Your Chief Virtual Learning Architect

Learning to Performance

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Custom Design & Delivery

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Predictive Evaluation

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Enterprise Learning Strategy

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Dave Basarab Consulting has elevated the training experience, offering an end-to-end comprehensive approach that includes training strategy, instructional design, development, delivery , post program training transfer, and evaluation (via the unique Predictive Evaluation methodology). Virtual Chief Architect Dave Basarab has combined all of these individual training elements with his user-friendly, comprehensive Learning to Performance approach, which significantly increases companies' training ROI.

Why we are different

Innovation: Our primary focus is creating learning programs using a Learning to Performance approach.
Expertise: Dave offers the depth and breadth of his experience, including working internally at prestigious companies (Motorola, Ingersoll Rand and Pitney Bowes) as well as his knowledge and expertise as a highly-respected, sought-after consultant.
Partnership: Basarab collaborates with companies, serving as their own Chief Learning Officer whenever they need to plan, strategize, or implement training initiatives.

Training Services

Enterprise Learning Strategy

Enterprise Learning Strategy

At Dave Basarab Consulting, we're experts in creating Enterprise Learning Plans. We work with you to develop your company's learning strategy and direction.

Custom Design, Development, & Delivery

Custom Design, Development, & Delivery

Custom training is an effective way of developing the capability required to execute your strategy. We are a custom design house that creates programs specific to your business.

Learning Burst Development

Learning Burst Development

We can create and deliver your courses via our unique Learning Burst Method - keeping your employees at their jobs while receiving world-class training.

Predictive Evaluation

Predictive Evaluation

We predict the ROI for your courses and establish success gates. We then evaluate the course against the success gates to show value realized and continually improve results.

Leadership Development

Leadership Development

Turn-key virtual custom leadership development program that combines world-class leadership speakers/educators with post-event personalized coaching to provide you with a cadre of highly skilled leaders.

Predictive Evaluation

Emotional Intelligence In Leadership Development Programs

Leadership capability is shaped by more than technical expertise or knowledge of business processes. Emotional intelligence helps leaders recognise their own reactions, read the needs of others and choose responses that build trust. These skills influence how effectively a manager coaches, communicates, handles conflict and leads through uncertainty.

In Australian workplaces, this matters across very different settings, from a Sydney technology team working across time zones to a FIFO crew coordinating safety-critical tasks in Western Australia. Leaders need to manage direct conversations, cultural diversity and changing expectations without losing clarity or accountability.

A strong leadership development program treats emotional intelligence as a practical workplace capability rather than a personality trait. Participants can learn to listen actively, regulate pressure, give useful feedback and create conditions where people feel safe to speak up. The result is behaviour that can be observed, practised and measured.

For organisations investing in learning, the key question is whether these behaviours transfer into daily work. Training should connect self-awareness and relationship management with outcomes such as employee retention, team performance, customer experience, safety and the quality of business decisions.

Why Emotional Intelligence Matters In Leadership

Emotional intelligence generally includes self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management. Together, these capabilities help leaders understand how their conduct affects others. A technically capable manager may still reduce performance by interrupting people, avoiding difficult conversations or reacting defensively to challenge.

Leadership development programs can make these patterns visible through reflective exercises, 360-degree feedback, role-play and realistic case studies. A manager might practise responding to an underperforming employee, a disagreement between team members or a sudden operational change. This turns an abstract idea into a repeatable leadership behaviour.

The Australian context adds practical complexity. Employees may expect a straightforward conversation rather than corporate jargon, while still valuing consultation and fairness. Emotional intelligence helps leaders balance a relaxed “no worries” tone with clear expectations, appropriate documentation and attention to psychosocial safety obligations.

Translating Emotional Intelligence Into Behaviour

Effective programs define what emotionally intelligent leadership looks like in observable terms. “Show empathy” is too broad to guide performance. “Ask two clarifying questions before proposing a solution” or “summarise an employee’s concern before responding” gives participants a behaviour they can rehearse and managers can reinforce.

