Case Studies
A few examples of the work.
Case 02
From virtues to practical measures
Implementation Discipline
A group of school leaders from across a regional network were running a peer mentoring programme for aspiring leaders. The programme was strong, served a clear purpose, and many participants valued it.
The Challenge
When the group tried to apply an improvement cycle to the programme, something became clear: they were applying a design process to a pre-ordained solution rather than starting with the problem they were trying to solve. The improvement hypotheses came out as virtues — "participants will have a greater sense of shared purpose," "leaders will feel supported." Well-intentioned statements, but operationally empty. No one could describe what "shared purpose" would look like on a Thursday afternoon, or what would change in behaviour if trust increased.
What we did
The work focused on rewinding to the problem the programme was meant to address: leadership pipeline, retention, competency, confidence. Once the aims were clearer, the hypotheses got sharper. If mentoring is building leadership competence, then by month six a measurable proportion of participants should improve on a simple rubric in core skills like running meetings with clear actions, delegating with clarity, or giving feedback early.
The difference
The team stopped measuring sentiment and started tracking practical indicators that could inform judgement during implementation. The goal was no longer to prove something worked. It was to notice what's working, and what isn't, early enough to respond.
Why it mattered
Pulse checks run at three points during the year surfaced patterns the team could act on while the programme was still running. Meeting frequency turned out to be a strong predictor of quality: participants who met more regularly scored consistently higher on trust, purpose, and follow-through.
The measures also caught where the programme was falling short — some participants reported no improvement in their leadership skills, and others were unclear about their mentor's role. The mentoring playbook was refined during the year in direct response, with adjusted routines drawn from what was actually happening. The programme improved because the measures caught both what was working and what wasn't, early enough to act.
Cost of leaving
it unresolved
When improvement projects lack practical measures, leaders can't tell which ones deserve continued investment. Projects carry on without correction, and staff stop believing the next one will be any different.
Case 03
Leadership Culture & Team Cohesion
Getting under the skin of a leadership team
A senior leadership team of ten at an international school in Singapore held annual offsites. The team was experienced, committed, and effective at day-to-day operations. They would have been satisfied with a day of team games.
The Challenge
What we did
The individual consultations revealed a more complex picture than the team's overall assessment suggested. Patterns had settled in around how decisions were made, who felt comfortable speaking candidly, and how the team handled disagreement. These dynamics were well understood privately by individual members but had never been named collectively.
Every team member completed a diagnostic assessment and a one-to-one consultation before the day. These conversations directly shaped the focus for the facilitated session, which concentrated on the specific dynamics the consultations had surfaced rather than running a standard programme. The team co-designed a set of commitments covering how they would make decisions, structure meetings, and hold each other accountable.
What changed
The commitments held. A year later, the team reconvened for a follow-up offsite. The second round of consultations showed that the structural commitments from the first session were in place and working. The team was now ready to tackle deeper questions about trust, candour, and professional vulnerability that they would not have been willing to address a year earlier. The second offsite produced a new set of commitments reflecting that progression: norms for challenging ideas with curiosity, practices to build genuine understanding of each other's roles, and a rethink of the purpose and structure of their regular meetings.
I was unsure of whether this session would properly allow us to get under the skin of our team. It did! It was well structured and facilitated and most of all a very safe space to explore team improvement.
— Melanie Ellis, Head of Senior School at Dulwich College Singapore
The desired outcomes for the session were very clear, and we achieved a lot throughout the day. I look forward to next time!
— Piers Matthews, Director of Admissions and Marketing at Dulwich College Singapore
Our College Leadership Team at Dulwich College (Singapore) worked with Ewen Bailey on our team effectiveness on two separate occasions. Both sessions were excellent, enjoyable, and collaborative, with clear outcomes that were highly valued by the team. Ewen personalised the work carefully to our context, taking in individual perspectives beforehand so the session itself could focus on what mattered most. At a recent leadership meeting, we noted the considerable progress we had made against the targets we set in the earlier sessions with Ewen. This showed that the work was not only enjoyable on the day, but had a lasting impact on the effectiveness of our team.
— Daniel Brown, Assistant Head of College at Dulwich College Singapore
Why it mattered
The strongest evidence that the first intervention worked is that the team's second set of challenges was qualitatively different from the first. Structural fixes had created the foundation for harder, more honest conversations about how the team actually worked together. That is what sustained team development looks like — a team that builds the capacity to keep working on itself.
Cost of leaving
it unresolved
When leadership team dynamics stay unaddressed, friction gets absorbed into meetings, decisions, and mixed signals across the school.
