Leadership Masterclass
Leadership Masterclass Series
Six practical masterclasses. Six common leadership challenges. Skills you can use immediately.
Live online | 14–29 October 2026 | 7:00pm–8:30pm NZ time
Leadership is rewarding, but nobody said it was easy.
You are expected to motivate different personalities, deal with poor performance, have uncomfortable conversations, create accountability, influence people you don’t manage and somehow bring everyone together as a high-performing team.
And quite often, you’re expected to know how to do all of this simply because somebody gave you the title of “manager”.
The Leadership Masterclass Series is designed to help.
Across six practical 90-minute live online masterclasses, leadership and mindset coach Mark Wager will explore some of the most common challenges facing leaders and provide practical tools and techniques that you can take back to work and start using immediately.
You can attend the masterclass that addresses the challenge you’re facing right now—or complete all six as a practical leadership development programme.
Individual Masterclass: $79 NZD
Complete Six-Part Series: $399 NZD
Practical Leadership for the Real World
There is no shortage of leadership theory. The difficult part is knowing what to do when you’re sitting opposite a poor performer, preparing for a conversation you’ve been avoiding, trying to get somebody to take ownership or attempting to influence a senior leader who doesn’t report to you.
That’s where these masterclasses are different.
Each session combines leadership psychology, practical frameworks, real-world examples and more than three decades of leadership experience to help you understand not only what effective leaders do, but why it works.
The emphasis throughout the series is simple:
Understand people better. Lead them better.
Who Is This Series For?
The Leadership Masterclass Series is designed for anyone who has responsibility for leading or influencing others, including:
- New and recently promoted managers
- Experienced managers wanting to sharpen their leadership skills
- Team leaders and supervisors
- Emerging and aspiring leaders
- Project leaders
- Business owners
- Leaders managing challenging team dynamics
- Professionals who need to influence people without having formal authority
You don’t need to attend all six sessions. Every masterclass has been designed to work as a standalone session, allowing you to choose the leadership challenge most relevant to you.
For those wanting broader development, the complete series provides a journey through six of the most important challenges leaders face.
The Six Leadership Masterclasses
1. From Manager to Leader
Wednesday 14 October 2026 | 7:00pm–8:30pm
Making the mindset shift from managing work to leading people.
Being promoted into management doesn’t automatically make someone a leader.
In fact, the skills that helped you succeed personally can sometimes become the very things that make leadership difficult. Suddenly, success isn’t simply about how well you perform. It’s about your ability to create the conditions in which other people can perform.
This masterclass explores the psychological transition from manager to leader. We’ll look at leadership identity, confidence, mindset and the common traps that prevent technically capable managers from becoming effective people leaders.
You’ll leave with a clearer understanding of what your team actually needs from you as a leader—and what you may need to start doing differently.
2. Difficult Conversations Without Fear
Thursday 15 October 2026 | 7:00pm–8:30pm
How to have the conversations you’ve been avoiding.
Most leaders know when a difficult conversation needs to happen.
The problem is actually having it.
We worry about how the other person will react. We don’t want to damage the relationship. We convince ourselves that perhaps the situation will improve by itself. So we delay the conversation—and the problem usually becomes more difficult.
This masterclass explores the psychology behind our avoidance of difficult conversations and provides practical techniques for approaching them with greater confidence.
You’ll learn how to prepare properly, manage emotions, communicate clearly and address challenging issues while maintaining respect and protecting the working relationship.
Because the conversation you avoid today often becomes a much more difficult conversation tomorrow.
3. Managing Poor Performance
Wednesday 21 October 2026 | 7:00pm–8:30pm
How to address underperformance while maintaining trust and morale.
One poor-performing team member can consume an extraordinary amount of a manager’s time and emotional energy.
Yet poor performance isn’t always caused by laziness or a bad attitude. Sometimes expectations aren’t clear. Sometimes the individual lacks capability. Sometimes motivation has disappeared. And sometimes the leader has allowed an issue to continue for far too long.
Effective leadership starts by understanding why somebody isn’t performing before deciding what needs to happen next.
