Program Overview

"Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself in your way of thinking." ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Our program is divided in three main subjects securing both personal and professional growth. Firstly the Future Leader program give an understanding of the values and necessity of self leadership. The program thereafter provides a toolbox and real life practice on how to understand, lead and work in relations others. When the participants of the program have an understanding of both self leadership and leadership, they are empowered to create impact in organisations and in the world.

Abilities

We have designed the program to focus on developing abilities that are adapted to each individuals personal needs, relations and context. We do not believe that we can know or define what each participant needs to learn or develop. We believe in facilitating a learning space where they have the environment needed to challenge their own assumptions/beliefs/biases, widen their perspective and learn how to take advantage of the science of learning to change their own behavior.

There are three main abilities we aim to aid participants in developing. Resulting in three main learning outcomes:

Module overview

"Know Thyself" - Ancient Greek aphorism

To reach our goal, we first need to focus inwards to understand ourselves and our minds better. Only through understanding ourselves, we can create a foundation to build relationships with others. Combining the understanding of our self and our ability to foster healthy relationship and network around us, we can easier find our direction and create the impact we desire.

The skills and habits of mind, connected to the individual modules are translated into actionable tasks. These tasks can be trained and applied in-between the gatherings and thus contextualised in the demands of your real-life setting.

Future leaders enabling the above mentioned tasks will extend their impact outside of the program, to recognise that we are setting the mind-set and foundation for personal leadership development, rather than give you a one-and-done program that makes you a leader.

The gatherings provide the safe environment to be vulnerable and challenge yourself in your pioneer groups, while having the inspiring and supporting community of the future leaders around.

Definitions

Concepts are fundamental knowledge that is broadly applicable. By virtue of being concepts, they are knowledge; they are fundamental and applicable in the sense that they provide a springboard for action - you can do something with this knowledge.

Habits of mind are cognitive skills that trough practice come to be triggered automatically. By virtue of being "of mind" they are cognitive; because they specify practical knowledge, you can do something with this knowledge (which follows from their being "skills"); because they are "habits", they come to be applied automatically, without requiring conscious effort.

Program modules

Theory

Curriculum

Some scholars define leadership as a process, focused on achieving goals through others;

the influence of other people through different varieties of power combined with the responsibility of delivering on goals. A broad definition lays ground for different theories, approaches, and views. These include personal- , strategic- , administrative- ideological- , situational-, emotional-, authentic, transformational- , relational- , operational management , and many, many more.

In this program, however, we will not touch upon most of these theories. We view, work with and practice leadership on a practical, operational and personal level.

Knowing doing gap

Future Leaders question the whole concept of leadership as something that can be taught, as Ann Cunliffe, professor of organisation Studies in Leeds is highly critical of. She has studied MBA programs worldwide, and how they develop leaders. The results show that far too often programs and studies focus on theory, with little room for participants to adapt what they learn reflexively. Jeffrey Pfeffer, a professor in organisational behaviour at Stanford explains how this has been shown to have a negative effect on leadership development, as people learn the ideal way to lead, but rather seldom, manage to apply it when they graduate, which is shown to increase what Jeffrey calls a knowing-doing gap and apathy.The Future Leaders program is designed to close the knowing-doing gap, though emphasis on practical and contextual learning.

Contextual learning

The program is anchored in critical management studies, deep learning and complexity theory. Through personal system-two reflections, participants develop their own evolving strategies for self-leadership, leadership and navigation in complex contexts. Our focus lays on developing personal strategies through testing, challenging, learning and iterating, aligned with where you are in your life, the people you work with and the context in which you operate.

Method

The Future Leaders program uses methods adjusted to fit a flexible mindset and way of life. In Future Leaders we view leadership as a lifelong process of constant development and learning. All processes have a long term mentality, how you choose to act today will determine what impact you will have on the future.

Gathering

The program is founded on physical gatherings. Each gathering lasts for 2 whole days, and consists of different tasks, presentations, exercises and challenges.

Theory

New theory, perspectives and topics are introduced in each gathering. Key content is processed through individual and group reflection, and further broken down into practical goals and commitments, taken on by the individual

Training and Practice

All participants commit to specific training points between each gathering, directly related to self leadership, leadership and impact.

The Pioneer

The pioneers are facilitators of the program. They operate groups of six participants each, and are important role-models and mentors. The pioneers have participated in the program at least once before and are trained and recruited through a special pioneer-program.

Collaborative learning in groups

Through groups we create safe environments with trust and understanding, facilitating for the challenging of assumptions, biases and change. Another important reason for the use of groups is interpersonal learning. It is shown that people learn more effectively through relations with others, using the possibility to discuss, receive feedback and reflect openly.

Mindsets and perspectives

As we seek to solve complex problems, we need to rise above our own subjectivity. Continuous development of perspectives and mindsets, to let go of assumptions we have about the world and our self, is crucial throughout the program.

Lifelong learning perspective

As sad as it is; participation in the Future Leaders program can only last for so long. Therefore one important principle in Future Leaders is that our program should function as a stepping stone rather than a final destination or individual goal. Through the program the talents learn technique, gain self confidence, learn how to learn, how to develop others and how to develop themselves. Making the Future Leaders program a staring arena for lifelong learning.