People & Performance
Leadership Development
Your leaders make decisions in public, at pace, and answer for them afterwards. We develop them — with people who have held those posts inside law enforcement and emergency services, and who teach and coach for a living.
The offer
- What it is
- Leadership development for law enforcement, emergency services and the wider public safety sector, built for your organisation rather than adapted from a standard course. Four things we do: connect leadership development to your strategy, design the programmes, deliver them, and measure what changed.
- Why it matters
- How your leaders behave is how your organisation behaves. Development disconnected from the chief's strategy produces courses; development built around it changes what officers see on shift — and in public safety that is the difference between control and chaos.
- How we deliver it
- Delivered by people who have held command posts in law enforcement and emergency services and who teach and facilitate professionally — for the IACP, Interpol, Pearls in Policing and the UK College of Policing among others. Take one facilitated session, one designed programme, or all four capabilities.
- What to expect
- You receive a designed programme, delivered, and an evaluation that says what changed and what to do next. We work directly with the chief and the command team, and we will talk the detail through with you before you commit to anything.
Led by our Experts
We have sourced the world’s best policing and emergency services SMEs. Leadership Development is led by Stuart Bartels APM.
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GCG Consortium
Australia
Stuart Bartels APM
GCG Co-Founder
Stuart (Stu) Bartels APM is a co-founder of the Global Consortium Group (GCG) and head of its Leadership Development Practice. Former Executive Director of the Australian Institute of Police Management, he had a 36-year policing career, including as WA Police Acting Assistant Commissioner, and is a recipient of the Australian Police Medal.
Skills & focus
- Leadership development
- Executive education
- Policing & public safety leadership
- Global partnership development
- ICT & organisational reform
Years of service 36
Delivered by our Experts 2 supporting members
What we have designed and delivered
Our leadership work is led by Stuart Bartels, GCG Founding Partner and former Executive Director of the Australian Institute of Police Management, who brings that institute's teaching practice with him. He is supported by consortium members who have held senior posts in policing and public safety across our delivery arms in the UK, Australia, the UAE and the Pacific. This is what we have designed and delivered:
- Designed and delivered the inaugural Global Executive Leadership Program for the International Association of Chiefs of Police — built for chiefs, commissioners and policing chief executives
- Programme-managed and co-delivered the Pearls in Policing International Action Learning Group programme
- Written, designed and delivered the Global Policing Innovation Exchange Program
- Advised on the development of a new Interpol international police leadership programme
- Facilitated the IACP's Cultural Transformation Program in Abu Dhabi
- Created the Leadership for Wellbeing programme, built for policing
Leadership for Wellbeing
For a chief and command team, wellbeing sits with organisational performance, community trust and officer safety, not with human resources.
GCG builds wellbeing into leadership practice. Leaders learn to run teams people can speak up in, to weigh wellbeing when they take operational and policy decisions, and to spot disengagement and burnout early enough to act on it. Our Leadership for Wellbeing programme draws on the UK College of Policing and its Oscar Kilo National Police Wellbeing Service, Griffith University's police wellbeing research, and the Australian Institute of Police Management's leadership and resilience work.
How we work with you
Our consortium members have commanded in policing and emergency services, and they teach, coach and facilitate professionally. Both halves matter: operational credibility gets a room's attention, and teaching craft is what makes the learning stick. What we are aiming at with you is an organisation that performs and that people stay in.
You choose the size of the engagement. It can be a facilitator for two sessions of a programme you already run, a programme designed and delivered from scratch, or all four capabilities working together on a cultural change the chief has committed to. In every case we work directly with the chief and the command team.
Who we have worked with
Our clients and partners include:
- International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP)
- Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police
- UK College of Policing
- Police Scotland
- Police Service of Northern Ireland
- Pearls in Policing
- Interpol
- Oscar Kilo World
What we bring to your leaders
Four things we do. Take one, or all four. Select any of them for the detail.
Capability 01
Leadership Strategy & Alignment
Connecting how your leaders are developed to where your organisation is going. We look hard at what you already have — leadership pathways, current and planned programmes, cultural change work, capability frameworks — and at the gaps between them. Then we set the direction, the structures and the accountability that hold the two together.
Leadership Development Review A hard look at the leadership pathways, programmes and frameworks you already have.
What it is
A structured review of your existing leadership development provision — development pathways, current and planned programmes, leadership and cultural transformation strategies, promotion and assessment methodology, and the capability frameworks behind them. We map what exists, how it connects, where it duplicates, and where it stops short of your strategic aims.
Why it matters
Most organisations are not starting from nothing. They are carrying years of programmes, frameworks and good intentions built for a different strategy. Knowing precisely what you have, and where the gaps are, is what stops the next investment repeating the last one.
What you get
A clear map of your current leadership development provision, an assessment of its alignment with your organisational strategy and command intent, and a prioritised statement of the gaps that matter most.
Strategy Development & Implementation Setting the tone early — clarity around the chief's strategy, command intent and cultural intent.
