A UK Community for mid-level leaders.
Ideas for Leaders‘ Sustainable Leadership Community is for mid-level managers in the UK. We hope to launch more communities in different timezones in the future.
We see that mid-level managers are:
- often the least well supported cohort in organizations, from a leadership development perspective,
- and yet have some of the most challenging people-management issues to face – managing upwards as well as down
- implementing strategy on the ground with those who report to them,
- while also interacting with those who design the strategy that they report to
Human-Centric Leadership for Sustainable Organizations
The purpose of this community is to build, over an extended period of time, the capacity and confidence to lead in a human-centric way. This will be done with a light-touch, accepting that time is a very scarce resource for most managers, and focusing on peer-group discussion catalysed by world-class thought-leaders giving initial provocations.
The ‘Sustainable’ in the Sustainable Leadership Community is the combination of many interweaving threads:
- yes, it certainly includes a heightened awareness of what leaders can and must do to limit humanity’s negative impact on both planet and society. (In November 2021 IdeasforLeaders founder, Roddy Millar, hosted an event with the Scottish Leadership Institute looking at what leaders can do to support the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals – through the development of the Inner Development Goals. Check out the link above to see Roddy interviewing former Unilever CEO, Paul Polman and Andrew Winston author of NYT bestseller ‘Green to Gold’.)
- but it is also about making our jobs of work more sustainable – what leaders can do to ensure that everyone in the organisation is treated as an individual with respect for their lives and commitments outside of the working day too. We believe that those who are happy and stable in their home lives will be more productive and motivated in their work lives.
- and so Sustainable Leadership is ultimately about your organisation – how, by setting the right conditions within work for those you are responsible for and to, your organisation will flourish and sustain itself in the long-term, with greater business stability, more employee commitment and enhanced leveraging of the magic element that humans working collaboratively and innovatively together can achieve in transforming the world around them.
A Community to Champion Mid-Level Leaders
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.
Margaret Mead
Sustainable Leadership is not easy to achieve. It wont happen overnight. It will take, as Margaret Mead, the anthropologist, sagely noted “a small group of thoughtful committed citizens” to come together and get the ball-rolling. That group will come together from many different places, with different energies, cultures and perspectives – but everyone needs to be ‘ready to lead’. To lead themselves, initially, and then their teams, their organisations and finally wider society, in making the way we manage people and enable change to be more effective and enduring. More sustainable. More human.
The core of the Ideas for Leaders Sustainable Leadership Community will be regular online events (a minimum of 10 per year) that will bring members together for 90-minutes of provocation, discussion and exploration. We will bring a broad range of speakers with diverse perspectives to share their experiences, insights and wisdom. There will be the usual mix of business authors, executives and consultants to bring our essential ‘pracademic’ mix of research and practical experience – but we will also bring explorers and scientists, and tribal elders and musicians and many other diverse and interesting people to broaden our understanding of how best to run, organise and sustain organisations in the 21st century.
Typical Online Event Format
A typical online event will be 20-minutes of provocation from a respected thought-leader, with a short Q&A, followed by 40-minutes of ‘table discussions’ in small virtual breakout sessions of members, before a final sharing of new insights and the best of the emergent thinking.
As the community grows we hope to enable self-directed and self-managed groups to come together and pursue particular themes and interests. We will also offer ad hoc sessions for smaller groups ourselves, led by our network of globally experienced speakers, coaches and faculty.
Click on the video below to play.
Why We Have Designed The Sessions Like This
We have been working with the world’s leading executive education providers for over 15 years – reporting on the best programs and most impactful interventions at leading business schools and large corporations – and we’ve seen that the real learning doesn’t happen just because it is at Harvard or INSEAD, or with a famous professor, because you can most likely find all that content on the web for free already.
The real learning and development happens because a space has been convened, with like-minded people (peers) where participants can reflect, discuss and explore new ideas in a safe environment… and be encouraged and supported by their co-participants to make some changes.
By offering regular short sessions online with a committed group of other learners, the IFL Community participants will hear the latest thinking from senior thought-leaders, engage in discussion around their own and others’ successes and challenges, and will in doing so increase their confidence to adopt new behaviours, and be held to account by the community members.
This process is very human, it is based significantly on social-learning which is how we learn as children, when we shape our fundamental behaviours; and it does not need to be expensive or time-consuming. Little and often is our mantra, and keeping it stimulating.
In addition participants will be speaking with others outside their organization so broadening their horizons and perspectives, which is increasingly important in today’s eco-system environment.
Practising Leadership in Session
By joining the session participants will not only be engaging with cutting-edge leadership thinking and practice, but by engaging in the small breakout discussion groups they will actively be practising key leadership skills including:
- inviting participation
- listening to understand – and not just to respond
- creating participatory environments
- sense-making
- facilitating discussion
- clarifying interactions
- observing reactions
Just One Thing
At the end of each session participants will be asked to note down Just One Thing that they plan to do, or do differently, having participated in the session.
By the end of the year of attending they should have a really valuable list of things to focus on and action to keep strengthening their leadership practice.
Community Benefits
Sustainable Leadership Community members will also get:
- Community members will get access to the full archive of presentation recordings.
- Every member will receive print copies of Developing Leaders Quarterly delivered to their own address, four times a year.
- access to all the Ideas for Leaders subscriber content,
- discounts on Ideas for Leaders paid for content such as our online programs and Leader Prompts series
- discounts on books
- as well as invitations to other, relevant third party events.
- and the series of ‘slim volume’ books we will be publishing (short books that you actually have the time to read cover-to-cover)
Cost of Membership
We are aiming this community at anyone who is ready-to-lead – so are keen to make it accessible for all.
Our current prices put the maximum cost of membership at £35 per month/£357 for an annual subscription, with discounts for multiple seats. (All prices are subject to VAT)
Further Information
If you would like to discuss this further with a member of the team at Ideas for Leaders – email us at admin@ideasforleaders.com
More information is available on these links:
Our up-coming speakers: https://uk.ideasforleaders.com/event-details/
Our current prices: