Below is the full STRLDi Programme Design for the “Leading the Leader” Programme — tailored for executive-level leaders and oversight decision-makers.
It maintains fidelity to The Fifth Discipline and your “five fingers and palm” structure, but reframes it for system stewardship rather than facilitation training.
Purpose
The Leading the Leader programme is designed to guide senior leaders, executives, and system stewards into seeing, freeing, and re-leading the systems that shape their organisation’s and region’s performance.
Unlike conventional management training that focuses on people or performance, this programme develops the capacity to see and act from the system itself — enabling leadership to operate at the level of structure, interdependence, and coherence across institutions and communities.
Programme Architecture: The Five Fingers and the Palm
The structure of the programme follows the metaphor of the five fingers and the palm:
- Each “finger” represents one of the Five Disciplines.
- The “palm” is the field of integration — where leaders experience the power of coherence, collective learning, and self-generating systems.
| Finger | Discipline | Leadership Application |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Thumb | Personal Mastery | Aligning purpose, awareness, and leadership energy |
| 2. Index | Mental Models | Recognising habitual thought patterns shaping systemic behaviour |
| 3. Middle | Shared Vision | Building alignment across departments, partners, and communities |
| 4. Ring | Team Learning | Creating “tables that learn” for reflective, generative conversation |
| 5. Little | Systems Thinking | Seeing the structures and feedback loops driving results |
| Palm | Integration Field | Acting from coherence: where insight becomes collective action |
Programme Format
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Duration | Four modules, each running 3 days (Tuesday–Thursday) |
| Cycle | One module every 4–6 weeks to allow reflection and application between sessions |
| Participants | Mayors, Directors, Senior Executives, Community Leaders, and Policy Heads |
| Methodology | Experiential learning, systemic reflection, real-case mapping, and cross-sector dialogue |
| Facilitators | STRLDi faculty with co-facilitation by senior partners (e.g., BTD, SBM leads) |
Programme Modules
Module 1: Introduction to The Fifth Discipline and Systems Thinking Basics
Objective:
Introduce leaders to the foundations of The Fifth Discipline. Awaken systemic awareness of how their organisation is “led by” structures and habits they cannot yet see.
Themes
- The learning organisation as a living system
- The difference between events, patterns, and structures
- Feedback loops, delays, and leverage points
- Seeing the system that leads you
- Understanding the leadership trap — the shift from blame to systemic insight
Key Practices
- Behaviour-Over-Time (BOT) charting
- Simple causal loop diagramming
- Leadership reflection circle
Outcome
Leaders begin to see that their organisation’s persistent issues are not personal, but structural.
They begin to move from reacting to events → inquiring into patterns → mapping structure.
Module 2: Deepening Systems Thinking
Objective:
To deepen understanding of systemic archetypes, structural traps, and leverage design for transformation.
Participants learn to see how multiple systems intersect — political, economic, institutional, and community — and how to navigate them as one living system.
Themes
- The System Archetypes (Limits to Growth, Shifting the Burden, etc.)
- Seeing reinforcing and balancing loops
- Diagnosing systemic traps
- The art of identifying leverage points
- Using systems maps for cross-sector coordination
Key Practices
- Group archetype mapping using real Saldanha Bay examples
- Applying the “even-odd O rule” to classify loops
- Working with the “Onion Model” to locate systemic interactions
Outcome
Leaders develop systemic literacy — the ability to see their work as structure, not as isolated events — and begin identifying the hidden feedbacks that drive results across departments or ministries.
Module 3: Generating Productive Conversations
Objective:
To cultivate team learning and mental model awareness that transform conversation from positional debate to generative dialogue.
This module integrates principles from the CEO’s Table programme.
Themes
- The discipline of dialogue vs. discussion
- Balancing advocacy and inquiry
- Recognising and shifting limiting mental models
- Listening for assumptions that shape decisions
- Designing “tables that learn” — where leadership conversations produce insight and alignment
Key Practices
- Dialogue labs and conversation mapping
- Real-issue conversation redesign (based on live leadership issues)
- Reflection rounds and feedback mirroring
Outcome
Leaders begin to create reflective spaces within their organisations — shifting meetings from transactional to transformational.
They start recognising that culture and policy coherence grow through how leaders think together.
Module 4: Clarifying Personal Aspirations and Building Shared Vision
Objective:
To align personal and collective purpose, and to design the container for continuous learning — preparing the ground for applied system laboratories (“the labs”).
Themes
- Vision as a creative act
- The alignment of personal mastery and shared vision
- From compliance to commitment
- Building guiding ideas for a generative future
- The field of collective aspiration
Key Practices
- Personal mastery reflection (The Ladder of Influence)
- Shared Vision Workshop
- Systemic readiness assessment — identifying the next leverage points
Outcome (Day 3 Focus – Getting Ready for the Labs)
Leaders integrate insights from the four modules and prepare to apply them in Learning Laboratories — real system experiments within their own departments or inter-departmental projects.
This marks the shift from learning in the room to learning in the system.
Overall Flow of the Programme
| Phase | Focus | Output |
|---|---|---|
| Phase 1: Awakening (Module 1) | Seeing the system that leads you | Awareness and structural literacy |
| Phase 2: Diagnosis (Module 2) | Mapping system patterns and leverage | Shared understanding of systemic traps |
| Phase 3: Alignment (Module 3) | Generative conversations & team learning | Reflective dialogue culture |
| Phase 4: Integration (Module 4) | Personal & collective vision | Readiness for applied system labs |
Post-Programme Application: System Labs
Following the four modules, participants engage in System Laboratories co-facilitated by STRLDi.
Each lab focuses on a real, live issue within the municipal or regional system (e.g., unemployment, housing coordination, waste-to-energy pipeline, or youth enterprise integration).
The Labs serve to:
- Anchor learning in live governance structures
- Allow leaders to practice seeing, freeing, and re-leading their own systems
- Generate visible prototypes of systemic change
Expected Impact
By the close of the Leading the Leader programme, participating leaders will:
- Recognise recurring system patterns and address them at structural level
- Build alignment across departmental, political, and community boundaries
- Design and sustain generative conversations within their leadership tables
- Integrate personal mastery and shared vision in decision-making
- Lead their municipality or organisation from systemic coherence rather than positional control
Ultimately, they will have begun the transition from being led by the system → leading from the system → leading the system.
Systems Thinking Research & Leadership Development Institute (STRLDi) 