“A supportive environment with a sense of shared purpose to enable me to take a look from the outside in, take time out for myself and learn how to look at things through a different lens.”
Following a successful pilot, Wessex Community Action is delighted to be able to offer Voluntary Sector Chief Executives and Senior Managers a second opportunity to participate in a fully funded programme to explore and address their own personal leadership challenges by being part of an Action Learning Set.
Based on feedback received the programme, starting in November 2021, will allow Chief Executives and Senior Managers facilitated action-focussed sessions in which to explore issues, share experiences, learn together and find creative and effective solutions to the unique challenges they face.
What is Action Learning?
“Simply put, the Action Learning Set approach provides a structured way of working in small groups which can provide the discipline we often need to help us learn from what we do, and improve our practice as a result” Bond Guidance* (2004)
What will you get from Action Learning?
You will:
- Learn to problem solve and tackle one’s own challenges head on, often in innovative and different ways.
- Work with others facing similar challenges and learning from and supporting one another.
- Have the chance to present issues that, through help with peers presenting insightful questions, can be more quickly and effectively resolved
- Have the opportunity to view things through a different lens through participation in a facilitated set
- Gain enhanced personal skills, particularly in terms of managing and leading skills such as improved listening & questioning, hearing and considering opposing viewpoints and through learning from others’ similar issues)
What’s involved?
The Leadership Programme will start on 1st November with monthly ½ day (3½ - 4hrs) Action Learning Sets sessions over a period of 6 months.
Participants will be Chief Executives or Senior Managers from Wiltshire based voluntary organisation with a need and desire to seek their own solutions to (often challenging) problems. These challenges (or opportunities) will likely be work related but unique and personal to the participant, often they will be developmental in nature. Participants will be led by a skilled and experienced facilitator.
Each participant will need to commit to attending every session wherever possible. The process works best when all commit to support one another and participate fully by following a structure to help each person to reach their best outcome. Participants may end up working on one significant challenge throughout the whole series of sessions.
We expect you to experience:
- Incredible insights leading to tangible action through support from a skilled and knowledgeable facilitator
- The opportunity to create personal space to work with challenges and gain confidence to become better at supporting and leading others.
- Space and time to arrange your thoughts and galvanise actions driven from inside.
Here’s what one of our past participants said:
“It went beyond my expectations, I thought it was going to be more of the same online teaching, which fails to engage, uplift and be grounded in the reality of being within a charitable organisation, that doesn't understand the dynamics of working with Trustees and volunteers…. It certainly was not that”