The corporate turn
Becoming a Director: from service to corporate leadership.
A half day on the whole corporate turn: the top team, statutory officers, politics, money, external challenge, place and a plan for your first hundred days.
- Level
- Explore
- Learning time
- 6 hours
- Where
- Becoming a Director
- Price
- £129
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 stepping up and directors wanting a fresh start in councils
Overview
This half-day programme follows the director's role from first principles to practical delivery, in four stages. It begins with the turn from running a service to helping run a council, drawing on Michael Watkins's seven shifts, Robert Katz's three skills and the expert trap. The corporate core follows: the top team through Katzenbach and the Top Team Development Approach, collective responsibility and the statutory officers, including the section 114 report. The third stage covers political acumen with Yates and Hartley, elections and new administrations, and the medium-term financial strategy with the Northamptonshire case. It closes outward and forward, with corporate peer challenge, Sir Michael Lyons' place-shaping, a narrative of place and a capstone set in two illustrative councils, Glanmor and Northvale.
Aims
This programme aims to develop directors who lead the whole council rather than one part of it, advise members and handle public money with honesty, welcome challenge, speak for their place, and start or restart the role with a clear plan.
In summary, you will be able to:
- Explain how the move to director changes the job in kind, and how a corporate management team and the statutory officers work together for the whole council.
- Apply political acumen and financial discipline to advise members candidly, deliver savings honestly and respond to external challenge as a learner.
- Plan your first hundred days as a director, including a narrative of place that partners recognise and a self-assessment against the sector's eight themes.
What you'll develop
Across this Explore, you will develop the ability to:
- Distinguish the habits of the expert trap from those of a corporate leader, and identify which you still rely on.
- Apply the six-step sequence for raising a concern that something may be unlawful, unaffordable or unsafe.
- Apply the six steps to advising members so that your advice is frank, timely and written, and then delivered loyally.
- Distinguish savings that stick from savings that slip, and judge whether your own directorate's savings are deliverable.
- Plan a narrative of place using the six-step sequence and the one page tool, framed in language each partner recognises.
- Plan your own first 100 days using the timeline, the eight-theme self-assessment and the six-heading plan on a page.
Built from 4 parts.
6 hours of learning.
- 01Joining the top teamThe corporate turn, collective responsibility and statutory officersBitesize3 modules
- 02Reading the politicsPolitical acumen and political transition for directorsBitesize2 modules
- 03Money and challengeThe medium-term financial strategy and external assuranceBitesize2 modules
- 04Your first 100 daysPlace, partners and the director’s narrative, with case studiesBitesize2 modules
You have reached the top of this topic
- You are hereExplore, 6 hours, £129
It is also part of these programmes: