Our Services

Building Adaptive Leaders

Our Adaptive Leadership 2.0 programme builds leaders who can tap into the human potential of their people to help them perform and thrive through change and complexity.

Adaptive Leadership 2.0

Coaching

We coach leaders to help them navigate challenges, grow and develop, through building self awareness and empathy. The goal of coaching is to help people understand themselves better, and in the process identify how to get the best from themselves and their teams. Our coaching philosophy is grounded in a deep understanding of human behaviour and motivation and we are qualified under the International Coaching Federation (ICF).

We also train leaders in how to coach their people.

Coaching Services

High Performing Teams

We partner with leaders to create the conditions for team performance over time.

Adaptive Teams

What our clients say

“We’ve had the pleasure of working with Dan and Maree on an adaptive leadership development program tailored for our team, and I couldn’t recommend them more highly.
What sets Dan and Maree apart is their focus on long-term impact. This isn’t a one-off workshop that delivers a short burst of inspiration and then fades away. Instead, they partner with us to embed meaningful leadership behaviours into everyday habits, ensuring that the learning sticks and drives real change.
Our team genuinely loves working with them. Dan and Maree bring a rare mix of warmth, fun, deep knowledge, and the courage to challenge us when it counts. They create a space that feels safe, but not soft, encouraging us to grow individually and together.
If you’re looking for leadership development that actually moves the needle, not just in the room, but long after, Dan and Maree are an exceptional choice.”
Jason Poyner, CEO and Founder of Deptive
“I have used Dan and Maree from Lead Change for many years. They have supported the growth of our teams, the evolution of our culture and helped us navigate the wide variety of things that come at leaders today. Over the last 6 months Dan and Maree have taken our people leaders on the Adaptive Leadership journey. Like most leaders, my education to date has been one off courses, a small mountain of books and the odd integrated framework. The Adaptive Leadership Programme is something else entirely. This programme has delivered real change and not because it was forced but because when your people show up with an open mind and a willingness to engage, the content, practicality and accountability of this course will deliver. It hasn’t been plain sailing. There have been hard conversations and both personal and professional light bulb moments. Most of us have been outside of our comfort zone - that is after all where all growth is.
It took quite the commitment to bring our people leaders together for 4 hour sessions every few weeks for the best part of 5 months but we are better for it. Our relationships are better and more open, and we all have new skills, language and tools to continue to grow as leaders and drive the organisation forward.
During this time, a number of the team have also used Dan or Maree for one on one coaching. You should too. Just be warned that behind that friendly and caring approach is a real talent for digging deep, getting you on the hook and not letting you off. My conversations with Dan have been so useful in helping me navigate some difficult situations and test my thinking and approach before execution. It’s been a valuable few months with the Lead Change team.”
Jen Baird, (previous) CEO REINZ
“Ultimately, I was looking to develop a high-performing leadership function within a very busy division and needed someone to run alongside us — part of the team to see the change we wanted to see. I also wanted my lead team to have the support of Lead.Change as they built out their own teams (many of which had had difficult leaders or challenging changes prior). As a collective, we wanted to get the next-level leaders working together horizontally to continue to uplift the overall leadership capability and to try to break down silos across the teams.
I’ve seen positive change on many different facets. The personal and working relationships across my lead team have come a very long way. We are able to support, challenge, and enable our teams to work effectively together to achieve some pretty impressive outcomes. Our Peakon results continue to improve, with an 8.1 engagement score (at True Benchmark) as well as an eNPS of 45 in our last culture survey (92% participation). We have strengths highlighted in those results around peer relationships, management support, alignment to strategy, autonomy and psychological safety — all excellent foundations. Some of our teams that had struggled with low engagement scores have seen a marked improvement in some of those hotspots.
You are authentic. You care about our outcomes — I see you get genuine pleasure from seeing us progress. I like that your approach is simple, but drawn from years of experience and very sound theoretical knowledge, which you’ll sprinkle in when needed but isn’t framework- or philosophy-first driven. Ultimately, you feel like you are invested and part of the team — not a ‘doing to us’ approach, but a ‘doing with us’ approach, which is wonderful!”
Steph Creasy, CTO AA New Zealand
“I could not recommend a better program than the Adaptive Leadership one Dan and Maree have embedded at Southern Cross.
I had a new team post a massive structural change, and the time that we spend with Dan and our leaders has been the best investment we could have made in this team. Adaptive Leadership had an immediate impact. This has been reflected in our engagement score (increase of 30%) and how the team has bonded and is now into high performance. This is an investment that we cannot afford to deprioritise.
When all leaders across the business continuously use the principles of this program years after it’s been rolled out, it says something. Your work has had a tremendous impact on my team and to Southern Cross. I highly recommend to any business who knows the value of amazing leadership”
Roxanne Salton: (previous) Chief of Digital Platforms, Southern Cross Health Insurance

