This year, for the first time in a UK University, the Being a Leader course was delivered to Early Career and Postgraduate Researchers. The course has been incorporated into various academic disciplines at UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) and is now being taught in universities worldwide, including countries as diverse as Canada, Ghana, Vietnam and Mexico.

This is unlike any other course, and it includes a bold promise: that by the end of the course you will be being a leader and exercising leadership effectively as your natural self-expression. Leadership is defined, not by title or position, but as “making a future happen that wasn’t going to happen anyway”. This course is for anyone committed to shaping the future of their own and other people’s lives, including those in a leadership position and those who aspire to lead. Testimonials from previous courses:

Course Dates and Times

Time Fridays 9am-12pm

January 21, 28

February 4, 11, 18, 25

March 4, 11, 18, 25

April 1, 8, 29

May 6, 13

Learning Objectives

1. Master a new way of listening
2. Master the four foundational factors:
a. Being a Person of Integrity
b. Being Authentic
c. Being Cause in the Matter of your Life, and
d. Being up to Something Bigger than Yourself.
3. Master a new Contextual Framework for Being a Leader and Exercising Leadership Effectively as your Natural Self-Expression
4. Free yourself from your Perceptual and Functional Constraints
5. Master a new Conversational Domain for Leader and Leadership

Tutors

Nicholas Merton: Independent Consultant who has led leadership courses and other transformational courses using this methodology since the early ‘90s
Susie Miles: Senior Lecturer in the Manchester Institute of Education and Associate Dean for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in the Faculty of Humanities

Teaching and Learning Methods

This course places a fundamental emphasis on you discovering for yourself what is presented. Unlike courses you have done before, it is not about understanding, remembering and writing what is presented at each session. Instead, you will be engaging with a challenging ontological/ phenomenological inquiry to gain direct access to being a leader and exercising leadership.

You will be exploring how a carefully crafted set of PowerPoint slides fits with and impacts your own experience. The sessions are lively and involve profound conversations in pairs, between members of the group and the tutors, and in carefully designed in-session and weekly assignments. To assist you in discovering for yourself each aspect of what is presented, you will also design and complete a project in which you make something happen that wasn’t going to happen anyway.

Your time commitment includes the 3-hour online sessions on Friday mornings, weekly tasks (approximately 1-1.5 hours) which can be worked on in smaller groups, plus occasional reading assignments.

This course is a key part of our commitment to building diverse, inclusive, authentic leadership capacity within our research community and is jointly funded by the University of Manchester and Wellcome.

Timeline

* Informal drop-in session to see if the course is for you: Friday 19 November 11:00-12:00 via Zoom [https://zoom.us/j/94725316411]
* Deadline for applications: Tuesday 30 November
* Confirmation of place by Friday 17 December

Related