Last year the Learning and Organisation Development team in HR launched a suite of updated leadership and management programmes designed to help identify and support managers and leaders throughout the staff community.
The new programmes offer options whatever stage of your management career you are:
- The Aspiring Manager is for staff who are not in a management role but demonstrate the potential and motivation to develop into one.
- The Edinburgh Manager is for staff who are people managers across all areas of the University.
- The Edinburgh Leader is for staff with significant leadership responsibilities including setting the strategic direction of their work area.
Since their launch in spring 2020, the programmes have grown considerably to accommodate as many eligible applicants as possible. The most recent intake was the largest yet. An anonymous Nominating Manager believes the scheme is a brilliant offering, especially for supporting staff in their career development needs: “It’s great that the University offers such development. We have some brilliant colleagues and offerings like this are a real value add for colleagues keen to map out a career at the University and be supported in their development aspirations.”
The programmes are a mixture of self-directed learning, and online workshops and discussion groups to build networks across the University that last even after the course has been finished. Ileana Iacobescu, Digital Media Officer in the Centre for Open Learning found the whole experience incredibly beneficial: “Talking to others in discussion groups was fascinating and it was reassuring to see that even highly experienced managers do face challenges, and that by identifying the issues correctly and applying some of the strategies we talked about, they can reach a resolution for issues that seemed ongoing for a long time, or that seemed to be a lost cause.”
Course alumni are also invited back to run some of the discussion groups of the course. Dr Catherine Bovill, PFHEA – Senior Lecturer in Student Engagement in the Institute for Academic Development helped on the last run of the programme: “As a discussion group facilitator I have benefitted from being exposed to other interesting leadership challenges from around the University. I have gained confidence in being able to lead a group like this and a sense of satisfaction from supporting others in their leadership journey.”
You can find out more on the HR website.
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