What it is
Working alongside the command team to set the tone early, so the chief's strategy, command intent and cultural intent are clear and people can act on them — through facilitated senior leadership team workshops, strategy development, and support through implementation rather than only at launch.
Why it matters
If the command team is not clear about the strategy, nobody below it can be. That clarity is what leadership-driven change in a large organisation runs on, and it is the first thing we test.
What you get
Facilitated senior leadership team workshops, a strategy that is agreed and articulated rather than assumed, and an implementation approach the command team owns.
Cultural Assessment & Transformation Reading the culture you actually have, then leading the change to the one you need.
What it is
Cultural health checks and system mapping that establish how the organisation actually behaves — not how policy says it should — and the design of the leadership-led transformation that moves it. This is work of the kind GCG facilitated for the IACP's Cultural Transformation Program in Abu Dhabi.
Why it matters
Culture is the product of what leaders do, tolerate and reward. Cultural change programmes fail when they are run as communications exercises instead of leadership ones.
What you get
A cultural health check and system map, a clear statement of cultural intent, and a transformation approach delivered through your leadership population rather than around it.
Leadership Frameworks & Capability Models A structured model mapping development needs to the right pedagogy.
What it is
A leadership framework and capability model that maps what your leaders need to learn to the way it is best taught. It covers individual development gaps, how talent is identified and developed, how development connects to promotion boards and their methodology, and both organisational and craft-based leadership.
Why it matters
For a major organisation, a framework creates a clear line of sight between frontline, supervisory, middle and executive leadership expectations — and supports fair, transparent progression and succession planning.
What you get
A leadership framework and capability model your organisation can adopt and sustain, connecting expectations at every level to development, progression and succession.
Governance & Accountability Structures The structures that hold leadership change in place after the programme ends.
What it is
The governance that carries leadership development beyond an initiative — ownership at command level, decision rights, reporting into existing organisational governance, and the accountability measures that keep leadership expectations live in performance conversations.
Why it matters
Leadership development that sits outside an organisation's governance is treated as training. Inside it, it becomes how the organisation runs.
What you get
Defined ownership and decision rights, governance and reporting arrangements that fit the structures you already have, and accountability measures tied to the leadership expectations you have set.
Capability 02
Programme Design
You have an idea, a mandate or a need — we design the leadership programme, or the whole suite, that meets it. Programmes draw on teaching practice built for policing and emergency services, and are calibrated to your reform priorities, your strategic plan and your local context: built for you, not adapted from something built for somebody else.
Leadership Programme Design A programme, or a whole suite, designed for your organisation from the ground up.
What it is
Design of leadership development programmes and full suites, built for your organisation — executive and senior leadership, first-line and middle leadership, and partnered academic programmes where accreditation matters. This is the work behind the IACP's inaugural Global Executive Leadership Program and the Global Policing Innovation Exchange Program.
Why it matters
Generic development programmes do not cut it in high-stakes environments. A programme designed for your organisation is one your officers recognise, your communities can see the point of, and your oversight bodies will accept.
What you get
A designed programme or suite — learning aims, cohort model, module structure, faculty requirements and delivery plan — ready to run, and yours.
Command & Craft-Based Programme Design Programmes for the leadership that happens in the incident, not the seminar.
What it is
Design of command and craft-based leadership programmes — decision-making under pressure, command team development, and the craft leadership that sits between professional expertise and rank, including the scenario and exercise design that goes with it.
Why it matters
Public safety leadership is exercised in command, at pace, with consequences. Programmes that address only strategic leadership leave the hardest part of the job untaught.
What you get
A command or craft-based programme design, including the scenarios and exercises needed where the learning has to be lived rather than discussed.
Training Needs Analysis Establishing what your leaders actually need before anyone designs anything.
What it is
Analysis of leadership development needs across the population you intend to develop — capability gaps against your framework and strategy, cohort-level needs, and the sequencing of what should be addressed first.
Why it matters
Designing before you know the need is how organisations end up with well-delivered programmes that solve the wrong problem.
What you get
An evidenced statement of leadership development needs by level and cohort, and a prioritised recommendation on what to design and in what order.
Curriculum Design & Learning Pathways How a leader moves from first supervision to executive command.
What it is
Curriculum design and the construction of learning pathways that connect programmes into a coherent progression — content, sequencing, assessment, prerequisites, and the points at which development links to promotion and succession.
Why it matters
Individually good programmes that do not connect leave leaders repeating content at one level and unprepared at the next. A pathway makes the investment cumulative.
What you get
A designed curriculum and a leadership learning pathway from first-line supervision to executive command, mapped to your capability framework.
Capability 03
Expert Programme Delivery
We facilitate sessions, teach, coach individuals and groups, and support programmes that already exist. Our educators and coaches are chosen because they understand the public safety environment and can take a room of senior leaders past what they already know. Delivery can support your existing leadership suite, or bring to life a programme we designed with you.
Subject-Matter-Expert Facilitation & Teaching Facilitators and teachers who have done the job they are teaching.
