Strategic Leadership Programme

Our Strategic Leadership Programme is one of Advance HE’s flagship development experiences for senior leaders in higher education. Designed for Pro-Vice-Chancellors, Deans, Directors and senior professional services leaders, it equips participants to lead with confidence in an era of complexity and change.

Higher education leaders today face intense pressures: financial uncertainty, regulatory demands, global competition, and the shifting expectations of students and staff. This programme enables participants not just to navigate those challenges, but to drive meaningful transformation.

Participants leave the programme with a tested strategy addressing a live institutional challenge, strengthened skills in influence and governance, and a trusted peer network of senior leaders across the UK and internationally. They gain the confidence and credibility to take on the most demanding executive roles, equipped to deliver meaningful, measurable change.

What participants say

"A great programme which has supported me to reflect on my existing leadership skills and style, develop new approaches for the future, and build my overall confidence. The expert facilitation helped us to develop a wonderful cohort - generous, kind and supportive, and I'm confident that we'll stay in touch as an ongoing support network."

Catriona Bell, Professor of Learning and Teaching Enhancement, Director of Academic Development and Learning Enhancement, Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh.

Ready to apply?

Applications are now open for Strategic Leadership Programme 21

Colleagues from Advance HE member intuitions benefit from a 25% booking discount for this programme. 

Application deadline: 26 March 2026 

Start date: 15 April 2026 Hybrid (Leeds, UK)

The primary aims of the programme are to:

• Build confidence in the power of leadership to change organisations
• To disrupt complacency about the current operating model of Higher Education with a series of strategic “what if?” questions in order to create new models
• To challenge concepts of heroic individualised leaders in favour of distributed systems leadership
• To explore and develop approaches for leading in a complex environment.

At the end of the programme, we expect that you will:

• Better understand the environment in which your leadership is being enacted
• Have tested tools and approaches for influencing the systems and culture and of your organisation and the behaviour of others within it
• Have strengthened your confidence to lead well in situations of uncertainty, complexity, and disruption
• Have built a new network of fellow sector leaders who share a common language and understanding of the environment in which you are all working and who are able to provide generous mutual support.

One-to-one coaching

Participants will have the opportunity to work with a coach over two sessions at either end of the programme. One-to-one coaching offers a confidential, non-judgemental, reflective space to consider leadership impact, embed learning, challenge unhelpful mindsets, and try new ideas on for size.