Leading Departments is designed to engage, support and develop new Heads of Department to meet the operational and commercial challenges of leading and managing academic or service teams.
The programme consists of 4 modules. The dates of these are: 23 February, 2 – 3 March, 15 March and 24 March 2027.
Book before 30 September 2026 for an early booking discount.
Leaders of professional services and academic departments / schools face the unique challenge of balancing significant leadership responsibilities with the day-to-day considerations of leading ‘front-line’ academics and professional service staff. These can include commercial viability, conflicting priorities and managing their own, and their team’s well-being.
Successfully navigating this balance relies on skilfully working in partnership with others; whether to achieve action through influencing those in senior positions, or whether to supporting teams with practical challenges.
Leading Departments is a highly experiential programme, providing the opportunity to directly apply theory to practice and receive immediate feedback through the use of and extended simulation, contextualised to higher education.
Leading Departments follows a hybrid format, comprising an online “orientation”, followed by a two-day residential, and two further online modules, to further build and develop new skills.
About the programme
This innovative residential programme takes a highly experiential approach to exploring and practising new skills and behaviours necessary for successful department or school leadership. The programme:
Is a highly experiential programme design delivered via an ongoing business simulation customised to the higher education context – where you get to put into practice leadership theory, tools and techniques in a safe space, and receive feedback and coaching from colleagues and programme delivery team
Explores themes such as commercial viability, partnership building and balancing priorities, alongside the day to day realities of leading a department or school
Features team working, enabling programme participants to stretch and refine their leadership capabilities across a range of situations, receiving immediate feedback, coaching and valuable opportunities to rewind and try again as they progress
Who is Leading Departments for?
This innovative programme is designed for those who may have had previous experience of managing teams, but are seeking a highly applied development programme to enhance their leadership of a department, school or within professional services.
The programme is designed to be suitable for those leading an academic department, or leading an administrative or a professional service, for example, student support services, information technology service, marketing, or campus services.
Hear from Leading Department participants
In this short video, previous Leading Department participants and the delivery team talk about their experiences of the programme.
Why choose Leading Departments?
Participants benefit from the opportunity to explore the use and balance of intellectual, emotional and political intelligences in facing day-to-day challenges.
Working with a highly relevant simulation, participants quickly develop and practice key skills needed for leading a department or school, with real-time feedback provided through the simulation model.
Peer networks and the opportunity to develop strong and effective relationships through the programme cited as invaluable and of lasting benefit in terms of ongoing support and dialogue beyond the programme.
The simulated environments approach used on the programme is incredibly powerful and impactful. These environments challenge participants to confront complex, highly interwoven performance management and operational issues and explore motivation as a way of achieving their own and others’ high performance.
This programme is unlike any other I have experienced. The opportunity to learn a technique, practice it in a very realistic scenario, receive instant feedback, and refine until you are confident with it is like gold-dust.
Jennifer Stergiou, Head of Research Operations and Reporting, University of Leeds.
Booking Information
Book before 30 September 2026 for an early booking discount.
Event type
Open Programme
Event summary
Through a unique simulation environment Leading Departments is designed to engage, support and develop new Heads of Department to meet the operational and commercial challenges of leading and managing academic or service teams.
Event times
Event time
1
Event time
Tue 23 Feb 2027 – Wed 24 Mar 2027
Event prices
Leading Departments 26/27 – Member Ticket
Member Ticket
£3120
Leading Departments 26/27 – Early Booking Member Ticket
Member Ticket (Early Bird)
£2965
Leading Departments 26/27 – Non-member Ticket
Non-Member ticket
£4150
Leading Departments 26/27 – Early Booking Non-member Ticket
Share and celebrate your achievements with digitally recognised learning
For much of our portfolio for 2026-27 the learning of event attendees and programme participants and conference, symposia and colloquia presenters will be digitally recognised.
This makes it easy for you to share and celebrate your achievements by adding them to your email signature or including them in your social profiles including X, LinkedIn and Facebook. Your learning certificates can also be easily verified and downloaded as a pdf.
Rachel Witton is a Senior Consultant, Leadership & Management at Advance HE, and joined Advance HE in 2020. Rachel is an experienced trainer and facilitator, and combines this with deep expertise in leadership in higher education from a career of working with senior leaders across a broad range of higher education providers globally.
Paul has worked for many years as a trainer, facilitator and role player across a wide range of sectors including Financial Services, Retail, Manufacturing, Pharmaceuticals, the NHS and Higher Education. He specialises in Leadership, Management, and Communication Skills and delivers consultancy and training in areas such as interview and recruitment skills, unconscious bias, appraisals, feedback, coaching, conflict resolution, sales and negotiation.