Learning designers can use short learning bursts between workshops to maintain momentum. A five-minute prompt might ask a leader to notice a trigger before a team meeting, while a follow-up activity could focus on giving feedback without assigning blame. These small interventions support transfer better than a single intensive session that fades after a week.

Facilitators should also account for hierarchy and communication style. A junior employee in Melbourne may hesitate to challenge a senior leader, while a regional team may have limited access to formal development sessions. Confidential practice, manager modelling and multiple delivery formats can make participation more credible and accessible.

Measuring Behaviour And Business Impact

Emotional intelligence initiatives need evaluation measures that go beyond attendance or satisfaction scores. Useful indicators may include the quality of one-to-one conversations, employee perceptions of manager support, conflict resolution time, internal mobility and regrettable turnover. The right measures depend on the business problem the program is intended to address.

Development focus	Observable behaviour	Possible evidence
Self-awareness	Identifies triggers and adjusts communication	Reflection logs, coaching records
Self-management	Stays constructive during pressure	360 feedback, incident reviews
Social awareness	Checks understanding and recognises team concerns	Pulse surveys, listening measures
Relationship management	Gives clear feedback and resolves conflict	Team climate data, manager observations

A structured Predictive Evaluation model can help forecast adoption before delivery begins and connect learning outcomes to operational results. This is especially valuable when executives need evidence that a leadership program supports performance rather than functioning as a standalone benefit.

Evaluation should occur at several points: before training, immediately after practice, during workplace application and at an agreed business review point. Combining participant data with manager observations and operational metrics creates a more reliable picture of impact.

Designing A Program That Transfers

A practical program often starts with a diagnostic phase. Interviews, surveys, performance data and stakeholder discussions can reveal whether the real issue is poor listening, inconsistent accountability, low confidence in feedback or a broader culture problem. This prevents emotional intelligence from becoming a generic topic detached from business priorities.

The learning journey can then combine facilitated workshops, coaching, peer practice and digital reinforcement. Scenarios should reflect the organisation’s reality, including hybrid meetings, customer complaints, safety conversations and culturally diverse teams. Leadership capability grows when learners practise under realistic pressure and receive specific feedback.

Recommendations for building emotional intelligence into leadership learning include:

Define a small set of leadership behaviours linked to business priorities.
Use realistic Australian workplace scenarios rather than generic personality exercises.
Give managers tools for coaching and reinforcement after formal training.
Include psychological safety, inclusion and respectful communication in practice activities.
Measure workplace application as well as learner confidence.
Provide learning bursts that support reflection between facilitated sessions.

Sustaining Change Across The Organisation

Senior leaders have a decisive role in making emotional intelligence credible. If executives ask for openness but punish disagreement, participants quickly learn that the stated values are not the operating culture. Visible role modelling, consistent performance conversations and recognition of constructive leadership behaviours help align messages with experience.

Capability also spreads through systems. Recruitment criteria, promotion decisions, manager check-ins and team rituals should reinforce the same expectations taught in the program. An organisation might include listening and coaching behaviours in leadership scorecards, then review progress during quarterly talent discussions.

Adoption dashboards can make this progress easier to monitor by showing participation, behaviour change and business indicators in one view. Used carefully, adoption dashboards give learning teams and executives a shared basis for discussing where reinforcement is working and where leaders need further support.

Emotional intelligence is most valuable when it becomes part of everyday leadership practice: a calmer response in a difficult meeting, a better question during a coaching conversation and a clearer commitment after feedback. The practical takeaway is to design each learning activity around one observable behaviour, one reinforcement opportunity and one measure of workplace impact.

Learning to Performance

Learning to Performance, a complete training approach, gives companies world-class training to drive significant return. This approach includes upfront work (Impact Mapping, design), training (for staff and company executives), and post-training efforts to ensure training transfer. This unique recipe - the key for successful training and adoption - is changing the way companies implement training. This methodology could work with any content for organizations in any industry.