ºìÐÓÊÓƵ

The ºìÐÓÊÓƵ Leadership Development team is crucial to the university’s commitment to refining and strengthening the skills and capabilities of managers at all levels. 

The team - which is part of HR and comprises of Susan MacLennan, Tina McGregor and Adelle Downie - support managers to acquire new, and enhance their existing, leadership knowledge, skills, competencies, understanding and attitudes needed to be able to lead their teams to deliver results consistent with the aims and objectives of the university. 

The Leadership Development team offer a suite of both ILM accredited and non-accredited development programmes and workshops.  They also offer bespoke development activities such as Coaching, team development and facilitation of away-days.  

Here the team write about how leadership development can benefit you as a member of the ºìÐÓÊÓƵ Community and how they have adapted their programmes and workshops to ensure that managers continue to be supported throughout this pandemic. 

Susan MacLennan, Senior Leadership Development Specialist:

As a team we work closely with managers throughout ºìÐÓÊÓƵ to support them in enabling their staff to realise their full potential and to achieve team and organisational objectives. 

It’s important to remember the ‘70:20:10’ learning and development model.  About 70% of learning and development should take place ‘on-the-job’ through activities such as induction, discussions with colleagues, taking on challenging tasks, getting involved in ‘stretch’ projects, being given feedback etc.   Approximately 20% of learning should take place ‘near-the-job’ by reading books and journals, watching TED talks and being coached or mentored etc.  Only an estimated 10% of learning should take place ‘off-the-job’, in formal classroom learning, online training sessions and distance learning courses.  

As such we always recommend that you discuss your specific development needs with your line manager as part of your ongoing EPR Learning and Development Plan before booking one of our events to ensure that the development opportunity is the right one for you. We are also very happy to speak to you about your development needs.

Tina McGregor, Leadership Development Specialist: 

As development professionals, the best advice we can give is that it is imperative for you to take responsibility for your own career development.  Below are some top tips for getting the most out of any development opportunities:

• Be proactive in seeking out relevant development opportunities by engaging with your line-manager around your career aspirations and goals.  Be clear about how these development opportunities will enable you to better achieve your objectives and thus add value to the department and organisation, as well as to yourself.  
• Conduct a skills audit e.g. what are your strengths, what are the areas for improvement?  Be honest with yourself, and ask for feedback from a variety of sources. 
• Have a clear vision/plan for the next three to five years and seek out development opportunities which will help you get there.
• Be creative in your approach, job shadow, where possible, get involved in projects relating to your role.
• Work to the 70/20/10 development model:  not all development takes place in a classroom.  Read a book or a journal; join a webinar; do some online research; get a mentor.  There are many ways to develop yourself.  
• Have the right attitude, be flexible, adaptable and proactive.

ADELLE DOWNIE, LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT ADMINISTRATOR:

Just like all other areas of the university, we have been adjusting to online working and have been busy reviewing and reformatting our programmes to feature a blended learning approach. 

We are putting together a new Skills4Success schedule, completely updated to shift the focus to remote working, and we will soon be launching recruitment for our flagship leadership development programmes – Voyager and Discoverer. Look out for details which will be circulated around Schools and Departments and in articles in The Bulletin, LifeWorks etc in the next week or so.  

This year we will also be hosting some Zoom information sessions where anyone interested in our development  programmes can find out more about them and ask questions.   for more details and to register for a place.

We look forward to seeing you at one of our events