Specific, testable commitments about how you lead together.
A leadership charter is a practical agreement about how a leadership team will lead together: specific, observable, and tested against whether the people they lead would actually recognise it. This session guides the group through drafting one, grounded in the honest work of the day and owned by the people in the room.
Leadership commitments have a short shelf life when written in the language of aspiration. A team that commits to being more transparent, or to empowering people to own their work, has said something sincere without giving itself anything to act on. This session is built around the discipline of specificity. A strong charter commitment names a behaviour that is observable and testable, connected to the reality of how this team leads today.
The Leading Through Change opening does essential preparatory work. It asks the group to look honestly at how they lead when things are uncertain, because that is when leadership alignment is most tested. The four types of resistance to change, security, status, clarity, and control, give the team a practical language for situations they regularly encounter. The purpose is to anchor the charter in reality, so that what gets written reflects the genuine challenges of leading this organisation.
The drafting process is structured to produce commitments that hold. Solo writing comes first, drawing on everything the group has worked through during the day. Pairs sharpen the language before the room builds the charter together. The facilitator's role throughout is to pull the conversation towards the specific: 'We will share the reasoning behind significant decisions before they are communicated to the organisation' is a commitment. 'We will be transparent' is a value.
The reality-testing questions are where the charter earns its durability. Would the people in your organisation recognise these commitments in how you lead today? If you were fully living these commitments, what would be different about working here? What would each of you need to change to live these commitments consistently? These questions prevent the charter from becoming aspirational fiction and create the individual accountability that makes it worth more than the paper it is written on. Teams that spend time on this step leave with something they believe is achievable and know matters.
Participants leave with a completed Leadership Charter containing three or four specific, observable commitments about how they will lead the organisation, a set of individual first actions for the week ahead, and an accountability structure to support follow-through.
Turn the day's honest conversation into a set of durable commitments for how this team will lead this organisation. Frame it in the context of change, draft three or four specific commitments, reality-test them, and close on a first action each.
Frame the charter in the context of change, since leadership alignment is tested most acutely when things are uncertain, and how this team navigates change together sets the tone for the whole organisation. Introduce four common types of resistance to change. Security, a concern about what will be lost. Status, a concern about how the change affects position or recognition. Clarity, an insufficient understanding of what is happening and why. Control, a feeling that things are being done to people, with no sense of agency. Ask which of these people most commonly encounter, and which they personally find most difficult to lead well. Run a brief pairs discussion, then a brief share-back.
Introduce the task: agree three or four commitments about how this team will lead, each specific, observable, and testable. A strong commitment names a specific behaviour. "We will share the reasoning behind significant decisions before they are communicated to the organisation" is a commitment. "We will be transparent" is a value, and values need behaviours to back them up. Give ten minutes of solo drafting, drawing on the day's work, then have pairs share and identify the one or two that feel most important, and build the charter together on a board or shared document. Aim for three or four commitments: too many and it becomes a wish list, too few and it may not cover enough of what matters.
Once the charter has a working draft, ask three questions. Would the people in your organisation recognise these commitments in how you lead today? If these commitments were fully honoured, what would be different about the experience of working here? What is the one thing each of us would need to change to live these commitments consistently? These questions tether the charter to current reality and create individual accountability.
Each person names one specific first action, something they will do in the first week that reflects the charter, and pairs exchange these as a light accountability structure. Close by naming the shift: this team came in with a set of individual approaches to leadership and is leaving with a shared one, agreed, tested, and connected to what high performance requires.
Use Leadership Charter when a leadership team wants to agree how it will lead together in commitments specific enough to act on. The group drafts three or four observable behaviours, then tests each against whether the people they lead would recognise it.
Using this tool with a skilled facilitator means that discussions are focused, time is used efficiently, and the group moves toward consensus, making the session productive and impactful.
