Turnaround leadership training prepares leaders who take over an under-performing business unit, region, branch cluster, plant or product line. It covers fast and honest diagnosis, a 30-60-90 day plan, stop-doing decisions, cash and cost levers that protect growth, rebuilding confidence and accountability, communicating bad results to stakeholders and tracking early wins.
- Recommended: 2 days in person, or 5 × 3-hour live virtual sessions, plus a 90-day turnaround coaching follow-up
- Level: Advanced · In person · Live virtual · Blended
- Designed with the ADDIE model and customised to your context
- Offered by Bodhih since 2008 to 2,000+ organisations across 7 regions
Also known as: business turnaround leadership program, turnaround management training, managing an underperforming business unit, turnaround manager development
Where and how: turnaround leadership training as an in-person workshop in Bengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi NCR, Gurugram, Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune, Kolkata, Ahmedabad and Jaipur; as a live online course; or delivered overseas in Dubai, Singapore and across the Middle East, Asia and Africa.
Last reviewed by Siddharthan VGJ, Founder · Bodhih Training, Bengaluru
Why turnaround skills are now part of the senior manager's job
Under-performance rarely arrives as a dramatic shock. It shows up as a zone that slips a little each quarter, a plant whose yield stalls or a product line everyone defends and nobody fixes. The leader sent in to repair it gets ambitious targets, a tired team and little time.
Turnaround leadership training gives that leader a method rather than a pep talk: how to read the real situation in two weeks, which problems to leave alone for now, and how to win back a team's belief with visible early wins instead of speeches.
43% of CHROs cite rising operational costs and 42% feel pressure to meet financial goals.
What participants will be able to do
Diagnose in two weeks
Separate symptoms from causes using numbers, site visits and frank conversations with customers, frontline staff and peers.
Plan the first 90 days
Build a 30-60-90 day plan with a stabilise phase, a fix phase and a build phase, each with clear signals of progress.
Decide what to stop
Choose the products, customers, projects and meetings to pause or end, and explain the choice without blaming the previous leader.
Pull the right money levers
Sort cash and cost actions into those that protect future growth and those that quietly damage it.
Rebuild belief and ownership
Restore team confidence through visible early wins, clear owners and weekly reviews that focus on fixes rather than blame.
Tell bad news well
Report poor results to bosses, the management committee, customers and teams with candour, a plan and a realistic timeline.
Who should attend
- Business-unit heads and general managers appointed to a unit that is missing plan
- Regional, zonal and circle heads in banking, insurance distribution, retail and telecom
- Plant heads and operations leaders taking over a site with falling output or yield
- Product line and category owners asked to fix or reposition a loss-making portfolio
- Branch cluster and franchise network leaders in services and consumer businesses
- High-potential managers being prepared for their first turnaround assignment
Program outline
Recommended design, customised to your context after a short needs analysis.
01The honest diagnosisModule 1 · 2 hours+
- Reading the numbers behind the numbers: mix, margin, cash cycle and productivity
- Two-week listening tour: customers, frontline staff, peers and the previous team
- Symptoms versus root causes
- Case: a Hyderabad branch cluster that has missed plan for three quarters
02The first 30-60-90 daysModule 2 · 90 min+
- Stabilise, fix, build: what each phase is for
- Choosing three priorities and saying no to the rest
- Early wins that matter to customers and the team
- Drafting your own 90-day turnaround plan
03Stop-doing decisionsModule 3 · 90 min+
- Finding work, products and customers that drain more than they add
- Testing a stop decision before announcing it
- Explaining stops to people who built the old plan
- Simulation: three stop calls in 40 minutes
04Cash and cost levers without killing growthModule 4 · 2 hours+
- Working capital, pricing leaks, spend control and productivity
- Which cuts protect the future and which mortgage it
- Protecting the few growth bets worth keeping
- Business game: a quarter of turnaround choices with live results
05Rebuilding confidence and accountabilityModule 5 · 90 min+
- Reading a team that has stopped believing the targets
- Keeping, moving or stretching the people you inherit
- Weekly fix reviews with named owners and short cycles
- Recognising progress without overselling it
06Stakeholder communication when results are badModule 6 · 90 min+
- Reporting misses upward with candour and a plan
- Keeping key customers and partners steady
- Team updates that are honest and still hopeful
- Role-play: the quarterly review where the numbers are still red
Sample training plan: 2-day hands-on design
This two-day design treats every participant as the newly arrived head of a unit that has missed plan for three quarters. On day one they dig through messy data, interview a frustrated team, separate symptoms from causes and draft a 30-60-90 day plan. Day two brings the hard calls: three stop decisions in forty minutes, a business game where cost cuts ripple into growth, a team that no longer believes the targets and a review where the numbers are still red.
Participants can diagnose an under-performing unit honestly and draft a 30-60-90 day turnaround plan.
- 09:30–10:00The handover fileEnergiser
- 10:00–11:15Numbers behind the numbersDiagnostic
- 11:30–12:45The listening tourRole-play
- 13:30–14:30Symptoms or causes?Case clinic
- 14:30–15:30Stabilise, fix, buildBuild sprint
- 15:45–16:45Plan under firePeer coaching
- 16:45–17:30What I will not touch yetReflection
Participants can make stop decisions, pull money levers wisely, rebuild team belief and communicate bad results.