This masterclass will show you how to identify the real cause of underperformance, establish clear expectations, provide meaningful feedback and create genuine accountability.
You’ll learn how to address performance issues earlier and more confidently while maintaining trust, fairness and team morale.
4. Building Accountability Without Micromanaging
Thursday 22 October 2026 | 7:00pm–8:30pm
How to create genuine ownership without constantly chasing people.
If you constantly have to remind people, check their work and chase commitments, you don’t really have accountability.
You have dependency.
Great leaders don’t create teams that need to be constantly managed. They create an environment in which people understand what is expected, have the confidence and authority to act, and take genuine ownership for delivering results.
This masterclass explores why accountability breaks down and what leaders can do differently.
We’ll look at expectations, delegation, ownership, trust and effective follow-up. You’ll learn how to hold people accountable without constantly looking over their shoulder—and how to give people greater freedom without losing control of the outcome.
5. Leading Without Authority
Wednesday 28 October 2026 | 7:00pm–8:30pm
How to influence, persuade and gain buy-in from people who don’t report to you.
Some of the most important people you need to influence may be people you have absolutely no authority over.
They might be colleagues, stakeholders, people in another department, senior executives—or even your own manager.
Traditional management authority doesn’t help much in these situations. You can’t simply tell people what to do. You need them to want to support your ideas.
This masterclass explores the psychology of influence and how to lead when your job title can’t do the work for you.
You’ll learn practical approaches for building credibility, communicating ideas persuasively, overcoming resistance, leading upwards within an organisation and gaining buy-in from people who don’t report to you.
You don’t need authority to make an impact.
You need influence.
6. The Psychology of High-Performing Teams
Thursday 29 October 2026 | 7:00pm–8:30pm
How great leaders create the conditions for people and teams to perform at their best.
High-performing teams don’t happen by accident.
Behind sustained performance are psychological conditions that allow talented people to work effectively together. Trust, psychological safety, accountability, clarity, communication and shared purpose all matter—but leaders play a crucial role in creating those conditions.
In the final masterclass of the series, we’ll explore what psychology tells us about how teams behave and what separates consistently high-performing teams from everyone else.
You’ll learn what leaders can do to strengthen trust, encourage honest communication, create psychological safety without lowering standards, establish accountability and help talented individuals become part of something greater than themselves.
Great teams don’t just happen.
Great leaders create the conditions.
What Can You Expect?
Every masterclass is 90 minutes and delivered live via Zoom.
These aren’t passive webinars where somebody talks at you for 90 minutes.
Each session combines leadership psychology with practical tools, frameworks, real examples and opportunities to ask questions.
The goal is that you finish every masterclass with at least one idea you can take back to work and use immediately.
Practical tools. Real leadership situations. Immediate application.
Your Masterclass Guarantee
I want you to leave these sessions with ideas you can actually use.
Attend your first masterclass and participate in the session. If, at the end, you genuinely don’t believe you’ve received practical leadership ideas that you can apply in your workplace, simply let me know and I’ll refund your masterclass fee.
No complicated conditions.
Leadership development should make a difference in the real world.
About Your Facilitator
Mark Wager — Leadership & Mindset Coach
Mark Wager is the Chief Leadership Coach at the Australasian Leadership Institute and has more than three decades of leadership experience.
He works with leaders and organisations across New Zealand, Australia and the Pacific, helping people understand the psychology behind effective leadership and translate that understanding into practical changes in the workplace.
Mark’s approach to leadership development is based on a simple belief: leadership becomes easier when you understand people better.
His work combines leadership psychology, coaching experience and practical lessons from working with leaders facing the same challenges covered throughout this Masterclass Series—from difficult conversations and poor performance to accountability, influence and high-performing teams.
Leadership Isn’t Something You Learn Once
It’s something you get better at every time you understand yourself, your people and your impact a little better.
Whether you’re stepping into leadership for the first time, dealing with a difficult situation right now or simply want to become a better leader, you’re welcome to join us.
Six Masterclasses | 14–29 October 2026 | 7:00pm–8:30pm NZ time | Live via Zoom
Individual Masterclass: $79 NZD
Complete Six-Part Series: $399 NZD