Throughout June and July, the Leadership Centre contributed to Civil Service Live, the governments annual, cross-department learning event.

Taking place regionally across the United Kingdom, each of the 7 events was designed for locally based civil servants, giving them the opportunity to network, learn and share best practice towards the aim of becoming ‘A Brilliant Civil Service’.

Along with sessions led by senior Civil servants, as well as public and private sector professionals, Joe Simpson and Debbie Sorkin from the Leadership Centre led sessions at each of the events, speaking to over 700 people, sharing insight and practice to foster and develop capabilities to lead across local systems when facing the ambiguity and complexity in our work.

We focused on practical advice about how to lead in a complex system, including looking at behaviours that are conducive to systems leadership; practical learning from projects around the country; and identifying ways to get started.

At some of the events, either Joe or Debbie were joined by colleagues who’ve been involved in working with the Leadership Centre to adopt systems approaches in dealing with complex, messy, cross organisational issues.

It was heartening to hear from participants that the ways of seeing and working resonated with audiences around the country and helped many see the application in their own areas of work.

Below you can see who joined us at each session and how they’ve worked with the Leadership Centre:

Birmingham – Martin Reeves, Chief Executive of Coventry City Council & West Midlands Combined Authority– Coventry Local Vision
Cardiff – Kelechi Nnoaham – Director of Public Health, Cwm Taf University Health Board – Plymouth Leadership Development Programme
Gateshead – Mike Prentice, Regional Medical Director (North), NHS England – North Tyneside Pioneer
Edinburgh – Dot McLaughlin – Programme Manager, Improvement Service

If you attended the sessions at Civil Service Live and would like to download the slides, please feel free to get in touch.