OUR WORK
We design and deliver exceptional, bespoke, place-based leadership development interventions, curated by both our core team and our world-class enablers. Support is usually either nationally sponsored or specifically commissioned by individual places. In both cases development takes place across and through the organisation or system, reaching from the top to the bottom and sideways and always focused on a real, complex, systemic challenge.
We also run critically acclaimed cohort-based leadership development programmes reflecting the new interdependent world in which the public sector operates. Cohort programmes are usually peer based and are either mixed sector or profession specific. The exact focus of the content is co-designed with participants.
In collaboration with national government or a nationally based organisation, we design countrywide initiatives such as the agenda-shifting Total Place, which explored a whole place approach to public services.
THE LONDON LEADERSHIP PROGRAMME
The London Leadership Programme is London Council’s annual flagship development programme investing in the next generation of senior leaders in London.
This highly acclaimed development programme is a recognised part of the civil service learning grid. Future Vision builds systems leadership capabilities for closer collaboration in an increasingly complex and interdependent world.
The Leadership Centre, in partnership with the Bristol Leadership and Change Centre at University of the West of England, has supported the design and delivery of the Bristol Leadership Challenge.
This is a high impact network with a membership of over 250 alumni from our leadership development programmes.
This programme is rooted in systems leadership and offers senior leaders in public services the opportunity to develop a whole range of skills to help them through the often-complex leadership challenges they face.
SUSTAINABILITY AND TRANSFORMATION PLANS
With 44 STP footprints across England focused on bringing together local health and care leaders and organisations, the Leadership Centre, as a member of the Systems Leadership Alliance, has offered Systems Leadership support focusing on real work to make real change.
Total Place was an initiative which looked at how a ‘whole place’ approach to public services can lead to better services at less cost. It sought to identify and avoid overlap and duplication between organisations – delivering a step change in both service improvement and efficiency at the local level, as well as across Whitehall.
This programme was initially designed specifically for Directors of Public Health who, post transition, are working in a locally political environment for the first time. The programme is adapted for any group wanting to develop relational leadership skills for collaborative multi-sector working.
ABU DHABI PUBLIC HEALTH CENTRE WOMEN’S LEADERSHIP PROGRAMME
In December 2021, the Leadership Centre designed and delivered a leadership programme focussed on supporting women in leadership roles across the healthcare sector in Abu Dhabi.
For the past two years the Leadership Centre, in collaboration with NHS England, has been providing Systems Leadership support to places across the country as part of the National A&E Improvement Programme.
This leadership development programme is for the next generation of Chief Executives and Director Generals in the health and care sector.
The Systems Leadership programme has been exploring multi-organisational working through the lens of health and social care – to which the Leadership Centre have contributed a significant amount of theory, models and practical support.
DEVOLUTION & COMBINED AUTHORITIES
The Leadership Centre works with senior political and managerial leaders in localities to examine complex, multifaceted issues where there’s no clear way forward.
The leadership at Plymouth City Council has made a big promise to its citizens: they will live in one of Europe’s most vibrant waterfront cities and have an outstanding quality of life. But with dwindling resources, spiralling demand and typically entrenched challenges caused by a myriad of factors that they alone cannot solve, they knew they had to find a radically different way of thinking.
Today, politicians are expected to shape the place where citizens live and work. The Leadership Centre helps support them to lead in these complex, messy and difficult times so they can make lasting change possible for the good of their citizens and places.
A group of leaders in Cumbria wanted to move on from the frustration and sometimes rancour generated by possible local government reorganisation.
In the summer of 2008, the Leadership Centre joined with the local government community, police, health and the national park authority to commit time, energy and resources to change the way Norfolk worked.