Leader Formation Lab
become the leader you were meant to be.
For leaders who are ready to stop performing leadership — and start becoming it.
Something has shifted.
At some point in your leadership journey, a question surfaces. It doesn't announce itself — it just starts showing up, quietly, in the gaps between meetings and in the still moments before sleep.
You were recently promoted. You're doing the work, saying the right things. But behind the competent exterior, there's a question you can't shake: "I don't know if I actually know how to do this. How long before someone figures that out?"
You've been leading for years. You've built things. Hit the numbers. Earned the title. And yet — somewhere along the way — you started to wonder: "Is this it? Why does it feel like something's missing?"
Two different places in the journey. The same underlying question:
"Who am I becoming in the process of leading — and is that person someone I actually want to be?"
That question isn't a sign something is wrong with you. It's a sign something in you is awake — paying attention to what matters, and refusing to settle for leadership that costs more than it should.
Most leadership development will make you more effective. Almost none of it will help you become more whole.
The leadership development industry is enormous — and mostly aimed at one thing: helping you perform better. More productivity. Better communication. Sharper strategy. Those things matter.
But they're not the whole picture.
The leaders who burn out aren't usually lacking skills. They're leading from a depleted center. The leaders who plateau aren't usually lacking talent — they're stuck in patterns that no amount of tactical training will touch, because the patterns live deeper than tactics can reach. And the leaders who succeed by every external measure but feel hollow? They've optimized for the wrong thing.
Here's what most emerging leaders are actually wrestling with:
- I don't know how to have the hard conversations. I either avoid them or blow them up.
- I don't know what kind of leader I am — or what kind I want to be.
- I don't know how to build a culture. I just know ours isn't what I want.
- I've hit a ceiling I can't think my way through. And I don't know what's on the other side.
- I'm doing the job — but I don't feel like myself doing it.
Leadership isn't just something you do. It's something you become. And most leaders are trying to navigate that process alone — without a map, and without anyone asking the questions that actually matter.
Leader Formation Lab
A 16-week cohort experience for leaders who are ready to stop performing leadership and start becoming it — building the inner life, the organizational health, and the intentional life that will sustain them for decades.
This isn't a course you consume. It's a process you live.
Three Domains. One Integrated Leader.
This is formation work — personal, practical, and deeply integrated. Over 16 weeks you'll move through all three domains, building self-knowledge and frameworks you'll carry for the rest of your career.
The inner life of the leader
Great leadership starts from the inside out. In this domain we do the work most leadership programs skip entirely — the deep, inner work that makes everything else sustainable.
- Wholeness — Physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, relational, financial, vocational, rhythmical
- Wiring — Personality, strengths, temperament, natural design
- Wounds — Formative experiences that shape current leadership patterns
- Wisdom — Discernment, maturity, grounded presence
- Wonder — Curiosity, openness, imaginative engagement with the world
The health of what you're building
You can't build a healthy organization from an unhealthy center. This domain gives you the frameworks to lead teams that actually function — with clarity at the core.
- Purpose — Leading with vision and strategic clarity
- Culture — Cultivating life-giving environments rooted in values, not personalities
- Teams — Developing healthy, high-performing teams
- Structure — Architecting systems and rhythms that fuel clarity, collaboration, and execution
- Impact — Pursuing outcomes that reach beyond a single bottom line
The life behind the leadership
Leadership is not your whole life. But the way most leaders operate is designed to make it feel that way. This domain helps you build a life that actually works.
- Sustainable rhythms — protecting what matters before it disappears
- Lifestyle design — living with intention, not just reacting to the calendar
- Integration — blending leadership and life without sacrificing one for the other
- Relationships — being present where it counts most
- Contribution — connecting your leadership to a larger story worth telling
Other Topics We'll Cover
- Self-awareness as a leadership discipline
- Emotional intelligence in practice
- Character formation — the inner architecture
- Values in practice — how they drive behavior
- The Aligning Conversations framework
- Organizational clarity — designing for scale without losing soul
- Leading up, across, and down
- Vision casting
- Work-life integration rhythms
- And more...
Everything you need to go deep.
Eight 90-minute sessions with Larry and your cohort over 16 weeks. Not webinars — coaching. Real conversation, real accountability, real formation.
A comprehensive assessment across all three domains before the program begins. You'll know exactly where you are — and where the real work lives.
A curated journal mailed to you before Day 1. Designed for the weekly rhythm: Learn → Reflect → Practice → Notice → Share → Deepen.
