Sensei Certification · Transformational Leader
18 times at the front. That's where a leader changes
Six months facilitating dynamics in front of other leaders, with a Sensei correcting you on the spot and your real team as the testing ground. At the end you have documented evidence of all 18 dynamics and the certification of Transformational Leader.
3 dynamics a month · 18 in total
The investment
A company pays $3,500 a month for this dojo. You get in for $225
The Dojo runs in-company with a minimum of 20 leaders and an investment of $3,500 a month. Almost every leader who goes through it is there because their company pays.
This cohort is open: leaders from different companies in the same room. Same Sensei, same method, same platform. What changes is who you train with, not what you train. And for many people, training alongside executives from other sectors is half the value.
What a company invests to open an internal dojo, with a minimum of 20 leaders.
Your individual access to the open cohort. A fixed price, the same for everyone, with no volume tiers and no sign-up-today offers.
Month 7 of the Sensei certification stays at the same price: $225. No lock-in at any stage.
Inside the month
Eight hours a month. None of them listening
Three dynamics each month: you facilitate two in front of your peers and take one to your real team. Then you come back to the group and tell them what happened. That loop is the whole method.
Live dojo · among peers
You facilitate in front of other leaders
You take the lead and run a dynamic. Your peers act as the team. The Sensei watches, interrupts, corrects on the spot and assesses your performance. That controlled friction is where the learning happens.
Real field · your team
You apply it where something's at stake
You take the month's dynamic to your real people. Real decisions, real tensions, real results. Leonor.AI helps you prepare the session before you walk in.
Guided debrief
You say what went wrong and why
You come back to the group with what happened when you applied it: what worked, where you got stuck, what you'd do differently. The Sensei and your peers give you an honest read.
Between sessions
Maturity radar and reports
Every month you get your behavioural maturity level, your team's, and an assessment of how you lead when you're at the front. Traceable data, not end-of-course impressions.
The journey
Six months. One new behaviour in each
The focus changes every month and the bar goes up. The Sensei picks the dynamic based on the maturity they read in you and in your team, within the nine competencies of the NAMI Method.
You stop carrying everything yourself
You get your focus and purpose back before you touch the team. You learn to name what's going on with you without dumping it on others. The first signs show up in the second week.
Every conversation moves something
You turn meetings into decisions and disagreements into working agreements. You practise the difficult conversation until it stops costing you.
The team starts deciding without you
You delegate judgement, not tasks. You work on the trust that makes someone dare to decide knowing they might get it wrong.
Commitments get honoured
You install agreements that hold without reminders, and you learn to decide with incomplete data — which is how decisions get made nearly always.
You hold the pace under pressure
You adapt without losing direction and cut what doesn't add. Efficiency as a team habit, not a cut imposed from above.
Your team doesn't need you any more
Self-organisation, care for the pace and sustainability. At the closing you present the evidence: what changed in you, what changed in your team and what holds when you're not there. That's where the certification is decided.
What you take away
Two certifications. Neither is given away for turning up
The first closes your transformation as a leader. The second qualifies you to train others with El Dojo's method and brand.
Transformational Team Leader
It certifies that you know how to install high-performance behaviours in a real team, and that you can prove it with evidence.
- 18 dynamics facilitated and assessed by the Sensei
- 6 documented applications with your real team
- Behavioural maturity radar, month by month
- Performance report signed by your Sensei
It's earned by demonstrating the transformation at the close of month 6. It isn't automatic for attending: that's exactly what makes the belt worth something.
El Dojo Sensei
An extra month to go from trained leader to someone who trains. It's where you learn to take the method into rooms that aren't your own. It costs the same as any other month of the programme.
- Training in the facilitation of the NAMI Method
- Administrator access to Leonor.AI and to the platform
- A licence to run El Dojo in companies under our brand
- Entry to the Sensei network: 36 people across 8 countries
Only open to those who have already earned the Transformational Leader certification.
After the belt
Three doors only a Sensei opens
01 · In your company
You install the dojo in your organisation
You go from being a leader who did a programme to a reference point who trains everyone else. It's the argument many people use to get their company to fund it.
02 · With El Dojo
You facilitate at client companies
Certified Senseis can work with us facilitating dojos at the companies that hire us. The fee starts at $2,000 per dojo, with roughly 8 hours of dedication.
03 · On your own
You run your own dojo
With the licence and the platform, you take the method to your own clients. Consultants, coaches and talent leads usually come in through this door.
This isn't a promise of income and we're not going to dress it up as one. It's a professional path we open to anyone who completes the certification, and it depends on demand at the time and on how you perform in the room.
The difference
Knowing and changing aren't the same thing
Around 70% of what's learned is forgotten in the first 24 hours. That's why a dojo is nothing like a course, even when the syllabus sounds the same.
