Theme → Leadership
Behavioural Design for leadership behaviour

Most leadership training inspires for two days. The behaviour rarely changes for good.

Context drives the difference, not motivation. You return to the same team, the same meetings, the same reflexes, and the behaviour that was rewarded for years pulls you back. You change leadership behaviour by designing the environment: the habits, the social norms and the way your team decides together. That's what you learn with Behavioural Design.

View trainings → Individually or with your management team
10,000+
trained
9.3/10
rating
EQAC
accredited
€690
from, ex VAT
Management team working on leadership behaviour during the Behavioural Design training at SUE Amsterdam
Familiar to management teams

"We ran a great leadership programme. Three months later everyone is doing the same thing again."

10,000+ professionals trained, including people from

ING Heineken KPN ANWB Randstad Achmea Eneco Centraal Beheer ING Heineken KPN ANWB Randstad Achmea Eneco Centraal Beheer
The forces behind the intention-action gap

Seven forces that stop leadership training from sticking

They are documented by Kahneman, Cialdini and Thaler. They apply to your management team, your own moments of choice and every conversation you have. And they are all designable. As long as you leave them untouched, every leadership programme evaporates after the return to the office.

01 - The inspiration illusion

Inspiration doesn't change behaviour on the floor

Everyone knows they should delegate more. Yet on Monday you're back in the details. Knowledge is necessary but not sufficient: between knowing and doing sits a gap no inspiration day closes.

02 - The intention-action gap

You say one thing and do another

Not out of unwillingness, but out of humanity. In the moment itself, the old habit beats the good intention. The meeting runs over, the pressure is high, and the familiar reflex wins.

03 - Training fatigue

Another programme reinforces the problem

After years of models, frameworks and inspiration sessions, habituation sets in. The team hears "another leadership programme" and automatically switches to half listening.

04 - Defaults

The default decides what the team does

Whoever designs the meeting structure effectively designs the whole team's behaviour. If dependence on you is the default, your team keeps waiting on you for every decision.

05 - Reactance

Imposed change triggers resistance

Announcements and mandatory programmes backfire the moment they restrict your team's freedom of choice. The harder you push, the more resistance you get. Effective leadership works with human nature, not against it.

06 - Social norm

What the team sees is what the team does

If your behaviour says something different from your words, the team follows your behaviour. The gap between what you say and what you visibly do often matters more than the quality of your argument.

07 - System 1

96% of behaviour is automatic

Most leadership training addresses the conscious, rational mind. But leadership behaviour sits on autopilot. Rational models never reach it.

Read the full article: when leadership training doesn't work → Decision fatigue at work: explanation and examples →
Behavioural Design is the missing layer.

Leadership is a choice environment. And a choice environment is designable.

Leadership training that changes behaviour is a programme that doesn't stop at transferring knowledge, but designs the context, habits and social norms in a team so that new leadership behaviour becomes the norm. Not by inspiring for two days, but by designing the environment your team works in so the new behaviour becomes the path of least resistance.

1
Diagnose the behaviour, not the motivation. You map which forces hold the current team behaviour in place: which defaults, habits and norms make the old pattern logical.
2
Design the team context. With the SUE Influence Framework you design interventions that make the new leadership behaviour easier than the old one.
3
Prove the effect. You test the interventions and measure whether your management team's behaviour actually shifts, so leadership development is not an assumption but a demonstrable result.
Read more about the Behavioural Design Method →
What professionals say after the training

From ABN AMRO to the City of Antwerp: they look at their own leadership behaviour differently afterwards.

The team leaders among our 10,000+ alumni have one thing in common.

At the Academy you learn a lot about behavioural change and how to apply it in a short period of time. The training flew by and was very well put together. Amazing how complicated material comes to life in a fun and interactive course. I am definitely going to apply it in my work.

Alina Chakh
Alina Chakh
Change & Transformation Consultant - ABN AMRO
★★★★★

The programme with SUE taught me the importance of thinking about the human behind the client, because a client will not act from expected rational thinking patterns. As an organisation it is important that we start thinking outside-in at the right moments to create that much needed added value.

Koen Lauwers
Koen Lauwers
Team CDO - City of Antwerp
★★★★★

I am so happy with these results. The order of first doing a Behavioural Design Sprint, then testing and running an effect measurement worked very well. We are now in a position to roll this out with confidence. The numbers and effects help us to truly convince people.

Majka van Doorn
Majka van Doorn
Coordinator Behavioural unit - Ministry of Justice and Safety
★★★★★
The best first step

Build a management team that changes leadership behaviour together.

Influential Leadership is our flagship programme: five months in which your whole management team builds a shared language, shared behavioural norms and a shared method, applied to your own organisational challenges.

Influential Leadership programme for management teams
Most chosen by management teams
5 months
duration
Max 16
participants
€39,900
ex VAT for the team
SUE Academy · Flagship programme

Influential Leadership

A two-day kick-off, followed by monthly deep-dive sessions. Your management team learns the Behavioural Design method while applying it straight away to a real leadership challenge from your own organisation.