What it is
Facilitation and teaching by subject-matter experts across leadership, command, culture, wellbeing and organisational change — single sessions, individual modules or full programme faculty, delivered in person or online.
Why it matters
Credibility in the room is not optional. Senior leaders switch off from a facilitator who has never carried the responsibility being described — ours have carried it and teach professionally, and that is what makes a session work.
What you get
Named facilitators matched to your cohort and subject, session or module design where you need it, and delivery to the standard the programme was designed for.
Executive Coaching One-to-one coaching for chiefs, commissioners and command team members.
What it is
Individual executive coaching for chiefs, commissioners, deputies and command team members — confidential, contracted engagements over an agreed period, whether alongside a development programme or standalone.
Why it matters
Executive leadership in public safety is exposed and often isolating. A coach who understands both the discipline of coaching and the reality of command gives an executive somewhere to think that is neither their command team nor their oversight body.
What you get
A contracted coaching relationship with an agreed focus, cadence and confidentiality terms, and a coach matched to the executive rather than allocated to them.
Group Coaching & Mentoring Coaching cohorts and command teams as groups, and mentoring in between.
What it is
Group coaching for programme cohorts, command teams and peer groups, and mentoring arrangements that carry development on between formal sessions — including action learning approaches of the kind used in the Pearls in Policing International Action Learning Group programme.
Why it matters
Leaders learn a great deal from peers facing the same pressures. Group coaching turns a cohort into a working network that outlasts the programme, and mentoring keeps development alive once the sessions stop.
What you get
Facilitated group coaching to an agreed rhythm, mentoring where the cohort wants it, and a group that goes on using each other afterwards.
Strengthening Programmes You Already Run Strengthening a programme you already run, without taking it over.
What it is
Delivery expertise brought into programmes you already own — guest faculty, module redesign, facilitation of the sessions that are not working, and the ongoing programme support GCG provides to Pearls in Policing.
Why it matters
Not every requirement is a new programme. Often the fastest improvement is expert input into the two or three parts of an existing programme that are underpowered, delivered without disrupting what already works.
What you get
Targeted delivery or design input into your existing programme — and a programme that stays yours.
Guest Lecturing, Keynotes & Workshops International guest lecturing, conference keynotes and standalone workshops.
What it is
International guest lecturing at academies, institutes and universities, conference keynotes, and standalone workshops for command teams, conferences and professional networks.
Why it matters
A single well-chosen session can shift a leadership conversation across a whole organisation or professional community — and it is often the lowest-commitment way to test whether GCG is the right partner.
What you get
A designed and delivered keynote, lecture or workshop, shaped to your audience and to the point you need it to make.
Capability 04
Programme & Organisational Evaluation
Measuring what actually changed — the outcomes of a single programme, or the organisational impact of a sustained leadership development effort, measured against the strategic aims you set. Delivered with GCG's Evidence-Based Practice team, so the method stands up to scrutiny from your oversight bodies as well as your own.
Programme Evaluation & Continuous Improvement Did the programme do what it was designed to do?
What it is
Evaluation of a specific programme against the outcomes it was designed to achieve — from a straightforward post-programme evaluation through to a longitudinal study following a cohort — with the findings fed back into the next iteration.
Why it matters
Leadership programmes are expensive and their effects are indirect, which makes them easy to defend on faith and hard to defend on evidence. Evaluation converts a programme from an act of belief into a managed investment.
What you get
An evaluation designed and sized to your needs, findings set against the programme's intended outcomes, and specific improvements for the next cohort.
Organisational Transformation Review An independent read on whether the transformation is actually transforming.
What it is
An independent review of an organisational or cultural transformation in progress — what has changed in practice, what has changed only on paper, where leadership behaviour has moved and where it has not.
Why it matters
Transformation programmes generate a great deal of activity and reporting, and both can be mistaken for change. An independent review tells a command team what is really happening while there is still time to act on it.
What you get
An independent, evidenced review of the transformation, with clear findings on progress, risk and what to do next.
Impact Measurement & Reporting Measuring organisational impact, in alignment with your strategic aims.
What it is
Measurement of the organisational impact of leadership development — designed against your strategic aims and your existing performance measures, so impact is reported in the terms your organisation and its oversight bodies already use.
Why it matters
The point of leadership development is what changes in the organisation once leaders start behaving differently. What you are aiming at is an organisation that learns — where leadership practice carries cultural change, performance and resilience — and that is a claim worth being able to evidence.
What you get
An impact measurement approach aligned to your strategic aims, and reporting your command team can put in front of its governance.
Evidence-Based Recommendations What the evidence says you should do next.
What it is
Evidence-based recommendations drawn from evaluation and impact findings, developed with GCG's Evidence-Based Practice team and set against the wider research base rather than your findings alone.
Why it matters
Findings on their own rarely change anything. Recommendations that are specific, prioritised and grounded in both your evidence and the wider research are what a command team can actually act on.
What you get
A prioritised set of recommendations with the evidence behind each one, and a clear view of what to stop, continue and start.