The Alexandra Programme is a practical, leadership development experience designed to equip current leaders with the mindset, skills, and confidence to lead people and areas of work effectively at Lancaster.

Delivered over three days across four months, the programme explores the human side of leadership—helping you build trust, inspire others, and lead through change, while reflecting on your own leadership identity and impact.

The programme aims to enable you to:

• Increase your confidence in leading people and teams
• Enhance your communication and relationship-building skills
• Build greater self-awareness and clarity of your leadership purpose
• Gain practical tools for motivating others and managing change
• Create a personalised leadership development plan

Who the Programme is For

This programme is aimed at leaders and managers in general or middle management roles across academic and professional services areas.

Typically, participants will:

• Have responsibility for people, projects, or operational delivery
• Be leading teams and looking to strengthen their leadership approach
• Be seeking to build confidence and capability in leading others
• Be preparing for progression into more senior roles

Programme Structure

Day 1: Understanding Leadership and Your Role

You will:

• Explore contemporary leadership models in a Lancaster and wider sector context
• Reflect on your leadership identity, values, and role expectations
• Understand the balance between management and leadership

Day 2: Building Relationships, Trust and Communication

You will:

• Develop skills in active listening, feedback, and difficult conversations
• Learn how to foster psychological safety and inclusive team cultures
• Explore how trust is built and maintained

Day 3: Leading with Purpose and Through Change

You will:

• Understand what motivates your teams and how to align goals
• Explore how to lead others through change and uncertainty
• Create a personal leadership action plan

You will also be offered two 1:1 coaching sessions with an external coach to support your learning and development.

Commitment and Line Manager Support

To gain maximum value, commitment from both participants and line managers is essential.

• Participants are expected to:
• Attend all sessions in full
• Actively engage in learning and reflection
• Apply learning in the workplace between sessions

Line managers are expected to:

• Agree participation as a PDR development priority
• Provide protected time to attend all sessions
• Support application of learning through regular conversations and opportunities in the role

This shared commitment is key to ensuring learning translates into meaningful impact.

Application

For programme dates please see the OD Website.

To express your interest in this programme contact OD.

Programme Overview

This four-day programme is designed for academic and professional services staff in, or preparing for, senior leadership roles within a university setting. It focuses on developing strategic thinking, compassionate leadership, and the ability to navigate complex, high-stakes challenges with confidence and integrity.

The programme aims to enable you to:

• Critically evaluate leadership approaches relevant to complex, evolving, and high-stake university contexts.
• Apply strategic and systems thinking to influence decisions and outcomes at an institutional and cross functional level.
• Demonstrate compassionate and ethical leadership, fostering psychological safety, particularly when leading through uncertainty and change.
• Lead change, innovation, and risk with confidence, using appropriate frameworks, tools, and influencing skills.
• Reflect on and enhance your personal leadership practice, identifying strategies for ongoing learning and professional development.
• Articulate a clear leadership contribution beyond your current role, strengthening impact and supporting longer-term career progression.
• Build and sustain a trusted peer network to support collaborative problem-solving and continued leadership development.

Programme Structure

Day 1: Orientation and Strategic Leadership Foundations

• Welcome and Programme Introduction
• Understanding the transition to senior leadership
• Strategic thinking in a University context
• Systems thinking and long-term visioning

Day 2: Leading with Compassion and Tackling Complexity

• Compassionate leadership and psychological safety
• Navigating “wicked problems” in higher education
• Collaborative leadership and cross-functional influence

Day 3: Change, Risk and Influence

• Change management frameworks and tools
• Leading innovation and managing risk
• Conflict resolution, negotiation, and influencing skills

Day 4: Immersive Simulation – “The Senior Leadership Challenge”

• Overview: Day 4 is a full-day, scenario-based simulation where participants step into the role of a senior leadership team responding to a complex, unfolding organisation-wide challenge. This immersive experience is designed to test and integrate the skills developed over the previous three days.

Each workshop will be followed by a self-facilitated action learning set, where you will bring your own leadership challenges. With your peers you will use your critical thinking and questioning skills to come up with solutions for you to implement back in your workplace.

