Sustainable Leadership Community

COMING SOON…

In the coming months, Ideas for Leaders will be launching our online Sustainable Leadership community for mid-to-senior level managers.

We see that mid-level managers are:

often the least well supported cohort in organisations, from a leadership development perspective,
and yet have some of the most challenging people-management issues to face, both implementing strategy on the ground with those who report to them, while also interacting with those who design the strategy that they report to.

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.

The Sustainable Leadership Community

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 25-minutes of provocation from an expert, with a short Q&A, followed by 45-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 will 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 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 organisation so broadening their horizons and perspectives, which is increasingly important in today’s eco-system environment.

Just One Rule

Our one rule is that no selling, pitching or overt marketing can be done in the events.

OK – the other rule is be open, welcoming and engaged with other members.

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.

The cost of membership will be around £20 per month/£200 for an annual subscription for the first Founding 150 members, and then rising to just £30 per month/£300 for an annual subscription.

LET US KNOW

If you think this sounds like a community you would like to be part of please add your name to this form to ensure you get sent further information when we open the membership portal.

If you are a leadership development professional who thinks the IfL Sustainable Leadership Community might be ideal for a cohort of managers in your organisation – let us know at info@ideasforleaders.com

In the meantime please explore the content we have on the Ideas for Leaders website, and on our sister magazine Developing Leaders Quarterly, to get a flavour of the kind of people we work with, and the topics we cover.

We look forward to you joining the community.