Don’t let leadership team friction get in the way of your goals
Transform your team from a group of individuals into a powerful collective.
“Suzan is fantastic to work with - a thoughtful and empathetic facilitator who knows when to probe and ask questions, and when to step back and allow a group to work through its own issues. Her leadership archetypes framework in particular has been revolutionary for us and empowered our team to better understand themselves and each other.
I cannot recommend Suzan highly enough.”
David Jarvis, CEO, Griffin
You’ve achieved product-market fit, and the team is growing. But you’re seeing the signs that something needs to shift with your leadership team.
You’ve just raised a round
A high-profile or beloved leader has exited
You’re bringing in a new function
It’s time to regroup after a RIF or a product/audience pivot
You’re consistently missing financial, product, or strategic milestones
Something is causing conflict within the team
Imagine a cohesive leadership team that knows how to achieve those big, audacious goals without burnout — and without burning through your cash.
Better collaboration and more effective decision making
Productive disagreement rather than friction or hot conflict
Reach business goals with more ease and less strife
Less organizational strife/instability due to poor leadership team transitions (people get distracted, stressed out, lots of organizational chatter)
We know how to help leadership teams be the multiplying factor for your series A-C startup
the LEADERSHIP ARCHETYPES Experience
Based on Leadership Archetypes®, our proprietary framework, this isn’t a normal workshop — it’s a designed experience, curated for your situation. This facilitated conversation deepens conversations and creates connections allowing the team to form into a more collaborative unit.
Designed to provide grease to the system, the Leadership Archetypes® Experience helps reduce friction and increase partnership leading to a better culture and achieving important company goals.
This experience is most often held in-person at an offsite or during a leadership team planning period. Smaller leadership teams are sometimes held remotely.
The Leadership Archetypes Experience is a highly interactive event with lots of space for group discussion, paired conversation and self reflection. The experience has three sections: intrapersonal (understanding self), interpersonal (partnering with others), organizational (working as a group).
The Leadership Archetypes Experience Includes:
Strategy session to customize the experience to your team
Pre-event session to introduce the team to the framework
Half-day Leadership Archetypes experience
After event debrief
Framework license for the cohort
Three month follow-up call with the CEO
After the Leadership Archetypes Experience the team will have…
A common language that creates a foundation to build on
An understanding of how to operate more effectively as a unit
The ability to partner with peers of differing leadership styles
More effective conflict resolution
”I’m familiar with frameworks that test personality or strengths but I've never encountered a framework geared to evaluating and discussing an executive's leadership style.
I brought Suzan into StackHawk to give our team language for how we lead, where we have strengths and where we have blindspots - so we can support one another and ultimately build the best team and culture possible. I highly recommend her Leadership Archetypes Experience.”
Joni Klippert, CEO, StackHawk
About Your facilitator
As a former COO, Suzan Bond knows the challenges leadership teams face.
Suzan Bond is a former COO, trained facilitator, certified leadership coach and the creator of Leadership Archetypes. She’s spent more than 15 years in tech in roles including project management, people, and operations.
Suzan’s experience includes: exec team facilitation, performance management, organization development, new leader on-boarding, career development and company communication. She has an educational background in social psychology, sociology, organization development and leadership.
She’s been a trained, certified executive coach for over a decade. Suzan is a former Gallup employee and a trained Strengthsfinder coach. She received training in leadership and facilitation from the Co-Active Leadership program and in organization & relationship systems coaching from CRR Global. She completed her coach training and certification at the Co-Active Training Institute, one of the most rigorous programs in the industry.
TRANSFORM YOUR LEADERSHIP TEAM NOW
FAQs
Who developed the Leadership Archetypes framework and what is it based on?
The Leadership Archetypes framework was developed by Suzan Bond. As a trained, certified executive coach and facilitator, the framework is based on Suzan’s experience working with leadership teams and with hundreds of leaders. This framework is also informed by Suzan’s educational background in psychology, leadership development and organizational strategy.
How do Leadership Archetypes differ from personality assessments?
Most assessments like DiSC or Myers Briggs and Strengthsfinder are designed for individual self-reflection and introspection. They may have some limited use for understanding interpersonal dynamics but they are not designed for leadership teams. Leadership Archetypes is a framework for understanding how leaders accomplish their work in partnership with others across the organization. The archetypes describe the behaviors and patterns of how leaders get work done, what drives them, how they add value and how they work with others. Unlike personality-based assessments, the Leadership Archetypes framework was designed specifically for leadership teams. Leadership Archetypes looks at three key relationships for leaders: intrapersonal, interpersonal and organizational.
Is there an assessment or quiz to determine your archetype?
There is not an assessment or quiz for Leadership Archetypes. While understanding our archetype is important, the real power of the framework is in the relationships between leaders and the composition of the leadership team. Being introspective about our tendencies is a good step but not sufficient for what’s required of leaders. Understanding how others experience us is just as important. Given that it’s a model for leadership teams, we’ve found the identification of the archetypes is most powerful when done in conversation with others rather than in isolation.
Is the Leadership Archetypes Experience just a feel good team building exercise?
We’re not interested in feel good conversations, we want business results. The Experience is designed to help the team become a more effective unit so they can make better decisions, become more aligned and reach company goals. We do this by providing a common language that helps us understand and talk about the different ways leaders work. Understanding how others operate reduces friction and increases partnership. Finally, the conversation provides an opportunity to talk about the task of leadership at the company and the kinds of styles needed. The leadership team emerges as a more cohesive unit, ready to tackle the business challenges that lie ahead.
Why do we need to talk about our leadership styles?
Leadership team meetings are generally focused on business related challenges like making decisions about strategy or defining important initiatives. There isn’t much room to talk about how we want to work and relate with each other. The Leadership Archetypes Experience provides space to talk about the organizational layer –how we work as a group – without the pressure of solving immediate business problems.
Why do we need a facilitator? Why can’t we do it on our own?
Working in the business every day, it’s hard to see the patterns and habits that block our potential and how to make the changes needed to be a more effective unit. Sometimes we need an outside perspective. Guided by a trained facilitator, the Leadership Archetypes Experience creates a container where we can have the sometimes hard conversations about where we disconnect and how we can more effectively collaborate even though we’re different.
Can we use the Leadership Archetypes for our entire company?
Rather than a general assessment, the archetypes are designed for organizational leaders. We define that as those whose work requires them to work across organizational lines, require relationships with peers across the org, and whose first team is the exec team rather than in a function. Organizational leadership roles tend to be Director or Head of or ICs at the Staff or Principal engineer levels and above. Those not in organizational leadership positions do not have the kinds of experiences or roles the framework is designed for.