A leadership course
The Sensei Certification
Source · forgetting curve, Ebbinghaus · Harvard Business Review
Access
You get in by interview
Here everyone facilitates in front of everyone else. Someone who doesn't fit doesn't just get bored: they break the room for everybody. That's why we talk to you first, and why the cohorts are small.
Step 01
You request the interview
You leave your details and your context. We write to you on WhatsApp within 24 working hours to find a slot.
Step 02
Thirty minutes with a Sensei
We go through how many people you lead, what you're dealing with right now and whether this is your moment. If it isn't, we'll tell you.
Step 03
You experience a trial dojo
Two real hours with a Sensei before paying anything: you facilitate, you get live feedback and you decide afterwards. Free and with no commitment.
Underlying requirement: leading a team today, having led one recently, or being about to. Without a team to apply it with, a third of the programme has no testing ground.
Who trains you
Someone with a name trains you
Sensei and CEO · Spain
Álvaro Sastre Salso
HR Agile Coach and creator of the NAMI Method on which El Dojo is built. More than a decade training leaders in large organisations, with dojos facilitated at companies like Heineken and ISA Energy. Named a Top Agile Voice by LinkedIn.
His test for calling a session good: that the leader walks out with a new behaviour, not one more idea.
The network
36 Senseis across 8 countries
Each cohort is assigned to the Senseis who best fit its make-up and time zone. All of them walked the same road you're about to walk: they trained, they certified, and today they train others.
Before you start you'll know who's going to train you, by name and track record.
They started here
Today they're Senseis
What surprised me most was walking out each month with something concrete that had changed in me. Not theory: a behaviour I didn't have before and that's now automatic. By month 4 my team didn't need me to solve their problems.
Ángel LerenaEl Dojo Sensei · SpainThe Sensei's report after each session is the mirror every leader needs and nobody has ever given them. It points out what you changed, what improved and what to work on next month.
Anna Stephanie MuñozEl Dojo Sensei · Guatemala and SpainI'd done more than ten leadership courses. With El Dojo I understood the difference between learning and changing. Six months in, my team was resolving its own conflicts.
Laura VitalityEl Dojo Sensei · SpainBefore you apply
The questions we always get
How much does it cost and how do I pay?
$225 per leader per month for six months, which comes to $1,350. A fixed price, the same for everyone, with no volume discounts and no sign-up-today offers.
Monthly, paid in advance. We invoice the company or the individual. Month 7 of the Sensei certification costs the same, $225, and you decide whether to do it when you reach month 6: seven full months come to $1,575.
Is there a minimum commitment?
No. You can leave any month by telling us seven days before the next cycle. What you can't recover is the certification: it's only earned by completing the six months and presenting the evidence at the close.
Why is there an interview if I already know I want it?
Because you're not buying a seat in a classroom: you're joining a small group where each person facilitates in front of the others. The quality of your training depends on the level of your peers as much as on the Sensei.
The interview lasts thirty minutes and works both ways. If we see this isn't your moment, we'll say so and suggest when to come back.
Do I need a team reporting to me?
Ideally yes, because one of the three dynamics each month is applied with your real team and then analysed with the group. If you don't lead now but did recently or will soon, you also fit. Mention it in the interview.
Can my company pay for it?
Yes, and that's the most common case. We invoice in the company's name. If it helps, we'll send you a template email to forward to your manager or HR with the investment argument and the expected return.
Are the sessions recorded?
No. They're live and participatory: the value is in standing at the front in front of your peers, and that can't be consumed later. If you miss one for a good reason, the Sensei will guide you on how to make up the practice with your team.
How is it different from an MBA or an executive coach?
An MBA gives you frameworks. An individual coach helps you think. This is the only one of the three that makes you facilitate in front of other leaders every month and corrects you in real time until the behaviour changes.
They don't compete: several of our Senseis have MBAs or are certified coaches.
What exactly does Leonor.AI do?
She's your digital Sensei between sessions. She helps you prepare the meeting with your real team, suggests which dynamic fits that week's challenge, simulates your team so you can practise beforehand, and keeps your progress so the human Sensei knows where you are each month.
She doesn't replace the Sensei. She's the bridge between one dojo and the next.
What is the certification worth outside El Dojo?
It certifies something almost no leadership qualification does: documented evidence of 18 dynamics facilitated and assessed, and the change measured in your team. Inside our network it qualifies you to facilitate dojos at client companies and to operate under licence. Outside it, it's worth whatever your evidence is worth — which is exactly what you take away in writing.
When does the next cohort start?
We open cohorts regularly, with limited places. In the interview we'll confirm the start date of the next one and of your trial dojo.
Request access
Where it's safe to fail, so winning becomes inevitable
Requesting the interview costs nothing and commits you to nothing. You talk for thirty minutes with a Sensei, experience a free trial dojo and decide afterwards.