Your complete program guide: frameworks, tools, prompts, and practices across all three domains. Something you'll return to long after the program ends.
The community is part of the formation. A small, intentionally selected group — the conversations you can't have inside your organization, you can have here.
The lowest price this program will ever be. Plus direct input into how it develops — and a permanent seat in the LBL community.
Because the work starts before Week 1.
These bonuses aren't padding. They're direct responses to two of the most pressing needs you'll face as a leader — and they're yours free as a founding cohort member.
Hard conversations don't wait for Week 8. This standalone course gives you a proven framework for conversations that create clarity, rebuild trust, and address underperformance — so you're equipped from day one.
Group coaching creates community. Private coaching creates breakthrough. Each month you'll have a dedicated one-on-one session with Larry — to go deeper on what the group can't, and make sure the formation is actually landing.
Total Bonus Value: $10,097+ · Included with Founding Cohort Enrollment
The Weekly Rhythm
Every week inside the Lab follows a simple, repeatable pattern. Not about consuming more content — about building a practice.
There's no pressure to be perfect. There is an invitation to be present and intentional.
About Larry Boatright
Larry Boatright is the founder of LeadBuildLive and an ICF Level 2-trained executive coach (Townsend Institute, Concordia University Irvine) and a certified Leadership Coaching Specialist (LCS). He's spent his career at the intersection of executive coaching, character formation, organizational leadership, and human flourishing.
He's worked with leaders at every level — from first-time managers navigating their first promotion to senior executives who've hit the ceiling of what competence alone can produce. In both cases, the work is the same: helping leaders build from the inside out, so the life they're building on the outside is actually worth having.
"I'm not here to make you a better performer. I'm here to help you become a more whole person — who leads exceptionally well as a result."
This program is for you if…
- You've recently stepped into people leadership and want to grow into the role — not just survive it
- You're a high achiever feeling the gap between what made you successful before and what's required now
- You've been leading for years and something feels hollow — you're ready for the deeper work
- You've hit a ceiling you can't think your way through
- You want to understand your wiring and lead from a more grounded, confident place
- You care about leading well and living well — and won't keep sacrificing one for the other
- You're looking for a shortcut — formation takes time and requires showing up
- You want tactics without depth — this program works from the inside out
- You're not ready to be honest — with yourself or with a cohort of peers
Founding Cohort Pricing
- 8 live 90-minute group coaching sessions over 16 weeks
- LBL Leadership Formation Assessment
- Formation Journal (shipped before Day 1)
- Leader Formation Lab Blueprint
- Vetted peer cohort + founding member status
- BONUS: The Aligning Conversations Course ($497 value)
- BONUS: 1 monthly 60-min 1:1 coaching session ($9,600+ value)
Applications reviewed on a rolling basis. Cohort size is intentionally limited.
Before you apply
Both. Our primary audience is leaders in their late 20s to early 40s navigating a significant transition. We also work with seasoned leaders who've achieved success and feel hollow inside. If you're asking "who am I becoming as a leader?" — you're in the right place.
Plan for 1–2 hours per week for reflection, practice, and community engagement — plus 90 minutes on session weeks for the live coaching call. Sessions happen roughly every other week across 16 weeks. The real work happens in the space between them.
Neither. This is leadership coaching — grounded in evidence-based character development frameworks and executive coaching best practices. We work on the inner life of the leader because that's where leadership actually originates. Leaders of all backgrounds and belief systems are welcome.
Most programs give you skills. This one gives you formation. Skills help you do leadership better. Formation helps you be a better leader — one who doesn't have to choose between success and integrity, performance and wholeness, leading others and knowing yourself. That's a different category of result.
Life happens. Sessions are recorded and live in your private community Vault. The cohort keeps the thread alive between sessions.
A standalone course built around a framework for the conversations that create clarity and trust — addressing underperformance, navigating conflict, resetting expectations. Included free because hard conversations are one of the most consistent pain points for emerging leaders, and they can't wait until Week 8.
The leader you admire most
Think about them. The one whose presence changes the temperature of a room. Whose team would follow them anywhere. Who's built something significant — and hasn't lost themselves in the process.
That person didn't get there by attending another skills workshop.
They got there because at some point — maybe in a season of transition, maybe in a quiet moment of honest reckoning — they decided to take their own formation seriously.
The Leader Formation Lab is an invitation to make that decision.
Apply for the Founding Cohort →Questions? Reach out at hello@leadbuildlive.com
LeadBuildLive · Leader Formation Lab · Founding Cohort 2026
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