Leadership Lab · Waitlist open · Autumn 2026You were promoted because you were great at your job. Now success looks completely different.
Leading a team in a fast growing company is one of the hardest transitions to make. What got you here was expertise, drive and figuring things out yourself. What's needed now is something else: the ability to lead, inspire and motivate others.
The Leadership Lab is a 3-month in-person program in Amsterdam for first-time leaders in scale-ups between 30 and 500 people—built from +10 years hands-on experience and research into what consistently breaks at this growth stage.
The People Leadership Blindspot
The gap between what scale-up leaders believe about their ability to build high-performing teams and a learning culture and what their teams experience is the widest leadership perception gap in our dataset.
The Feedback Desert
Having a strong culture of learning is crucial for high-growth businesses. Yet, very few scale-ups meet the learning orientation benchmark that is necessary for scaling.
The Delegation Illusion
True delegation is the single strongest predictor of scale-up business performance we found. Leaders who crack this don't just free up their own time. They multiply the capacity of everyone around them.
Who it's for
First-time leaders in companies between 25 and 500 people. Capable, committed and navigating something no one fully prepared them for.
You're managing people for the first time*
You were promoted because of what you could do. Now you're responsible for what others do. The transition from individual contributor to leader requires a fundamentally different set of capabilities.
*Those who have managed others before, but are leading a scale-up team for the first time may also apply.
Your company is growing faster than its processes
Your company is growing faster than it can build the infrastructure to support it. You're expected to hold things together, often without a clear framework for how.
You want to lead with more clarity and less chaos
You know what you're trying to build. You crave the inner awareness, practical tools and peer group to build it—without burning out yourself or your team in the process.
What it looks like
Each module runs over 2 full days in Amsterdam. Between modules, you apply what you've learned, so the impact is immediate. The curriculum comes entirely from our research into what breaks at this growth stage and what research on leadership effectiveness shows drives real change.
-
Leading Yourself
Days 1 and 2. Knowing yourself to lead others
Leaders who don't understand their own patterns create teams that can't see theirs. This module builds the interior foundation that leadership requires.
— Your leadership style and its shadow, i.e. what you do under pressure.— Feedback as a leadership practice: surfacing blind spots and limiting patterns.
— Building psychological flexibility: staying open in uncertainty.
-
Leading Others
Days 3 and 4. From doing to enabling
The shift from individual contributor to leader is the hardest most people make in their career. This module gives you the tools to motivate, delegate, resolve conflict and build trust—without losing the performance edge that got you here.
— Empowerment and delegation.— Building trust and accountability.
— Navigating conflict and difficult conversations.
— Feedback that creates behaviour change.
-
Leading the Organisation
Days 5 and 6. From leader to culture shaper
This module gives you the tools to lead beyond your team. To influence, shape, and contribute to an organisation that can sustain growth beyond the founders and MT.
— Managing up and influencing without authority.— Building a culture that is warm and demanding.
— Your personal leadership manifesto: what you stand for, how you show up.
— Creating powerful calls to action to move your company forward.
The people who run it
-
![Anna Dia Adriani — executive coach, corporate anthropologist and co-founder of FABRIC Collective, Amsterdam]()
Anna Dia Adriani
Executive Coach · Corporate Anthropologist · Former COO
"The culture a founder builds to get to 40 people is rarely the culture that gets them to 120. My job is to show them the data before the cost becomes a crisis."
COO at Growth Tribe and Pacmed. Interim Head of People at multiple EU scale-ups. Anna Dia has lived the inflection point this program is built around—from the inside, under pressure, in real time. -
![Laurie Kemp — entrepreneur, facilitator, psychotherapist in training and co-founder of FABRIC Collective, Amsterdam]()
Laurie Kemp
Entrepreneur · Psychotherapist · Facilitator
“Insight is not transformation. The gap between knowing and doing is where most leadership development fails—and where we begin."
13 years designing programs for founders and scale-up leaders. Co-founder of Upshot Impact. 400+ leaders, 150+ organisations across the EU. Laurie designs experiences that transform people, beyond mere insight. -
![Neena Madhok — executive coach, ICF accredited facilitator and leadership development specialist at FABRIC Collective, Amsterdam]()
Neena Madhok
Executive Coach · Facilitator · ICF Accredited
"Most leadership teams confuse being busy with being high-performing. The leaders who actually change are the ones willing to make the work uncomfortable. I'm here for them."
4,000+ coaching hours. A decade in investment banking before moving to Executive Coaching in 2010. Neena brings analytical rigour and emotional intelligence to the room, and knows when each is needed.
What changes
-
For the leader in the room
✔️ Clarity on your leadership style and how to use it deliberately (rather than reactively).
✔️ The self-awareness to catch your own patterns and reactions.
✔️ Confidence to delegate real authority, hold people accountable and make hard calls.
✔️ Practical tools for feedback, conflict, delegation and managing on performance.
✔️ A peer network of leaders from other scale-ups.
-
For the scale-up sending them
✔️ A middle layer that executes with clarity, without everything flowing through the top.
✔️ Leaders who take ownership and drive results without waiting for instruction.
✔️ Stronger cross-functional communication and alignment across the organisation.
✔️ A strong leadership pipeline for the phase ahead.
✔️ Senior leaders freed to focus on what is actually required of them.
Want to be first to know when applications open?
Spots are limited to 12—15 leaders and filled through an intake to ensure group fit. Leave your details and you'll hear first—before we announce publicly.