Case 04
Visible transfer into daily practice
Leadership Practice & Development
An international school in Singapore, part of a larger education group, invested in a four-module leadership development programme for a cohort of 16 leaders. The group included heads of department, year level coordinators, and teachers stepping into leadership responsibilities for the first time. Most had no formal leadership training.
The Challenge
A pre-programme survey revealed where the real development needs sat. Difficult conversations was the area of lowest confidence across the cohort, with the majority of participants rating themselves at 2 or 3 out of 5. Delegating effectively was similarly low. Several participants were unclear about what decisions were theirs to make, and many described feeling constrained by factors outside their control. The persistent challenges they named included holding people accountable, getting buy-in, managing workload alongside leadership responsibilities, and navigating resistance to change.
The programme was built around four modules over four weeks, sequenced to match the diagnostic findings. Earlier modules focused on understanding leadership context and building foundational habits. Later modules addressed the areas of lowest confidence directly, particularly difficult conversations and the patterns that make them harder than they need to be. A consistent thread throughout the programme was the idea that leadership starts with self: managing your own responses, choices, and influence before trying to change others. This took time for many participants to absorb, but by the final sessions it had become the dominant insight.
What we did
The difference
The clearest signal was changed practice while the programme was still running. One leader recognised that she was consistently taking on work that belonged to her team. She raised this directly in a difficult conversation, redistributed responsibilities, and described the workload afterwards as genuinely shared. Another applied ideas session by session, introducing norms, revising meeting agendas, and clarifying roles with her team across multiple modules. A third used what she had learned to reset her team's approach to communication and conflict, then posted publicly about the impact.
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Across the cohort, participants reported redesigning meeting agendas, establishing or refreshing team norms, and consciously stepping back from habits that were disempowering their teams. 100% said they would recommend the programme to a colleague. 100% confirmed they had applied ideas in their own context. Attendance grew: the final module had more than 100% attendance after two additional participants joined through word of mouth.
100%
Said they would recommend the programme to a colleague
100%
Confirmed they had applied ideas in their own context
>100%
Final module attendance — two more joined through word of mouth
Over the 4 weeks I gained actionable skills to improve relationships, drive growth, and turn tough talks into productive progress.
— Nadia Khalid, Head of English and Drama at Middleton International School
The programme had greater impact because the school's leadership team ran a complementary mentoring process alongside it. Every participant had regular mentoring conversations with their direct manager, which meant they were trying ideas out in practice, reflecting on what happened, and bringing questions back to the next module. The programme and the mentoring reinforced each other. The school has commissioned a second set of four modules for later in the year, building on what the first cohort started.
Why it mattered
Cost of leaving
it unresolved
When leadership development does not change practice, schools get more discussion about leadership without much change in how people actually lead.
Case 01
Strategic Diagnosis
When the barriers sit in the system, not the people
A leading international school in Singapore wanted to strengthen leadership development across the organisation. The school had a clear strategic plan with ambitious goals for professional culture, innovation, and student outcomes — all of which depended on strong leadership at every level.
The Challenge
What we did
The school already had valued leadership strengths in pockets. But development still relied too heavily on individual capability and discretionary effort. The biggest barriers sat in the system itself: uneven developmental feedback, limited protected time, and weak alignment between expectations, line management, appraisal, mentoring, and development opportunities.
The diagnostic phase used a structured co-design process with a working group of leaders from across the school. It started with existing strengths and a shared vision for what leadership development could look like, then surfaced the persistent problems leaders faced day to day. A survey broadened input beyond the room to capture patterns across roles, phases, and teams.
The difference
Why it mattered
A broad ambition to "strengthen leadership development" became a more precise strategic question: what would make strong leadership more consistent, developmental, and embedded in everyday practice? The school had a clear foundation for system-level change rather than another programme layered on top.
The diagnostic findings gave the school a clear starting point for action. The leadership team is now reviewing its leadership competencies internally, using the diagnostic as a foundation for deciding where to sharpen expectations and invest in development. The work moved from a broad ambition to a concrete next step the school owns.
Cost of leaving
it unresolved
When leadership development depends mainly on individual effort, strong practice stays with strong individuals and doesn't spread. The school keeps relying on finding good leaders rather than building a system that develops them.
I was so impressed with the way that Ewen had listened and evaluated the key areas of challenge in the first session and consolidated it with data that really did reflect our situation well.
— Pippa Gresham, Safeguarding Lead of Tanglin Trust School, Singapore