- 09:30–10:15Three stops in forty minutesSimulation
- 10:15–11:45The turnaround quarterBusiness game
- 12:00–13:00The team that stopped believingFishbowl
- 13:45–14:45The weekly fix reviewSkill drill
- 14:45–15:45Numbers still redRole-play
- 16:00–16:45Early wins worth celebratingGroup challenge
- 16:45–17:30My turnaround commitmentsAction planning
Every session’s activity, timings, outputs and materials, plus pre-work, a 90-day reinforcement plan and how impact is measured. Free, emailed to you instantly.
Recommended: 2 days in person (09:30–17:30 each day), or 5 × 3-hour live virtual sessions, plus a 90-day turnaround coaching follow-up. A sample design: every Bodhih program is customised after a short needs analysis.
How long is turnaround leadership training?
The recommended design is two full days in person, or five live virtual sessions of three hours each, followed by a 90-day period with fortnightly peer calls and two coaching sessions while participants run their real turnaround plan.
What activities are included in turnaround leadership training?
Participants mark up a departing leader's handover note, diagnose a branch cluster data pack, interview role-played stakeholders, draft a 30-60-90 day plan, make three stop decisions under time pressure, play a turnaround quarter business game and present red results to a demanding business head.
How we deliver it
Live turnaround cases
Participants bring the unit they are fixing, or are about to take over, and apply every tool to it during the program.
Decisions under time pressure
A business game and short simulations force trade-offs between cash, growth, people and customers, with consequences revealed round by round.
Peer challenge
Small groups of leaders from different functions question each other's diagnoses and plans before anything goes to a boss.
Coached 90 days
Fortnightly peer calls and two facilitator coaching sessions support leaders through the first months of their actual turnaround.
Tailored versions
For operations and plant leaders
Cases centre on output, yield, downtime, inventory and shift performance, with stop-doing choices across product variants and internal projects.
For sales regions and branch networks
Cases focus on zones and branch clusters where revenue, productivity or customer retention has slipped, and on rebuilding frontline belief.
For a newly appointed unit head
A one-to-one or small-group format timed with the first week in role, combining the program with fortnightly coaching for 90 days.
How we measure impact
Turnaround leadership training is evaluated in the Evaluate stage of ADDIE. Participants take an AssessAll pre-assessment using three mapped assessments: Turnaround Leadership, Crisis & High-Stakes Decision Making, and Stop-Doing Decision Assessment for Managers and Team Leads. They repeat them as a post-assessment after the program. A 30-60-90 day follow-up tracks plan milestones, stop decisions made, early wins and the unit's agreed business indicators, reviewed with the sponsor.
Pair this program with AssessAll, Bodhih’s AI assessment platform, for pre- and post-program skill measurement.
Frequently asked questions
What is turnaround leadership training?
Turnaround leadership training prepares leaders who take charge of an under-performing unit, such as a region, plant, branch cluster or product line. It teaches fast diagnosis, a 30-60-90 day plan, choosing what to stop, cash and cost levers that protect growth, rebuilding team confidence and honest stakeholder communication. Bodhih tailors the cases to the participant's industry.
What does a turnaround leader do in the first 90 days?
In the first 30 days, a turnaround leader listens widely, reads the numbers in depth and stabilises the most urgent issues. Days 31 to 60 focus on fixing root causes and making stop decisions. Days 61 to 90 build the new rhythm, owners and early wins that show the unit is moving.
How is turnaround leadership different from crisis leadership?
Crisis leadership deals with sudden shocks, such as a major outage or supply disruption, where the first hours matter most. Turnaround leadership deals with slow, steady under-performance over quarters, where the challenge is diagnosis, choices and rebuilding belief. Many leaders need both, and Bodhih runs crisis leadership training as a separate program.
How do you cut costs without killing growth?
Sort every cost action by its effect on customers and future revenue. Remove waste, duplicate effort and low-value spend first, and fix pricing leaks and working capital before touching capability. Protect a small number of growth bets with clear milestones. The program practises these trade-offs through a business game with consequences revealed each round.
How do you rebuild team morale during a turnaround?
Teams in a struggling unit usually stop believing the targets. Rebuild belief through honesty about the situation, a short list of clear priorities, named owners and early wins the team can see. Weekly reviews should focus on fixes, not blame. Recognising real progress, without overselling it, gradually restores confidence and ownership.
What do participants take away from turnaround leadership training?
Each leader leaves with a written diagnosis of their unit, a 30-60-90 day turnaround plan, a list of stop decisions with reasons, a short set of cash and cost actions and a stakeholder update script. A peer group and two coaching sessions then support the plan through its first 90 days.
Is turnaround leadership training available online?
Yes. The live virtual version runs as five three-hour sessions over two to three weeks, with breakout groups, an online business game and the same 90-day coaching follow-up. It suits leaders spread across Indian cities such as Mumbai, Hyderabad and Pune, or across the Gulf, including Riyadh and Dubai.
Who should attend turnaround leadership training?
It suits business-unit heads, regional and zonal heads, plant heads, branch cluster leaders and product line owners who are taking over, or already running, a unit that is missing plan. It also helps organisations preparing high-potential managers for their first difficult assignment. Participants benefit most when they bring a live situation to work on.