Becoming a Director

This module examines the shift from leading a service to helping lead a whole council. It draws on Marshall Goldsmith's warning about old habits, Michael Watkins's seven shifts to enterprise leadership and Robert Katz's three skills, sets out the five roles directors hold at once, contrasts the expert trap with corporate leadership, and uses the eight themes of the Solace and LGA senior leadership framework for honest self-reflection.

This module explores how a corporate management team works and how directors carry shared decisions with integrity. It draws on Katzenbach's myth of the top team, Hambrick and Mason's upper echelons theory, Lencioni's first team, Hackman and Wageman on team conditions, four common failure modes and Avanti's Top Team Development Approach, which links individual, team and organisational development.

This module examines how directors work with the chief executive and the statutory officers: the head of paid service, the section 151 officer, the monitoring officer and, in Wales, the head of democratic services. It covers their legal duties, including the section 114 report, what directors owe each role, how to raise a concern well, and how to support and challenge these officers without undermining their independence.

This module explores the political interface at director level: reading interests, power and timing without taking sides. It draws on Yates and Hartley's capabilities of political astuteness, Baddeley and James's owl, fox, donkey and sheep model, the overlap of political and managerial leadership, six steps to advising members well and the LGA's November 2025 guidance on member-officer protocols.

This module examines how directors lead through elections, new administrations and new structures. It covers the pre-election period and publicity codes, the transition cycle, briefing a new administration, the May 2027 local elections in Wales, combined authorities and their mayors, the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026, and working with several groups under no overall control, closing with a practical transition checklist.

This module sets out the director's part in the council's finances. It covers the legal duty to set a balanced budget, what a medium-term financial strategy contains, exceptional financial support in England for 2026 to 2027, the director's year in the budget cycle, savings that stick versus savings that slip, the Northamptonshire County Council case and Max Caller's inspection, and early warning signs.

This module explores why directors seek out challenge before it arrives uninvited. It covers the main sources of assurance, the LGA's corporate peer challenge and its five core components, the different performance regimes in England and Wales, including the Local Government and Elections (Wales) Act 2021, defensive and learning responses to findings, benchmarking well, and six practical routes for inviting challenge.

This module looks at a director's role beyond the directorate. It covers Sir Michael Lyons' idea of place-shaping, Huish and Milliner's verbs of partnership leadership, the director as convenor and ambassador of place, growth first and inclusive growth, why people follow a story before a strategy, a six-step sequence for building a narrative of place, and speaking partners' organisational languages.

This capstone brings the move into corporate leadership together in a practical plan for the first 100 days as a director. It uses Michael Watkins' transition framework, a timeline from before day one to day 100, two illustrative composite cases at Cyngor Sir Glanmor and Northvale District Council seen through earlier frameworks, a self-assessment against the eight Solace and LGA themes, and a 100-day plan template.