Made in Aotearoa. Delivered worldwide.

Bold Leadership
Development that
actually works.

We run immersive, story-driven experiences for leadership teams, custom built around your team's most pressing needs.

You practise real skills in a space away from the day-to-day, then take the learning straight back into your work.

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Whatever's on your mind, we've probably built something for it.

A team that needs to come together. A change you want to land properly. A leadership group you're ready to invest in seriously.

What we run is shaped around what you actually need, and built on the science of play and storytelling, because that's what makes leadership development actually change behaviour.

Pretty cool, eh?

A Leadership Treehouse session in full swing, leaders gathered around tables with cards and dice
In the room
The company we keep

Teams who've trusted us with their leaders

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…and a few we're not allowed to name. (You know who you are.)

Where are you?

What's brought you here today?

01 · We need to explore how we could lead better

"My leadership team is solid, but I sense we could be better, and I want help thinking it through."

Sometimes nothing is broken. You just know there's another gear available. Decisions that could be sharper. Conversations that could be braver. A next step coming up that you want the team properly prepped for. You don't need a rescue mission. You need a thinking partner who can help you see what's actually there.

The Leadership Audit

A 30-minute conversation with our founder. We follow up with a short written report: what we heard, the patterns we see, the most useful next step. Yours to keep, no obligation.

Book a Leadership Audit
Why bother?

Why develop as a leader?

Pick a reason. Or better, roll for one. There are twenty.

Reason 1 of 20

Reason #1

Because how you show up sets the tone.

When you're calm, your team is calmer. When you're stressed, they pick that up too, even when you think you're hiding it. Working on yourself as a leader is one of the highest-leverage things you can do for the people around you.

A CEO's perspective

Hear a CEO's perspective

Stanley Henry, CEO of The Attention Seeker, shares what happened when his leadership team walked through The Rehearsal Room.

For the sceptics

Sceptical? Good. Let's roll with that.

We get it. The words play, storytelling, adventure, pretend, none of them sound like leadership development. They sound like something you'd politely decline.

"Sounds a bit out there." "What if this makes me look silly?" "If I have to do another trust fall I will hand in my notice." "I don't really do games."

Fair comments. Here's the honest answer:

We use story, scenario and serious gameplay because they're the fastest way we know to get past the polished version of a leader and into how they actually think, decide and react under pressure.

Yes, it's probably outside your comfort zone. That's where the actual learning lives. Comfortable rooms produce comfortable behaviour, which is the behaviour you already have.

We've been doing this a long time, and we've yet to meet the sceptic who didn't end up enjoying it, and using what they learned. Come in sceptical. Let us earn it.

Bring your scepticism
A handful of colourful dice over a fantasy map
Speaking of sceptics
"I was super sceptical, this was very out of my comfort zone. But by the end of session one I had one of those ah-ha moments. I learned so much about myself that I never knew before."
Beckie Coe · Thankyou Payroll
Our theory of change

Why our approach
works

You've probably done a leadership programme before. Maybe a few. You took notes, nodded along, posted something thoughtful about it on LinkedIn. By the next Friday, the framework was forgotten. By the time the next quarter started, you were back where you began.

That's not your fault. It's not the trainer's fault either. Most leadership development just tries to do the wrong job, it tells you what good leadership looks like. The problem was never that you didn't know.

Real behaviour change happens differently.

It happens when you do something hard, in a place where doing it wrong is allowed, with someone helpful pointing at what you didn't notice. When you actually get a rehearsal space to practise the hard stuff before you need it.

Design

We design the work around what's actually going on for you.

01 / DesignFlip →
01 / Design

Before we run a single thing, we spend time understanding your team's real patterns, the moment you're walking into, or the change you're trying to make. Then we build the work around that, not around a curriculum we've used before.

Practice

You practise the moves in a space that isn't your job.

02 / PracticeFlip →
02 / Practice

Inside the story, the rules of your workplace don't apply. People try things they'd never risk in a real meeting, the brave conversation, the decisive call, the push back on the senior person, and find out what actually happens when they do. Brains in play mode are more flexible, more honest, more willing to take risks.

Reflect

We debrief, properly.

03 / ReflectFlip →
03 / Reflect

Experience without reflection stays at the level of a good story. Every session ends with a structured debrief that turns what just happened in the room into specific shifts, connecting what you saw to your actual meetings, your actual conflicts, your actual stuck points.

Apply

The change goes home with you.

04 / ApplyFlip →
04 / Apply

You walk out knowing exactly what you're going to do differently on Monday, and why. Shared language for things that used to go unspoken. The conversation that's been on hold for six months happens. Patterns that have held you back for years lose their grip, because you've already practised what's on the other side.

Hover or tap a card to see how each stage works.

Who we work with

Who we work with

We work mostly with leadership teams in tech, creative, professional services and purpose-driven organisations across New Zealand and Australia. Although we've also worked with farmers, builders and teachers, so genuinely, any team who leads other people is a good team for us.

And who we're not for: if you're a team that won't try anything a bit challenging, isn't up for a laugh, or simply just wants to stick to the status quo, we're probably not for you.

Our programmes suit
  • Senior leadership teams who are ready for a challenge
  • Founders who want to lead by example
  • High-potential leaders who want to sink their teeth into something meaningful
  • Neurodivergent leaders for whom traditional development has never quite fit
  • Newly-formed leadership teams who want to get deliberate about how they lead
A leadership team mid-session in a library
What we offer

What we offer

Our flagship programme, plus a few other ways we work with leadership teams.

Other ways we work with leadership teams

Leadership rarely needs a single fix. It needs the right intervention at the right moment, and the kind of support that compounds over time. We work with leaders across all of it, diagnosing what's really going on, building the foundations a team needs to lead together, and showing up consistently for the slower work that makes leaders actually grow.

