Emerging Leaders Programme — Day 4 Facilitation, APAC Run 1, Singapore
The Programme Context:
The Emerging Leaders Programme is a four-day leadership development programme designed by the University of North Carolina (UNC) and delivered globally by Smartful Works across APAC, EMEA, and the United States. Victor is part of the Smartful Works global faculty team, contracted to deliver Day 4 of the programme across all APAC runs.
The programme is commissioned by a global Petrochemical MNC for their emerging leaders across the organisation, with participants flying in from different parts of the world for each Singapore-based APAC cohort.
Victor’s Role
Victor's responsibility is Day 4 — the capstone day of the four-day programme. His role is to bring together all the learning from the previous three days through a series of curated leadership labs, coaching role plays, and structured reflections. Rather than introducing new content, Day 4 is designed to integrate, apply, and embed everything participants have experienced across the week into their leadership identity and practice.
Victor co-facilitates Day 4 alongside Alice Chia, a fellow executive coach and Newfield-certified ontological coaching practitioner based in Singapore.
Run 1 — May 2024, Sentosa Singapore
The first APAC run of the Emerging Leaders Programme was held in Sentosa, Singapore during the first week of May 2024. Forty emerging leaders from the global Petrochemical MNC participated in the cohort.
Ryan Soares, lead facilitator from Smartful Works in the United States, flew to Singapore to ensure Victor and Alice were fully aligned on the programme content and delivery expectations before the cohort began — reflecting the rigour and global consistency applied across all programme runs worldwide.
Day 4 — Coaching Skills and Leadership Self-Awareness
Victor and Alice led the cohort through a full day of experiential leadership application:
Leadership Labs — structured experiential exercises where emerging leaders applied the knowledge and skills accumulated across the four days in a safe, high-feedback environment.
Coaching Role Plays — participants practised navigating difficult conversations, developing the coaching presence and conversational skills central to effective leadership. Success factors included Victor and Alice giving observations and feedback over the participants’ listening skills and their ability to practice empathy through the coaching conversations.
Strengths Under Pressure — leaders practised noticing when their dominant corestrengths become overdone under pressure — a key application of strengths work in real leadership contexts.
Balancing Care and Accountability — participants explored the leadership tension between genuine care for subordinates and holding them accountable for performance — a core theme from Victor's integrated CliftonStrengths and ontological coaching methodology.
The leadership applications were designed to help each leader systematically increase their leadership capacity.
Outcomes:
Emerging leaders completed Day 4 with an integrated understanding of their leadership style, practical coaching skills for navigating difficult conversations, and the self-awareness to recognise and manage their strengths under pressure.
Other APAC Runs — Emerging Leaders Programme:
This was the first of multiple APAC runs delivered across the two-year programme. All runs follow the same Day 4 format with cohorts of emerging leaders from the same global Petrochemical MNC:
Learn more about Victor's integrated CliftonStrengths and ontological coaching approach →