As part of the programme you will also be able to access three 1:1 coaching sessions with one of Lancaster's external coaches to enable you to consolidate learning and work through leadership challenges.

Participants

This programme is designed for aspiring and established leaders within academic and professional services roles who are preparing to step into, or are already operating at, senior leadership level. Typically, participants will be in Grade 8 or above roles, such as Principal Investigators or Heads of Professional Services, with significant responsibility for people, projects, or strategic initiatives.

It is particularly suited to individuals who are looking to broaden their institutional impact, strengthen their strategic influence, and prepare for progression into more senior leadership roles.

To ensure maximum impact, participation requires a high level of personal commitment and active organisational support. Participants must have a clear, developmental rationale for attending, agreed in advance with their line manager and formally reflected within their Performance and Development Review (PDR).

Line managers play a critical role in enabling success and are expected to actively support participants throughout the programme. This includes agreeing protected time to fully engage with all elements of the programme, encouraging ongoing reflection, and creating opportunities to apply learning in the workplace.

Participants are expected to take ownership of their development by engaging fully in all sessions, contributing to peer learning, and committing to sustained reflective practice. Crucially, they must be willing to translate insights into action, applying their learning to real organisational challenges and demonstrating visible impact within their role.

Application

For programme dates please see the OD Website.

To express your interest in this programme contact OD.

There is a comprehensive range of resources available in the Management Resources - self-directed study section.

‌Lancaster has fully embraced a coaching and mentoring culture with a variety of options and opportunities to include coaching and mentoring into all aspects of University life. Most OD development programmes have a coaching element embedded and there are many skills workshops and a certificate in coaching to support these initiatives at all levels.

The Carter Programme is a one-day reflective and experiential learning journey for academic, research and professional services staff who want to deepen self-awareness and strengthen personal effectiveness. It offers a structured opportunity to explore who you are, what drives you, and the experiences that have shaped how you behave and interact with others.​

During the programme you will explore

• Emotional Intelligence: The key components (self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, social skills) and how they influence workplace relationships, communication and decision-making.​

• Motivations & Values: Through guided reflection, identify your core values and intrinsic motivators to better understand what energises you and how this connects to your role and goals.​

• Personal Resilience: Practical strategies for building resilience, managing stress and maintaining wellbeing amid change and challenge.​

• Impact of Experience: Reflect on formative life and career experiences and how they shape your perspectives, behaviours and responses to others.​

Following the in-person workshop, you'll complete a 1:1 coaching session with an external coach to develop your personal learning aims.​

What you'll gain

• Greater self-awareness and emotional literacy

• Improved interpersonal effectiveness

• Enhanced resilience and adaptability

• Clearer sense of personal purpose and direction

• A practical development plan for continued growth

• Hands-on experience of reflective activities you can apply immediately​

Join us to build a strong foundation for your personal and professional development.

Application

For programme dates please see the OD Website.

To express your interest in this programme contact OD.

Coaching Style Conversations are increasingly recognised as a powerful way to strengthen relationships, support colleagues, and encourage meaningful change. This full-day workshop provides the opportunity to develop a coaching approach to everyday conversations, helping you and your team members achieve greater clarity, ownership, and accountability.

Throughout the day, you will explore the principles of coaching and how they differ from mentoring, management, or traditional leadership interactions. You will practise recognised coaching models, such as GROW, CLEAR, and OSKAR, gaining confidence in structuring purposeful conversations that lead to real outcomes. Practical activities, reflection, and group discussions will give you the chance to apply skills such as active listening, insightful questioning, constructive feedback, and creating psychological safety.

The workshop is suitable for staff at all levels across the University. Whether you are an academic leading research projects, a professional services colleague managing a team, or someone seeking to develop your ability to support peers and students more effectively. No prior coaching experience is required.

By the end of the session, you will:

• Recognise the value of coaching style conversations in leadership and teamwork.

• Be able to initiate and structure purposeful dialogues.

• Develop confidence in creating a safe, open, and accountable environment.

