“When was the last time you did something for the first time?”... To answer that question, we don’t need to go back in time very far. From September 14th till 17th we organized Level 1 and Level 2 of our Academic Leadership Journey at the same location, something we had never done before. For four days, the great venue Open Huis in Staden – our preferred location for this programme since years – coloured ‘True Colours’: 13 participants of Level 1 and 8 participants of Level 2 fully immersed in their own Journey and exchanged experiences amongst each other.
Our Level 1 Journey focuses on “I Leader” and “Me & my team”: self-awareness and tools to deal with differences, strengthening communication skills in taking up leadership, also in tackling difficult conversations (respond instead of react), recognizing and applying different leadership styles, the importance of self-motivation, the building blocks of effective teamwork and a flavour of guerilla leadership.
Our Level 2 Journey focuses on ‘My claim & strategic narrative” and “Me & my world”. We invite participants to take the next step towards shared leadership within the academic context. We work on the difference participants want to make with their group and the strategic choices that are needed to be made. How to involve your team in that, how to establish collaborations with other parties and even how to deal with “positive politics”. A core aspect is, “take your claim” concerning taking up leadership: participants discover what difference this can make for themselves, for their group, for their context.
It was great to watch our Journeys have their effect, each of them separately, and also together. A successful experiment that we hope to repeat in the future!
