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Claire Cochrane Post 1

8 January 2017, 12:53 PM

Week 5, Activity 5 Reflecting on your course learning

Participating on this course has really opened my eyes and altered my approach to working - even the reasons for undertaking the course have been questioned.

I undertook the course initially to become a better leader in my 'old' view of the word - a better manager  - so that I could put it on my CV and impress others with my 'big boss' skills. I have been happily challenged on this but also happy to have current practices affirmed as 'good practice'.

My approach to working with people has become much more open. I used to feel very precious and closed off approaching partnership working - there is a lot of competition for funding and I have been guilty of viewing peers as part of this competition instead of potential leadership partners. I've relaxed my attitude and have consequently made some good connections and started some exciting projects - something that I may have been reluctant to do before undertaking the course.

Carol Jacklin-Jarvis Post 2 in reply to 1

18 January 2017, 8:24 AM

Hi Claire

Thanks for sharing your reflections.  We really hope this learning with be useful for your practice.  Good luck.

Carol

Kirsty Conger Post 3 in reply to 1

27 April 2017, 9:24 AM

This course has really challenged my views on leadership and leaders. It really helped to understand where we can improve our practise and understand why particular practises are effective. Moving beyond understanding leadership as an individual doing amazing things really helps to challenge everyone who works within the organisation and will help to share the burden we put upon the traditional 'leader'. The course really demonstrates the importance of looking outside our own organisations and ways of working to find new solutions to the challenges we face.  

Marta Bruschi Post 5 in reply to 3

5 May 2017, 4:41 PM

Hi Kirsty,

I agree with you , the course make you look and think outside the box of this traditional leadership. It helped me as well to understand that the leadership is the responsibility of the team and not a single person.


Nia Crouch Post 9 in reply to 3

8 June 2017, 10:53 AM

I agree with the way the course has made me think about moving away from an individual 'leader' to share the burden and i think this way more of the organisation would then share the successes too.

Ruth Leonard Post 12 in reply to 3

4 July 2017, 3:24 PM

I agree, Kirsty, with the idea of sharing more with peers and individuals from outside our organisation to make the changes that we can all see are needed. All leaders (and change agents) needs a network - and even more especially made up of those that may not naturally fall into the day-day 'warm' networks; so that we can get honest reflection and not culture blindness

Darren Smith Post 15 in reply to 3

12 February 2018, 9:26 PM

Kirsty- I am in agreement. There is real value in embracing the challenges ahead with a collective approach and more variation in traditional practices.

 

It has been time well spent studying this course.  





Victoria Richardson Post 17 in reply to 3

16 April 2018, 2:28 PM

I agree Kirsty - this course has been a good reminder that we can look outside of the charity and social services sector for inspiration and good ideas on how to be better leaders.

Julie Cooper Post 22 in reply to 3

18 October 2019, 9:39 PM

Hi Kirsty, I agree not only in your comment on the value in embracing the challenges with a collective approach but also this course has encourage me to start asking 'why' more and thinking of new or different ways that my job could be done.

Marta Bruschi Post 4 in reply to 1

5 May 2017, 4:39 PM

This course was a great experience, it opened my eyes on some aspects of leadership that you normally on day to day bases do not think about. I particularly found very interesting the chapter about transformational leadership and analysis of Kids Company leader. I tend to reflect nowadays on my work more often and try to observe the work in our organisation and improve. I guess that i take time as well to reflect over ideas and actions that I undertake.

I am looking forward to collaborative leadership course.

thank you 

Marta


Marta Bruschi Post 6 in reply to 1

5 May 2017, 4:45 PM

Hi Claire,

It is good to hear that this helped you with relationships with your peers. It is indeed much easier to share tasks and help each other. I noticed that I started to organise team meeting with my peers and we are sharing more, mostly because of my initiative and somehow , we are all more happy as we started to work on tasks together and we achieve the results much faster.



Nick Kavanagh Post 7 in reply to 6

21 May 2017, 7:27 PM

The course has helped me to think differently about leadership - and how much there is still to learn. I hope that one of the things I will do differently is to think less traditionally - about where and how we work together - about telling stories - about listening and encouraging and critiquing. 

I particularly liked the way the material considered the charity sector and used good examples.

I agree with previous comments too.

I worked on it over a longer period time than intended but in a way that was no bad thing as it made me read back over certain areas and it helped in embedding the ideas.

Thankyou for giving me this opportunity. 

Nia Crouch Post 10 in reply to 7

8 June 2017, 10:56 AM

Good point Nick, there is always more to learn. 

I think being receptive to learning and taking time out of busy schedules to learn is so important in any organisation.

