Leaders Lab: Leadership Coaching and Peer Support for Senior Leaders in Carlisle and Cumbria
A coach-led peer group where senior leaders stop performing and start leading in a way that actually feels good.
You manage teams, make big decisions, hold it together for everyone else. You're the one people come to when things go wrong.
But when you're struggling? There's nowhere to turn. No permission to admit you're overwhelmed. No space to just be human for a minute.
The research is clear on this: emotional isolation is the most profound cause of burnout in senior leaders. It's not the workload. It's doing it completely alone.
And yet nobody talks about it.
The Leaders Lab is a coach-led peer group for senior leaders who are ready to drop the masks.
Grounded in the research on what actually makes leaders effective (including Brené Brown's work on vulnerability and courage) each session goes into the stuff that actually matters: navigating difficult conversations, building real trust in your teams, leading through uncertainty, managing stress and anxiety, all while being genuinely yourself.
This isn't a training course. There are no slides, no frameworks to memorise, no certificate at the end. It's a confidential space where a small group of senior leaders work through the real challenges of leadership together, with expert facilitation to help them go deeper than they could alone.
Monthly 3-hour sessions. Maximum 6 leaders. Carlisle.
Launching June 2026. Taster session May 2026.
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How does it work?
Every session is facilitated by Ben Hickman, ILM Level 7 executive coach, grounded in his own experience of building and leading a business, navigating burnout, and coaching leaders across Cumbria.
That's not just a credential, it means someone in the room who can hear what you're saying, spot what you're not saying, and ask the question that shifts something.
Because the thing that's blocking most leaders isn't a skills gap. It's the story they're telling themselves. The emotions running quietly in the background. The patterns that formed long before they stepped into a leadership role.
That's the work. And it's the work that makes everything else easier.
Between sessions you have access to Ben and the group for support when you need it, not just once a month.
£150 per month. Compared to the cost of carrying on as you are, it's a genuinely worthwhile investment.
This is not resilience training
This is worth saying clearly, because you've probably been sent on resilience training before.
Resilience training teaches you to survive broken systems. To absorb more, cope better, bounce back faster. It puts the responsibility for change entirely on you, and leaves the system exactly as it was.
The Leaders Lab starts from a different place entirely. You're a senior leader. You have real influence over the culture, the environment, the way people experience work around you. The most powerful thing you can do (for yourself and for the people you lead) isn't to get better at surviving a workplace that doesn't work. It's to become the kind of leader who changes it.
Leading wholeheartedly, with authenticity, courage, and genuine humanity, doesn't just make you feel better. It makes you more effective. More trusted by your teams. Better at the hard conversations. More capable of building the kind of culture where people actually thrive.
This is the work that changes how leadership feels from the inside — and how it looks to everyone around you. Not just surviving the system. Shifting it.
Who is it for?
The Lab is for senior leaders in organisations (managers, directors, heads of service, team leaders) who are good at their jobs and exhausted by the performance of it.
You might be leading a large team through constant change. You might have just stepped into a bigger role and feel more isolated than you expected. You might have been leading for years and realised at some point that the version of yourself you bring to work doesn't feel quite real anymore.
What everyone in the Lab has in common: they're willing to be honest. About what's hard. About what they don't know. About what they actually need.
It's probably not for you if you're looking for a leadership training programme with a neat framework and a takeaway toolkit. There are plenty of those. This is something different.
Who am I?
I've been in the mess.
I'm Ben. I built my own company, Alterline, from my kitchen table. Made every mistake - hired the wrong people, got into debt, burned out. Then rebuilt it into something that actually worked, and runs without me.
I've worked as a consultant across the private, public and third sectors - from global pharmaceuticals to small charities.
I combine 14+ years running businesses with an ILM Level 7 coaching qualification and I'm working with Cumbria senior leaders like you, right now.
I don't have advice for you. I'll ask uncomfortable questions and help you figure out what actually matters for your business.
Read more about me and how I work before you decide here.
Join the taster session to see if it's right for you.
In May 2026 we're running a taster session before the Lab launches in June. Three hours, the full experience, a chance to meet the group and see if this is your kind of thing.
£30 to attend. One session, no obligation.
If you join the Lab in June, that's three hours you'll have spent doing exactly the kind of work the Lab is built around. Either way, it won't be wasted.
Spaces are very limited. Book below.
If you want to know more, you can always book a chat with Ben to see if this is right for you. Or find out more about how Ben works here.