Leading the whole
Director and Chief Executive Programme.
A flagship spanning the two biggest steps in a public service career, from head of service to director and from director to chief executive, each a change in kind.
- Level
- Flagship
- Learning time
- 18 hours
- Where
- Strategy and the future
- Price
- £459
When you step up to a higher level, what you paid in the last 12 months for lower-level courses inside the bigger course comes off its price, in proportion to how much of each is inside it, whichever topic it's from. Courses at the same or a lower level don't give credit against each other. A Focus course or above always costs at least £15. Read the full terms
Certificate of Completion, or Certificate of Completion and Assessment with a short assessment
Overview and Outcomes.
Who It's For
Heads of service, assistant directors, directors and aspiring chief executives in public services
Overview
This flagship moves in four parts. It begins with the corporate turn: Watkins's seven shifts to enterprise leadership, collective responsibility in the top team, the statutory officers and the section 114 report, political acumen with Yates and Hartley, and the director's share of the medium-term financial strategy. It then steps up to the top job: the four faces of the chief executive, the head of paid service in law, the partnership with the leader through Svara's work, and lessons from Liverpool, Thurrock and Croydon. The third part is the wider system: Katzenbach's top team myth, culture as what the top tolerates, grip and assurance, place-shaping after Lyons, and complex adaptive systems from Buurtzorg to Greater Manchester. Finally comes lasting the course: financial resilience, recovery rather than endurance, and leaving well.
Aims
This programme aims to develop leaders who can make the change in kind from service to corporate leadership and from director to chief executive: leading the whole council and its place, building a top team that works as one, keeping statutory roles and finances sound, and sustaining themselves over years at the top.
In summary, you will be able to:
- Explain how the director and chief executive roles differ from service leadership, including the statutory officers, the head of paid service and the partnership with the leader.
- Assess your top team, culture, sources of assurance and medium-term finances, and plan how to lead the whole council and its place with partners you do not manage.
- Plan your first hundred days as a director or chief executive, with a personal support system that sustains your judgement, integrity and health over time.
What you'll develop
Through the programme, you will be able to:
- Explain why the move from head of service to director is a change in kind, using Goldsmith's insight, Watkins's seven shifts and Katz's three skills.
- Use the Yates and Hartley capabilities and the owl, fox, donkey and sheep model to read people and situations issue by issue.
- Recognise the early warning signs of financial difficulty, drawing on the Northamptonshire case, and set out how you would raise them early.
- Plan a relationship charter with your leader or chair covering priorities, boundaries, contact, no surprises, disagreement and review.
- Plan a fair sequence for inheriting a top team and an operating rhythm that separates running today from shaping tomorrow.
- Apply the verbs of partnership leadership and the six steps for convening a place, and audit your diary for place time.
- Use simple rules, enabling constraints and the notice, amplify, dampen cycle to shape conditions rather than dictate outcomes.
- Plan your first 100 days on a page, covering relationships, statutory assurance, the top team and how you will stay well.
Built from 13 parts.
18 hours of learning.
- 01Joining the top teamThe corporate turn, collective responsibility and statutory officersBitesize · Becoming a Director3 modules
- 02Reading the politicsPolitical acumen and political transition for directorsBitesize · Becoming a Director2 modules
- 03Money and challengeThe medium-term financial strategy and external assuranceBitesize · Becoming a Director2 modules
- 04Your first 100 daysPlace, partners and the director’s narrative, with case studiesBitesize · Becoming a Director2 modules
- 05Head of paid serviceThe move to chief executive, the statutory role and the leaderBitesize · Becoming a Chief Executive3 modules
- 06Team, culture and gripBuilding the top team, culture and assuranceBitesize · Becoming a Chief Executive2 modules
- 07Place and accountabilityThe chief executive and the place, appointment and appraisalBitesize · Becoming a Chief Executive2 modules
- 08Lasting the courseSustaining yourself, and your first 100 daysBitesize · Becoming a Chief Executive2 modules
- 09Seeing the bigger pictureStrategic thinking and environmental scanningBitesize · Strategic Thinking2 modules
- 10Trust at the heartCulture change, mergers and psychological safetyBitesize · Culture in Organisations2 modules
- 11At the top tableSenior leadership team developmentBitesize · Team Development2 modules
- 12Leading what no one controlsComplex adaptive systems and systems leadersBitesize · Systems Leadership2 modules
- 13Built to lastFinancial resilience, with case studiesBitesize · Finance for Non Finance Professionals2 modules