Nia Crouch Post 8 in reply to 1

8 June 2017, 10:01 AM

This course has helped to reaffirm some of the things that I do naturally eg. assessing technology and spaces to make an efficient working space. It has been really useful to dedicate time to looking and analysing the office around working environments around me to see how people are communicating with each other. I will definitely be more confident to criticise systems and processes in a way to create discussion and seek improvements. The one thing I will be doing from now on is asking more questions both of myself, the people around me and the spaces. 

Ruth Leonard Post 13 in reply to 8

4 July 2017, 3:27 PM

I do think, Nia, that the one thing we have in our power is that of asking questions so like you I intend to do this more - to critically appraise things that are just done that way because they always have been. My partner is a professional artist and so has no concept of office politics and is constantly horrified by what I take for granted!

Ruth Leonard Post 11 in reply to 1

4 July 2017, 3:21 PM

I very much enjoyed this course - a lot to build on and think about. I have always felt uncomfortable with the personality/cult leadership style - though this is probably the one which is still most being propounded - and am pleased to be able to reflect on alternative ways of leading. some of the very interesting areas are around how we as leaders enable and grow 'future leaders' and working together to do so. Possibly because it is freshest in mind - I do want to think about space and how I can work with it rather than against it. I will sign up to the next course - and have recently completed a course on aspiring chief execs so am bringing a lot of learning to bear into my planned development; but also sharing with my team. Thanks for this and good luck all

Darren Smith Post 14 in reply to 1

12 February 2018, 9:16 PM

Week 5 – Activity 5

 

The main thing this course has done is to reawaken the new person perspective in me. It is so easy for initial observations and thoughts of joining an organisation to become blurred over time. So it has been really useful to deconstruct the practice element of leadership.

 

It has allowed me to take a step back     figuratively speaking, and take more time to scrutinise contributions and exchanges made by my colleagues. And in doing so, be able to reimagine or forecast the effects beyond the agenda and meeting room – and into the lives of the people we serve.

 

It has reaffirmed my belief that just like many heads are better than one, many organisations working in partnership strengthen the capacity of each organisation to be successful. Thereby giving best practice a purpose of its own; to be perpetually evaluated and evolved.




 

Claire- I also intend to employ the enhanced insight gained from this course.

Victoria Richardson Post 18 in reply to 14

16 April 2018, 2:29 PM

I agree Darren that it's easy to get sucked into the everyday practices of a place and never really question our actions. It's great that courses like this are available to challenge our thinking and practices and keep us on our toes.



Victoria Richardson Post 16 in reply to 1

16 April 2018, 2:26 PM

I think as a result of this course I will be more conscious of and think wider about leadership. I will consider more carefully not just the content of meetings I am leading but if there is something I can do to the room, the location, other contributing factors to ensure that I am getting the best for my team and out of my team.

I will consider more carefully the dynamics of personalities and how this alters their  understanding and priorities when it comes to the causes and visions of the charity. I will also put a little more consideration in how I respond to my managers and leaders.



Thank you for making this course available to us and challenging our thinking.

Peta Wilkinson Post 19 in reply to 1

24 May 2018, 4:49 PM

Hi Claire interesting engaging in the material has definitely made me think about how I engage and helped me to reflect on my role as a leader. I have definitely been using stories and informal communication alot more have you?

Jessica Meale Post 20 in reply to 1

15 June 2018, 11:23 AM

I found the course to be a great intro to leadership, especially that they use real examples which gets you thinking about your own organisation. 

I think we can get so bogged down by the day to day process of our work that it is often difficult to think outside the box.  This course has encourage me to start asking 'why' more and thinking of new and innovative ways that my job could be done. There are some big changes happening within the organisation which I believe will see a vast improvement on the well-being of staff, which I hope in turn will create a more relaxed and open working environment.  

I already feel like the organisation is open to the idea of all staff being leaders and we have done a lot of work on story telling, but again, sometimes the day to day can over shadow this.

From this point forward, I would like to challenge my colleagues more.  Often in team meetings, there are lots of niggles and people are quick to complain without actually offering any sort of solution.  I want to put that challenge back onto them, ask them for their thoughts and ideas and raise them in an environment where everyone gets the opportunity to speak and feed back. 

Greg Stenson Post 21 in reply to 20

22 October 2018, 3:56 PM

Indeed, the course has been a great intro to leadership, particularly in the non-profit sector (however comparing different approaches in the corporate has been equally fruitful). My perception before the course was that the characteristics of an individual defines leadership- now, I believe that the spaces with which leadership takes place is just as important e.g constructive criticism in an informal staff meeting and the sociomaterial aspect of leadership in practice. How I define leadership is more fluid also; specific characteristics of an individual are partly reflective of what makes a leader, however these characteristics (e.g decision making/balance objective over subjective) is not restrictive.