Leadership interviews
Structured conversations with the people responsible for setting direction and leading teams.
Leadership effectiveness for growing businesses
When growth outpaces leadership, performance starts to suffer.
We help growing businesses with 30–300 people understand where leadership is holding them back — and build a clear 90-day plan to fix it.
Built for organisations with 30–300 people
The ALIGN framework
- 1Assess
- 2Listen
- 3Identify
- 4Grow
- 5Nurture
The challenge
Growth changes what leadership needs to do.
The people who helped build the business are often asked to lead a much more complex organisation — without the clarity, support or operating habits they now need.
You may be seeing it already:
- Decisions are slowing down or being pushed upwards
- Good people are becoming frustrated or leaving
- Managers have been promoted without enough support
- The culture feels different as the business grows
We don't begin with a training catalogue.
We begin by finding the leadership problem that is costing your business.The flagship service
The Leadership
Effectiveness Review
A structured, independent view of how leadership is really working across your organisation — followed by a practical plan to strengthen it.
The review combines leadership perspective, employee experience and observable ways of working. It gives you a clear view of what is happening, why it matters and what to do next.
Typical timeframe4–6 weeks
Commercial modelFixed scope
Primary output90-day plan
Best suited to30–300 people
Employee feedback
A focused pulse survey and selected interviews to understand the day-to-day leadership experience.
Culture and ways-of-working scan
A review of the habits, expectations and friction points shaping performance.
Leadership observation
Observation of agreed meetings or working sessions to see leadership in practice, not just on paper.
Clear findings
A candid, evidence-based readout showing strengths, risks and the issues that need attention first.
90-day improvement plan
Practical actions, owners and measures that your leadership team can begin using immediately.
One defined problem. One clear scope. No open-ended day rate.
Discuss a reviewOur approach
A practical journey from insight to action.
Every engagement follows the same five-stage framework. The structure stays consistent; the findings are specific to your organisation.
- 01
Assess
Define the business context, growth pressures and the leadership challenge to solve.
- 02
Listen
Hear directly from leaders and employees through interviews and focused feedback.
- 03
Identify
Find the patterns, behaviours and operating habits that are helping or holding you back.
- 04
Grow
Turn insight into a prioritised, practical 90-day leadership improvement plan.
- 05
Nurture
Embed the changes through follow-up, accountability and targeted support.
What changes
Clarity before activity.
The review is designed to give senior teams a shared, evidence-based understanding of what needs to change — before money is spent on broad programmes or disconnected initiatives.
Sharper priorities
Agreement on the few leadership issues that matter most now.
Clearer accountability
Defined actions, owners and measures for the next 90 days.
Better conversations
A safer, more useful way to surface what people are experiencing.
Focused investment
Development and support aimed at evidence, not assumptions.
Founding partnerships
We're selecting three pilot organisations.
Early partners receive a reduced fixed fee and direct input into how the review is refined.
- Full Leadership Effectiveness Review
- Clear findings and 90-day plan
- Follow-up review after 90 days
In return, we ask for candid feedback and — where results justify it — permission to share an agreed testimonial or anonymised case study.
Ask about a pilot partnership →FounderLily Reid, FCCA
About ALIGN
People insight with commercial purpose.
Lily Reid is a people-first leader with extensive experience in leadership development, facilitation, culture change and organisational effectiveness across complex, multi-site businesses.
During her career at Tarmac, Lily designed and delivered large-scale learning events, facilitated senior leadership conferences, developed colleagues through coaching and mentoring, and helped grow an internal sustainability community from 40 to more than 200 members.
She founded ALIGN Leadership to help organisations understand what is happening beneath the surface and turn honest people insight into practical, measurable action. Her approach combines a genuine commitment to people with the commercial awareness and analytical rigour developed throughout her career.
Leadership developmentFacilitationCulture changeOrganisational effectivenessCommercial insight
Our reputation goal“If your business is growing and your leadership team is starting to struggle, speak to Lily.”
Our thinking
Three principles shape the work.
Diagnosis before development
Do not begin with workshops. Begin by understanding the problem that needs solving.
Behaviour over slogans
Culture is shaped by what leaders repeatedly do, tolerate and reward — not what appears in a values deck.
Action over theatre
The goal is not a long report. It is a small number of meaningful changes that improve how the business operates.
Questions
What leaders usually want to know.
01Is this a leadership training programme?+
No. The review comes first. It identifies the specific behaviours, systems and leadership gaps affecting your organisation, so any development that follows is focused on what will genuinely make a difference.
02Who is the review designed for?+
Growing organisations with roughly 30–300 people, particularly where growth, change or new layers of management are beginning to expose leadership strain.
03How long does it take?+
A typical review is completed over four to six weeks. The exact timetable depends on the size of the organisation and the number of interviews agreed at the outset.
04Will employees feel safe to speak honestly?+
Yes. The process is designed to protect individual confidentiality. Themes are reported clearly, but comments are not attributed without explicit permission.
05What happens after the 90-day plan?+
You can implement it internally, or ALIGN can provide focused follow-up support. There is no obligation to buy a wider programme or ongoing retainer.
Start a conversation
Is leadership becoming a constraint on growth?
Tell us what you are seeing. The first conversation is confidential, practical and without obligation.