More about Influential Leadership →

Not ready for the full programme yet? See three ways to start ↓

Three ways to start

Not ready for the full team programme? Start here.

From a single day with your management team to an online course you follow at your own pace.

Behavioural Design Masterclass leadership behaviour
1 day · around a leadership theme

Behavioural Design Masterclass

An intensive day built around a leadership theme of your choice. Your management team learns the method and applies it straight away to your own leadership challenge, from behavioural diagnosis to the first intervention designs.

  • ✓In-company, at your location or in Amsterdam
  • ✓Max 16 participants
  • ✓€7,990 ex VAT
More about the Masterclass →
Online course Leading Change and Transformation
Online course · self-paced

Leading Change and Transformation

13 lessons in 5 modules on why change initiatives stall, and how leaders design change that sticks, even when resistance is high.

  • ✓Fully online, self-paced
  • ✓13 lessons in 5 modules
  • ✓€690 ex VAT
More about this online course →
Coming soon: online course Responsive Leadership
Coming soon
Online course on leadership

Responsive Leadership

A new online course about the micro-moments where leadership really proves itself: trust, safety and performance are built in your responses, not your speeches. Launching soon.

  • ✓12 lessons, fully online
  • ✓Exclusive launch price for the waitlist
  • ✓€690 ex VAT
Join the waitlist →

Prefer to tackle it with your whole management team? See Influential Leadership ↑ · or see a tailored organisation-wide programme →

Why the SUE Behavioural Design Method

Behavioural science made applicable for people who want to design leadership behaviour.

Most behavioural science knowledge sits locked in academic papers. SUE built the Influence Framework, a practical step-by-step method that any manager, team lead or executive can apply without a scientific background.

SUE Influence Framework: the forces that shape leadership behaviour
No academic theory, you work on your own leadership challenge during the training and go home with a worked-out plan
Built on Kahneman, Cialdini and Thaler, scientifically grounded but accessible for practitioners
A method of our own, the Influence Framework can't be learned anywhere else, described in the #1 management bestseller
16 years of experience, from ING and KPN to central government: the method is proven on the biggest behaviour and leadership challenges

“ SUE Behavioural Design was a real experience that led me to look differently at behaviour. They take you along a very pragmatic way under challenging themes. I think the Influence Framework will solve many problems in the world. It is more than just a method, it is a fundamentally different way of thinking.

Eline Grouwels
Eline Grouwels
Founding partner - Umital
★★★★★
Springest
9.3/10
★★★★★
Google Reviews
4.8/5
★★★★★
accredited
EQAC accredited
Trusted by
ING Heineken KPN Randstad Achmea
In-depth articles

Leadership behaviour explained

In-depth articles on the behavioural science behind leadership, written from SUE's practice.

Change leadership

When Leadership Training Doesn't Work

Two inspiring days, full of insights and good intentions. Back at the office, nothing changes. Why most leadership development investments produce little lasting change.

Read article →
Decision-making

Decision Fatigue at Work

Why the management meeting that covers the same agenda every week is not an incident, but a predictable behavioural pattern.

Read article →
Feedback culture

Social Proof at Work

Why the feedback conversation that never really goes anywhere is a direct result of what the team sees each other doing.

Read article →
Framework

The SUE Influence Framework Explained

The method behind every leadership programme at SUE: how to map the forces that drive behaviour and design targeted interventions.

Read article →
See all articles on leadership →
Frequently asked questions

One more thing

Because it inspires but doesn't change behaviour. After two days of insights and good intentions, you return to a team, a culture and a set of habits that haven't changed. The behaviour that was rewarded for years pulls you back. The intention-action gap is the core problem of leadership development.

Training delivers knowledge: models, theory, insight. Transformation changes behaviour that actually sticks because the context, the habits and the social norms in the team change along with it. Most programmes stop at training. We design the environment that holds new leadership behaviour in place.

We use proven behavioural principles from the Influence Framework: context over character, because behaviour follows the environment, not intention, System 1 over System 2, because 96% of behaviour is automatic, and the team as a system, because leadership development works strongest as a shared behavioural norm. No standalone inspiration session, just a method that sticks.

Yes. The Influential Leadership track is our programme for full management teams: five months, built around your own organisational challenges. For a first introduction there is also a one-day Masterclass on site or a two-day Sprint.

It depends on the format. An individual Fundamentals Course starts from €1,190 online or €1,490 live. For teams we design an in-company Masterclass from €7,990, or the full Influential Leadership programme at €39,900 for the whole management team. In a no-obligation call we look together at which format fits your challenge and scale.

Ready to start?

Designing the context instead of only inspiring is the skill that makes leadership behaviour stick.

From inspiration day to behaviour change that actually holds. The Behavioural Design Method gives you the framework to design it.

View Influential Leadership → View the Fundamentals Course →