• Leave with practical tools and a personalised action plan.

Join us to strengthen your skills, build more collaborative working relationships, and bring the benefits of coaching into your daily practice at Lancaster University.

Workshop dates can be found on the All Staff Development Webpages.

This programme is the starting point for your induction as a leader or people manager at Lancaster.

It is appropriate for leaders and managers with different levels of experience and works as a refresher for existing managers.

The workshops will:

• Describe the role and responsibilities of people management at Lancaster

• Highlight the importance of the role of a leader to the University achieving its strategic objectives

• Signpost to additional support and development opportunities

• Help you reflection on your individual development needs and your personal management priorities

This Programme is made up of two sessions and it is recommended that you attend both sessions.

Workshop 1:

• Setting the Context of Leading/Being a People Manager at Lancaster, our values and the context of Higher Education

• People Management (What You Need to Know)

• People and Culture Plan (Values-Led Leadership)

Workshop 2:

• People Development (PDR)

• Staff Wellbeing

Dates

For programme dates please see the OD Website.

These resources are bite-sized and are made up of the following activities:

• Reading - short guides and articles
• Listening and Watching - videos, webinars and podcasts
• Practical activities and tools to work through

They are designed to be worked through in sequential order and are supported by a reflective workbook that you can download and complete as a means of capturing your own learning, reflections and actions. Alternatively, you can complete individual activities that are most relevant to your development needs.

Providing researchers with the space to reflect on, consider and develop their personal research leadership development plan. Drawing on a range of experiential and interactive activities, the workshop adopts a values- and strengths-based approach to help researchers identify how developing effective research leadership can benefit them within their personal research environment.

When

For dates please see the OD academic and researcher webpage.

The Professoriate – Vision – Themed sharing practice events on current institutional priorities

Who for? All Professors

Lead by the Senior Leadership Team including Vice-Chancellor, Pro-Vice-Chancellors and other guests.

Come together with other senior members of the institution and share thoughts on the key strategic priorities. Each session will be hosted by a member of the senior leadership team, giving them a chance to share with you the latest priorities for their areas. With time for discussion and idea sharing this is an opportunity for you to explore how you might increase your influence and impact.

For dates please see the OD academic and researcher webpage.

Time management for Academics

The workshop will provide attendees with a space to reflect on, consider and develop time management strategies for themselves. Drawing on a range of experiential and interactive activities, the workshop adopts a values- and strengths-based approach to help attendees identify how developing effective time management can benefit them within their personal research environment.

While the exact content of the workshop will partly depend on the needs of attendees on the day, we aim to ensure that after attending the workshop, attendees will:

• Understand they are not alone among academics with their concerns and challenges that they face in managing their time.
• Understand the three different components of time management and strategies for each (i.e., prioritisation, execution, procrastination).
• Identify and begin to develop key time management skills (e.g., the link between goal setting and scheduling, tracking and reviewing, prioritisation, pacing, overcoming procrastination, being assertive)
• Develop confidence and self-efficacy in themselves through improved time management.
• Collaboratively network with peers to facilitate their time management and productivity.

For dates please see the OD academic and researcher webpage.

Building on the success of the Gaining Academic Promotions programme held last year, we are delighted to announce the programme will run again this year, under the new name Preparing for Promotion - Academic, Research and Teaching Staff. This programme is aimed at giving academic, research and teaching staff the best chance of achieving academic promotion.

This programme covers all stages of academic career progression. With strong input from the Athena Swan, Race Equality Charter and EDI teams, and the Faculty Offices, this programme has been designed to ensure academic promotion is available to all staff, and to encourage staff that have been underrepresented in the past to put forward academic promotion cases.

The programme will consist of a welcome by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Professor Steve Bradley, an Institutional update by Phill Dixon, Director of People and Organisational Effectiveness, presentations on the promotions criteria, case studies and faculty input.

Please visit the Preparing for Promotion webpage to view the full programme.

Please contact OD if you have any queries.

The Staff Development Portal acts as a hub for wider, institutional development.