Places still available on new leadership programmes
Monday, 20 January 2020
There's still time to apply for two new exciting University leadership training programmes running this year: ‘Leading Through Influence' and ‘The Inclusive Leader'.
Based on the University's new Leadership Framework (the 3Rs), the programmes use a mixture of workshops, action learning sets and study to develop your ability to lead individuals, teams, project groups and partnerships.
Each programme has been specifically designed for the University to support leaders and managers working in different contexts:
- ‘The Inclusive Leader' is suitable for colleagues who directly line manage members of staff.
- ‘Leading Through Influence' is designed for those who lead projects, collaborations, initiatives, groups or tasks without having formal line management responsibility.
The closing date for applications is Friday 24 January. To find out more, including how to apply and course dates, please contact People Development.
About the courses
To give you an insight into each course, we spoke to a few recent participants to find out how the training has made a difference:
The Inclusive Leader
"What I think really makes the programme is the quality of the instruction," says Peter Randall, Senior Examinations Officer in our Examinations Student Records & Graduation team. "The trainers have been excellent, very personable, and have delivered content that is relevant to the varied roles held within the University."
Peter was joined by colleagues in both academic and professional roles, allowing him to gain an insight into parts of the University he would otherwise not interact with. "Outside the classroom we have met in smaller groups at regular intervals to discuss our experiences, applying learning from the course and sharing what has worked well for us".
"The programme focuses on your strengths, so the most valuable thing it has done for me is to help me recognise the skills I already have, and how I can use these to be a more effective manager. More practically, I have been able to use strategies for managing meetings to ensure that these are more effective and valuable for attendees".
Peter would highly recommend the training to other colleagues with line management responsibility as he believes it helps develop effectiveness as a leader. "It has been a greatly enjoyable experience to take part in and has given me confidence in my own abilities".
Leading Through Influence
"This was a really useful - and importantly - applicable training programme", says Sarah Hood, Planning Officer in our Planning & Strategy Office. ". It challenged me to honestly reflect on my own assumptions and barriers to working more effectively."
"We learnt how to spot different personality types, and how best to communicate with each one," says Dr Susie Jennings, Clinical Trial Manager at the Thames Valley Clinical Trials Unit. "It has helped me to understand my colleagues' motivations better, and so has helped me to work well with them. The techniques we learnt could be immediately applied in practice in and outside of work".
"I learnt that while there is never a right or wrong way to lead, there are ways that you can tailor your leadership to each individual, to both further your working relationships and increase the output and efficiency of the team as a whole," says Louise Thomas-Burt, Employability Data and Systems Manager in our Careers & Employability team.
Sarah, Susie and Louise all said they would recommend the course to fellow colleagues in leadership roles.