Since the Leadership programme I have been promoted to Professor via the Academic Leadership route and have been appointed the new Head of School of Design as the result of an extensive external-facing process.  What I learned in the programme helped me put two strong applications together and excel in my interviews. More importantly, it’s helping me now in my role as Head of School to build a solid leadership around four top core values: Fairness, Respect, Transparency and Empowerment of those who I lead.

Maria Lonsdale, Head of School of Design.

Our University’s Strategic Plan sets out an ambitious roadmap, which needs the contribution of skilled and confident leaders at every level. As a result, we are committed to delivering a flexible, high-quality range of continuous professional development to support all of our community leaders. Our leadership development provision is underpinned by the Leadership Excellence Behaviours Framework.

Leading the Digital Transformation agenda will be one of the University’s major priorities over the next few years and to make that a success we recognise we need to develop leaders with the right skills across the University. In partnership with JISC, ODPL are piloting a “Digital Leadership Programme” this summer with a small group of leaders from across the University. We will use the learning from this programme to inform how we help develop leaders in digital leadership in the future. 

Jisc Digital Leaders Programme:

We are currently not recruiting for this programme. 

Please find more information about this pilot programme below. Become a digitally-informed and empowered leader and learn how to help your teams respond more effectively to technology-driven change.

The online digital leaders programme will equip you with the tools, knowledge, and skills to:

• Become a more effective digital leader through your own personal and professional development
• Explore how organisations can engage more effectively with the digital technology at their disposal – at both strategic and operational levels
• Discover and reflect on how digital technology is changing the way your organisation operates – creating new leadership challenges and strategic opportunities
• Learn to lead, manage and influence digitally-driven change across organisations, departments, services and teams

Strategic challenges across the higher education need embedded, organisation-wide digital capability in order to successfully implement technology-driven responses.

Digitally-informed and empowered leaders not only embrace the innovation, collaboration and efficiency gains these bring to their organisation, but also create an environment where others can fully exploit and embed them in their practice.

The Jisc Digital Leaders Programme has been designed for anyone occupying (or aspiring to occupy) decision-making, leadership, or management positions within higher education organisations – regardless of discipline, function or department.  It will be particularly valuable for those in less directly-technical roles, for example senior management teams, leaders across professional and operational services, research, and academic management.

“Strong leadership and a clear vision are essential traits that underpin successful transformation” – Learning and teaching reimagined: a new dawn for higher education

The online programme consists of a range of sessions, incorporating activities, discussion, synchronous and asynchronous. The sessions will help leaders explore their own digital practice, their organisational digital aspirations, and how to lead, manage and influence digitally-driven change with their teams.

Programme

The programme consists of six live online sessions supported by some offline asynchronous activities.

Session one – Become a more effective digital leader through your own personal and professional development

In this session we consider what we mean by digital leadership and start to understand our own digital practices.

The session will introduce the programme and presenters and the aims and objectives and what participants will learn over the six sessions.

In the session we will start to focus on digital leadership, framing it, exploring what we understand by digital leadership, and what does it mean in the context of higher education

We will go through some exercises to enable participants to understand their own practice, by mapping your personal digital practice and the implications of your map and other others .

Session two – Explore how organisations can engage with digital technology

In this session we build on the personal mapping we undertook in the first session and start thinking about organisational practices and they engage with digital technology.

The session will start to help participants to understand organisational digital practice.

We will start the process of mapping organisational digital practice and the implications of this map in the context of digital leadership.

In the session we will start to reflect on the different challenges organisations are facing.

Session three – Explore how organisations can engage more effectively with digital technology

In this session we will explore how digital leaders can facilitate and enable organisations to engage more effectively with the digital technology at their disposal at both strategic and operational levels.

We shall consider strategy and digital practice, as well as strategic change and implementation.

In the session we will reflect on the process of operationalising a digital strategy and the drivers for digital change. We will explore the barriers to change and enablers of change.

We will discover the potential of how we can anchor change.

We will consider how digital leadership is critical in implementing the digital change required by organisations.

Session four – Learn to lead and manage digitally-driven change across organisations, departments, services, and teams

In this session we will start to learn how to lead and manage digitally-driven change and how you will need to build the digital capability of your teams to enable this.

We will consider how we can make the change happen and the different kinds of methods and strategies we can use to drive change in our teams.

In the sessions we will reflect on digital capability and what this means for digital transformation.

We will look at our own digital capabilities and start to reflect on our own practices in the context of digital transformation and change.

We will look at digital capabilities at the University of Leeds and how in building digital capability: it’s not just more training.

Session five – Influencing digitally-driven change across organisations, departments, services and teams

In this session we will reflect on the lessons of the pandemic and the forced digitally-driven change that happened across higher education.

In the session we will reflect on what the pandemic told us. What have we learnt about digital change? What was the impact on students, staff and ways of working.

In the session we will consider how we need to build social connectivity in a digital environment and the limitations and affordances of digital practices.

We will look at the assumptions that are made about digital change and the impact of this. With these considerations we will review the potential challenges and reflect on the practices required to ensure equity and fairness.

We will look at innovation, making space for innovation and mainstreaming innovation.

Session six – Summary and reflection

In this session we will bring together the content and learning from the previous five sessions and explore the connections and start to build a roadmap to change and transformation.

In the session we will review what we have done and participants will reflect on their experiences and bring what they have learnt.

We will undertake an exercise to join the dots and understand the connections between the different topics and sessions.

We will start to build a roadmap to change and transformation.

It is worth reiterating, this is a pilot programme which we are currently not recruiting to. We will be using the learning to inform how we help develop leaders in digital leadership in the future.

If you have any questions about the above or our leadership development in general please contact leadership@leeds.ac.uk.

Webpage last updated: 20/08/21 | Maintained by the LPP Team