- My Leadership Brand - who am I
- A live Vision Workshop, coached on delivery and presence
- Decision-making under pressure: sharpening your critical thinking
- Supporting our mental fitness for the future
- Practical exploration of AI tools to support leadership decisions and productivity
- Three SMART objectives and an accountability partner
Clarify: Lead People
Day Two moves from self to team, the commercial cost of poor leadership, and the tools to fix it.
- The real commercial cost of a manager who isn't performing
- Building a coaching mindset and GROW-style questioning
- The eight steps of delegation: handing over outcomes, not tasks
- Creating a business of growth: building a feedback culture with the SBI model
- Radical Candour: having the difficult conversations you've been avoiding
- Mapping and strengthening your key stakeholder relationships
- Building the psychological safety that gets your team speaking up, not staying silent
Commit: Lead the Future
Day Three takes what you've built and puts it in front of a room: strategy, change and influence - ready to apply in your business with your team.
- Strategic thinking: elevating the business - vision, mission, objectives, priorities
- Leading change ahead: how do we navigate the next chapter, using the From-To-Because canvas
- Your Strategy in motion: building the plan for the next 3, 6 and 9 months ahead
- Innovation and creativity: running an Innovation plan with the group
- Your Leadership Blueprint, presented to the group
Sustainment
A 90-minute digital sustainment session to regroup, reflect and keep the momentum going after the three days in the room.
- Regroup: what has landed well?
- What still needs to change?
- Our 90-minute digital sustainment session for the future
- Revisiting your Leadership Snapshot and Evaluation Survey
Not because they need another course. Because they want to...
- Build a leadership team that thinks independently.
- Delegate with confidence.
- Have difficult conversations without avoiding them.
- Retain their best people.
- Create a culture people want to stay in.
- Win greater influence with customers and stakeholders.
- Create a business that grows beyond the owner.
The 5 business outcomes we will achieve.
Stronger leaders, high-performing teams and sustainable business growth. Here's exactly what that looks like for your business.
01 - Increase Productivity
Better delegation, faster decision-making and less firefighting mean more time, energy and focus on what really matters.
02 - Improve Profitability
Higher employee performance and stronger commercial thinking drive stronger margins, healthier cash flow and sustainable growth.
03 - Retain Great People
Higher engagement, better wellbeing and a stronger leadership pipeline build a team that stays, grows and delivers.
04 - Create Confident Leaders
Better communication, stronger executive presence and the ability to handle difficult conversations create leaders who inspire trust and drive results.
05 - Build a Business That Doesn't Rely on the Owner
Empowered managers, clear accountability and succession planning build a stronger, more valuable business built to last.
Built on The GROWTH Blueprint™
Gallup's 2025 global leadership research, gathered from people across more than 50 countries, asked a simple question: what do people need most from their leaders? The answer was remarkably consistent, whatever the geography, age or industry. Followers need four things from the leaders they follow, and these four needs are the evidence base behind everything you'll build across your three days.
Hope
People want confidence in the future. They want leaders who create optimism, provide direction and inspire belief that tomorrow can be better than today.
Trust
Followers need leaders who are authentic, honest and consistent. Trust is built through credibility, integrity and delivering on commitments.
Compassion
People want to know they matter. Leaders who genuinely care about wellbeing, development and individual contribution create stronger engagement and loyalty.
Stability
During uncertainty, people look for calm, dependable leaders who provide clarity, consistency and psychological safety.
The GROWTH Blueprint™ closes the gap between what Gallup found and how to build it, translating the evidence into ten leadership behaviours that can be learned, practised and embedded in everyday leadership.
This is how we turn Gallup's research into a practical, three-day sequence, and it's why this programme builds leaders, not just certificates.
Two different leadership minds. One transformational experience.
Sally Anne Smith
For more than twenty years Sally has helped leaders across Europe transform the way they communicate, influence and inspire.
Trusted by organisations including BMW Group, STMicroelectronics, DHL, Nordea, Channel 4 and the NHS, Sally combines commercial thinking with behavioural science to create leaders people genuinely want to follow.
Wayne Jones OBE
Wayne has led businesses employing more than 14,000 people with revenues exceeding EUR 4 billion.
Today he helps leaders think commercially, build resilient organisations and create businesses prepared for the future.
One develops the leader. One develops the business. Together they transform both.
"It was a fantastic and demanding training. As mentioned, the facilitator, was excellent in executing the training. They really inspired and pushed the participants to new levels."
- Nordea Banking, Sweden, 2026
"The trainers very extremely engaging and supportive. Managed to create a trusted environment for everyone to challenge themselves. Good mix of theoretical basis and practice opportunities. Overall very happy with this course, would not like to change much."
- Private Equity Partners, London, 2025
If this programme helps you...
- Retain one key employee.
- Avoid one poor recruitment.
- Delegate one major responsibility.
- Win one significant customer.
- Improve one leadership decision.
- Reduce owner dependency.
- Increase manager accountability.
- Inspire motivation and business growth.
...the investment has already paid for itself.
Your business changed your life. Now change the way you lead it.
Four months from now, you could be leading with greater clarity, confidence and far less owner dependency. The choice starts with one application.
Submit your application
Tell us about your business, your role and what you want to change as a leader.
Discovery call
A 20-30 minute call with Sally or Wayne to confirm fit and agree your goal for the programme.
Place confirmed
Your place is secured, DiSC profiling is sent out, and you're booked onto the cohort.