Breaking Through’s Transformational Leadership Programme

The training is structured into five weeks spread out over four months, and takes place in four different locations. Both progressive and evidence-based, the learning methods used are tailored specifically to meet the needs of professionals who are implementing the change agenda in the public sector.

Become part of a learning community

Upon joining the programme, participants will become part of a learning community. They will be challenged to participate in an innovative, experiential approach to learning that engages emotionally and intellectually, thereby increasing participants capacity to learn from the challenges, tensions and problems faced at work.

Hone leadership skills

Participants will strengthen their ability to make sense of intractable and complex situations in order to find creative ways forward. They will also hone their ability to recognise and work with diversity and conflict in an organisation.

Discover how behaviour can effect an organisation

We encourage participants  to look at how assumptions can help or hinder performance, and help participants to understand, and change, the effects of their behaviour on others.

Integrate learning into the workplace

Participants design their own unique learning contract and adapt it as insight increases. We help to create individual work-based experiments between each module to integrate the programme’s learning back into participants’ work and life as a whole.

Move away from conventional teaching

Rather than conventional teaching, participants will engage in exhilarating experiences to discover their potential for change, there and then. This process is supported by the structure of the training, which is designed to direct learning along an increasingly sophisticated trajectory. The result is a sequence of highly personalised learning experiences that become progressively deeper and more powerful as the programme unfolds. Overall, the training builds on the developments of the NHS Institute’s Breaking Through Programme, supporting the progression of black and minority ethnic staff in senior leadership roles.

This programme is aimed at all senior NHS staff from Agenda for Change Grade 7 and above. Applications are especially welcome from senior managers from black and minority ethnic groups.

Participants will emerge from this training programme with:

• increased confidence and a greater sense of their individual authority
• deeper insight into their personal effectiveness and how they can improve it
• better understanding of power dynamics and discrimination at an individual and corporate level
• increased understanding of, and ability to manage, theirs and others’ prejudices and actions
• increased understanding of the cultural and structural factors inhibiting the progression of BME staff and an enhanced ability to influence those structures positively
• a network of relationships committed to taking and supporting transformational action focussed on achieving greater equity in the NHS
• a strengthened ability to make sense of intractable and complex situations in order to find creative ways forward
• an ability to recognise and work with diversity and conflict in NHS organisations – enriched and informed with appreciative strategies that build upon the best that has been achieved
• vision and strategies for achieving greater effectiveness of services.

Valerie James has a reputation for being at the forefront of innovation in developing health services leaders. She has been a Senior Fellow at The King’s Fund since 2000, working with over 800 senior clinicians and managers. In this role she has directed a range of groundbreaking programmes such as the Senior and Top Manager Programmes, the Transformational Leadership Programme, Athena (for executive women) and Management for Specialist Registrars. She was a CEO grade in the NHS, an academic and clinician with three degrees and four postgraduate diplomas. She is passionate about working creatively with change, equality and conflict and has been an executive coach to many senior figures. Valerie is also an accredited mediator and an Honorary Senior Fellow, St George’s, London and Kingston Universities.

Eden Charles is also a Programme Director for the Transformational Leadership Programme. Dr Eden Charles has run experiential learning programmes for more than 21 years. He is the Executive Director of People Opportunities – a ground-breaking consultancy that is successfully supporting individuals to create cultural change in their organisations – and an outstanding educational practitioner. Eden is a qualified teacher with three degrees. He is recognised as a national thought leader and has an outstanding track record in helping black and minority ethnic managers succeed in their careers and in assisting organisations successfully strategise and implement changes that actually lead to a change.

• Week 1: 20–24 April
• Week 2: 27 April–1 May
• Week 3: 1–5 June
• Week 4: 20–24 July
• Week 5:  5–9 October

£1,495 + VAT

Applications are now closed for the 2009 programme.

For any further information please email Louisa Coulthurst, Programme Manager, or telephone her on 020 7307 2650.

This is an NHS Institute initiative, commissioned and funded by the National Breaking Through Programme (without this heavy subsidy, each course place would have cost £10,000). To participate on this course, you will need the ongoing sponsorship of your chief executive.

If you have not recently undertaken the Leadership Qualities Framework used by the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement, we advise that you do so prior to the start of the programme. This will be used to inform your learning contract and provide a baseline for a repeated 360 degree exercise to be carried out one year after you have completed the programme.

For details on similar programmes visit NHS Lead the way.