Jason Poyner, CEO of Deptive talks about his experience of the Adaptive Leadership Programme

“You challenge us directly, but it never feels like being told off or like someone proving a point. You’ve built real safety to be honest, as a group, which sounds simple but rarely happens - people on the team say things in your sessions they wouldn’t say anywhere else. Your frameworks are practical, not abstract. We actually use them between sessions. And underneath all of it, you genuinely care - it doesn’t feel transactional.”
Tech Consultancy
“As someone who has attended numerous training sessions throughout my career, I can confidently say that yours has been the most impactful one so far.”
Insurance industry
“A programme that goes beneath the surface level type courses out there.”
Insurance industry
“What really stood out was how practical and grounded it was. It never felt like abstract leadership theory, we worked on our actual challenges with the people we actually work with, so it stuck... You’re lovely people who genuinely care, and you get just as excited about the insights coming out of the sessions as we do.”
Technology consultancy
“Adaptive Leadership is functional gold for a leader...if I look back over the sessions, every session had some really good pearls of wisdom, tools to use, scenarios, all of those things that are important that you have in your tool bag, to have in the back of your mind. Like your style of keeping it real, very common sense, you made it easy for us, you connected us in, those relationships were strengthened."
Insurance industry
"One of the most valuable parts were the group discussions, role-playing, or case studies, the opportunity to interact with others facing similar challenges. You guys would always lead us with topics and share your own insights and knowledge but it was the ability to speak up in a safe environment where a lot of the learning came from. I appreciated being included in the discussions rather than just the hosts standing at the front of the room talking at us"
Financial Services
"The skills and knowledge you have shared with us has been a gift and something I am incredibly grateful for. I valued my time with you so much and have certainly come out of this course a stronger, more confident and capable leader. Thank you for a truly exceptional course. It has been a transformational 6 months, THANK YOU."
Insurance industry
“I really liked the structure of the programme, how people had time to reflect, try and then come and share back with the team it was very valuable. This is the one programme I have seen where it stayed alive during the delivery time."
Insurance industry
“The programme didn’t make things easier – it made things clearer. Maree and Dan gave me practical tools, a safe space for honest conversations, and the confidence to lead well within my sphere and stand up for what I believe. Eight months on, I’m a calmer, clearer and more intentional leader. What sets you apart is that it never felt like a course being delivered at us. You created a genuinely safe space to talk about what’s actually happening, not the sanitised version.”
Financial Services
"The biggest impact has been belief in myself that I can influence change and help influence a better company. You have provided the foundation and confidence for me to be honest, open, direct, constructive and consistent in how we’ve set out to improve the SLT’s behaviours and leadership. Your approach has been well balanced between detailed, thought provoking and challenging to drive change. It’s been the perfect level of ongoing comms without being too restrictive to daily work or too little that we forget the progress being made. You’ve used your experience to work people out, lean in where required and it’s been a pleasure to work alongside you both.”
Financial Services
"I’ve appreciated your authenticity. You haven’t hidden behind corporate language or relied too heavily on frameworks. Engaging fully in the programme requires vulnerability, and you’ve created a safe environment where people feel comfortable being open, honest, and themselves. There is a sense of shared values, trust, and mutual respect, which has been extremely helpful as we continue to build our culture.”
Financial Services
“Overall, working with Lead.Change has been a genuinely refreshing and meaningful experience — valuable, practical, and at times quite emotional, in the best possible way... It never felt like a classroom — it felt like a space where we could be real with each other, as humans, with both strengths and vulnerabilities.”
Membership organisation