"Many of our long-term clients started with us in the Rehearsal Room, and stayed for The Long Game. It's how the relationship deepens, and how the change really takes root."
Testimonials

What the leaders had to say

Hear from the leaders who have worked with us.

"
The journey showed me parts of myself that I'd like to focus on, as well as some comparitive strengths through the reflection process. I highly recommend!
Angela Wei
Wētā FX
"
Seeing how your team members react in a situation free of judgement teaches you a lot about them. It's worth doing for any team.
Patrick Peters
TechTime
"
This workshop helped me put words to things I hadn't fully realised about myself. Since then I've used those insights, and honestly, I've seen the results.
Amy Thomson
The Attention Seeker
"
This is the most unique, wild, engaging and fun workshop I have ever been to. The experience and the learning will stay with me for a long time.
Cordula Plassmann
Coach and Facilitator
"
This is the kind of workshop to attend whether or not you have been to other leadership trainings. It will bring up new ideas and experiences you wouldn't have been able to tap into before.
Victoria Young
Zealandia
"
I went in thinking it would be pretty awkward. Three hours later I was the one asking when we could do it again. Our team has talked about that day every week since.
James Whitford
Participant, 2026
How it works

Working with us is refreshingly simple

  1. 01

    Discovery call

    Tell us what's going on with your team. We'll send you a proposal worth reading.

  2. 02

    Getting under the hood

    Once we're working together, we dig deeper into what's really going on. We agree on where to focus.

  3. 03

    Custom design

    We build your experience from scratch. Off-the-shelf rarely fits anyone particularly well.

  4. 04

    Delivery

    We run it. You experience it. In person or online.

  5. 05

    Custom report

    A written summary of what we observed, with recommendations so the learning doesn't stop when the day does.

A short demo

A short demo

Our founder, Tamara Buckland, talks at DisruptHR about why most leadership development doesn't stick, and what to do instead. Five minutes, one small adventure, an honest pitch for a different way.

FAQ

Questions, answered honestly.

Not at all. There's nothing to memorise, no prior experience needed, and no performance required. The scenarios are designed so anyone can step in and contribute from the start. Most people who arrive most sceptical leave most surprised. We've come to love a good sceptic.

Honestly, good. Resistance usually means people are paying attention. We design sessions so there's no pressure to perform and no wrong way to participate, the structure does the work. Your team just has to show up. Most sceptics are converts by the end of the first session. Some become our biggest advocates. We're not smug about it. Much.

No. We deliberately design for a range of participation styles. Leaders who prefer to observe, listen, and reflect often make the sharpest moves in our sessions. If anything, the scenario format levels the playing field, people who tend to dominate in meetings don't automatically dominate here. Sometimes quite the opposite.

There is a story, and sometimes you'll play a character in the story to help you make decisions or practice a new skill. It's a way of engaging with the hard stuff that's less vulnerable or awkward, which is our ultimate goal. If you've played tabletop role-playing games before, there will be some familiarity here, however it's actually designed for people who have never done this sort of thing before, and thoroughly tested with people who were sceptical (and now aren't!).

A team-building day is a good time. This is a good time that also changes how your team works. Every session is built around real leadership challenges, followed by a structured debrief that connects what happened in the scenario to what happens at work. You leave with shared language, specific insights, and actual actions, not just a good story and a mild competitive streak about the afternoon activity.

Yes, and it's where we do some of our best work. Senior leaders often find that traditional development stops challenging them early. Our sessions create genuine stretch: complex scenarios, real tension, decisions with no obvious right answer. Exec teams in particular get a lot from seeing how they actually operate together under pressure, as opposed to how they think they operate together.

Yes, and we design with that in mind from the start. Multiple ways to participate, varied activity formats, and clear structure mean leaders with different processing styles, communication needs, or sensory preferences can engage fully. We're happy to talk through specific requirements before any session.

Design. Every session is built around the specific leadership challenges your team is facing, not a generic scenario pulled off a shelf. The debrief is where the real work happens: we connect what people did in the room to what they do at work, and everyone leaves with something concrete. For longer programmes, we build in follow-up to track what's actually shifting. A good experience that changes nothing is just an expensive afternoon.

Leaders who communicate more directly, make decisions faster, and handle conflict with less friction. Teams that trust each other more quickly and collaborate more effectively. Conversations that previously didn't happen, happening. The research on experiential learning is consistent, when people practise something in a high-engagement environment, the behaviour change sticks in a way that passive training simply doesn't produce.

It depends on what you need. The Audit is 30 minutes. The Canvas is one hour. Half- and full-day sessions work well for teams wanting deeper trust and communication work. Multi-session programmes run over weeks or months for teams wanting lasting behaviour change. We'll recommend the right format once we understand what you're trying to achieve.

Always. Even our existing sessions get customised so the scenarios and challenges feel relevant to your context. We can also design something from scratch around your specific leadership challenge. Nothing we run is off-the-shelf, we find off-the-shelf rarely fits anyone particularly well.

Yes. We run sessions in-person across New Zealand, Australia, and internationally, if you're willing to cover travel, we're willing to get on a plane. We also run online sessions for teams anywhere in the world. Both formats are designed to work properly, not just tolerate each other.

It depends on the format and scope. We'll publish indicative pricing on each service page, but most engagements vary based on team size, duration, and how much we tailor the experience. Book a free discovery call and we'll give you a clear picture of what's involved and what it would cost for your team, no vague proposals, no surprise pricing.

Book a free discovery call. Tell us what you're trying to achieve and we'll take it from there, from the first planning conversation through to the final debrief.

You bring your leaders.
We'll bring the change.

Book a free discovery call. Tell us what's going on. We'll take it from there.

Book a discovery call

No pitch deck. No "let's circle back." Promise.