Skills for effective leadership

  • Zoom
  • 12/03/2026
  • 10:00 am
  • 2.5 hours
Book this event now

Julie Allen has combined her 20+ years’ experience working in international education with her training from the Tavistock and her coaching experience to design an intensive short leadership development course specifically for UKCISA members. The course consists of: 

  • Three highly interactive online sessions of 2.5 hours packed with useful content 

  • The opportunity to share your experience and work closely in a small group across three months 

  • short practical tasks or activities between sessions 

  • two optional group check-ins between sessions to support the group’s learning 

  • post-course group session to consolidate and ensure continued development 

Who should attend? 

This unique three-part course is for UKCISA members who want to work on their own professional self-development. The course is aimed at more experienced advisers and managers. Members who have been working in the international education space for some time and have already attended much UKCISA training will find the course of particular benefit.  

If you would like to work in a small dedicated group of international education colleagues, enhance your powers of observation to improve your effectiveness and impact at work, explore and better understand team dynamics and improve how you manage your tasks and your workload, this unique course is for you. 

This course is for experienced advisers and managers who would like to improve their leadership skills. 

Suitable for: all staff roles 

Minimum experience level: UKCISA members who are experienced advisers or managers

 

Session one: Observation: How to see better and increase your impact at work 

Thursday 12 March 10.00-12.30

Did you know that of all the senses, sight takes up most of the space in the brain?  

For most of us with the good fortune to be sighted, we are looking and seeing all the time and, as a result, many of us take it for granted. But what if we could see more when we look? What if we could learn how to look and see more effectively? What if we could harness this under-rated skill to be a more effective adviser, colleague, manager or leader?  

The first workshop introduces the concept of leadership. It provides an opportunity to reflect on the habits and the power of sight and hone your observation skills which you can apply immediately in your day-to-day work with students, colleagues and staff you manage.

The first workshop will help you to: 

  • Understand how the brain processes what we see 

  • Develop new seeing habits that will improve your effectiveness at work  

  • Consider how to increase your own visibility at work – and the work of your team 

  • Be more aware of how students and colleagues see differently from ourselves 

 

Session 2: Teamwork: how to develop communicative, collaborative teams 

Thursday 16 April 10.00-12.30

Are you part of a team at work? Do you lead a team? Do you enjoy being part of a team or do you prefer doing your own thing? How does your team get along with others in your organisation? We all feel differently about the teams we are part of and the teams that we work with. This makes the workplace interesting, stimulating and fun but it can also make it challenging or difficult. With so many teams working hybrid, the situation is even more complex. 

This second workshop offers UKCISA members an opportunity to explore team communication, group dynamics, reflect on your personal experience of working in teams and learn tools to enhance your role as team member and/or team leader. 

This course will help you to: 

  • Understand why some teams are effective while others aren’t  

  • Discover easy-to-use tools to make teamwork more effective in your role as member or leader 

  • Apply learning from your own experience of teamwork 

  • Feel more confident about tackling challenging team behaviours

 

Session 3: Fulfilling Tasks: how to find focus and satisfaction in your role 

Thursday 7 May 10.00-12.30

Do you have so many tasks on your to-do list that you feel confused about what you are actually supposed to be doing at work?  
Do you have so much to do that it becomes impossible to prioritise? 
Do you get the sense that staff in other roles don’t full appreciate the complexity of the tasks you have to complete (and why they take as long as they do?) 

The workplace can be a frustrating place! 

This third workshop offers UKCISA members an opportunity to delve into their day-to-day working practices and uncover ways to manage their workload more effectively. Through discussion and case studies, members will identify more (and less) useful approaches to their work, ways to help others understand their work and ways to regain satisfaction of a job well done. 

This course will help you to: 

  • Understand why you – or staff you manage – get lost or ‘off task’ (and how to find the way back) 

  • Identify the tasks at work that really matter (and ones that don’t) 

  • Become more effective at prioritising tasks and managing your workload 

  • Become more skilled at articulating the work that you do to help your manager or other teams support you in your role

Trainers

  1. Julie Allen Image

    Julie Allen

    Julie Allen was Director of Member Services and Policy at UKCISA for almost ten years until October 2023. She is an ICF accredited coach, trainer and organisation consultant working across public, private and third sectors. She is a Visiting Lecturer on two Masters programmes at the Tavistock Clinic in London. She also collaborates on a series of projects including the Highly Relational podcast with Team Development expert, Robert Digings.

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