Public Service Leadership: Leading Beyond Boundaries
This new programme, developed jointly by Public Service Leadership and Warwick Business School is designed to develop leadership at the highest level across the whole public service system. It will bring together chief constables and their deputies together with chief executives and directors in the NHS and local government, and permanent secretaries and director generals in the civil service.
The programme
Unlike traditional leadership programmes, Leading Beyond Boundaries is designed to develop a cadre of top leaders capable of working together across different public services to tackle some of the toughest cross-cutting problems facing citizens and communities.
Reflective engagement in real work
The programme will be built around important collaborative projects that are designed to both test the participants and make a difference on the ground. This is not a programme built around esoteric theory divorced from practical 'realities', nor will it offer preset 'answers'. Instead the programme will work with leading edge theory that encourages participants to reflect critically on the world, and to engage practically in changing that same world.
Leadership beyond authority
The complex issues and "wicked problems" that the participants will engage with are beyond the capacity of any individual leader and institution, and outside the scope of standard operating procedures. But collaborative leadership, while necessary to address these concerns, is not simply a matter of working in partnerships. We know that collaborative leadership to tackle complex problems - leading without authority - is more difficult than traditional command and control. Moreover, there are no simple rules to guarantee success here so the group will need to learn to lead in different ways.
The geography of leadership
Traditionally, leadership development occurs in a place beyond work and at a time outside normality. But while the capacity to create space and time to reflect upon the world rather than be forced to act upon it is critical to effective leadership, many development programmes assume leadership can be developed without considering the context or the followers. Leading Beyond Boundaries will insist that leadership is necessarily rooted in time and space; in this specific place and at this point in time what might facilitate positive change for the public good?
What is the focus of each module?
Introductory Day
This first day is an opportunity for you to meet the other invited top leaders on the programme to establish the key issues facing public services and communities, and to decide on a specific situation or problem that affects your own organisations, as well as across and beyond organisations.
Module 1 - Collaborative Leadership to tackle Wicked Problems
By looking at wicked problems, elegant and clumsy solutions, some theoretical approaches will be applied to working interactively with the issues identified on the introductory day. Speakers from across politics, the private and public sectors will be involved in helping the group develop the processes and generate the questions to address the issues.
Module 2 - Whole Systems Thinking and Action Beyond Boundaries
The second module explores some of the new ideas about leadership emerging through the behavioural and neurosciences, complexity and chaos theories, and whole systems thinking in order to help analyse and tackle the cross-cutting issues identified by the group.
Module 3 - Mobilising Organisational Improvement and Cultural Change
During this module we will discuss frameworks and practical strategies for leading change in cultures, and improvement and innovation in performance across and between organisations and communities. We will draw not only on organisational studies, but also on the experience of social and political movements in mobilising effective change.
Who delivers the programme?
Public Service Leadership: Leading Beyond Boundaries programme has been commissioned by Public Service Leadership with Warwick Business School hosting and delivering it at the University of Warwick in Coventry.
Programme details 2010
Programme 1
Introductory day: 04 November to 05 November
Module 1: 8 December to 10 December
Module 2: 26 January to 28 January
Module 3: 09 March to 11 March
Programme 2
Introductory day: 24 March to 25 March
Module 1: 19 April to 21 April
Module 2: 1 June to 3 June
We are planning to run an ongoing schedule of programmes over the coming years.
Venue
The University of Warwick is easily accessible by road and rail, with Birmingham International Airport also close by. The introductory day and 3 modules will be residential in either Radcliffe or Scarman House. These are both venues run by Warwick Conferences which offer high-quality dining and accommodation, along with excellent facilities for learning and networking.
For more information http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/conferences.
Fees
The programme would usually cost £8,000, but as participants who join Cohort 1 are being invited to be the first to help us fine tune the programme to meet the needs of top public sector leaders, your fee will be part subsidised by PSL reducing the cost to £5,000. This fee includes all food and accommodation, teaching, facilitating, guest speakers, parking and course materials.
Further information and booking
For more information, or if you are interested in making a reservation please contact:
Clare Holt
Development Programmes Manager
WarwickBusiness School
Telephone: 0247 657 4668
Email: Clare.Holt@wbs.ac.uk
To discuss the programme in general terms, this having being commissioned by LG Improvement and Development on behalf of PSL please contact:
Tom Reynolds
Project Coordinator
LG Improvement and Development
Telephone: 0207 296 6963
Email: tom.reynolds@local.gov.uk