Here at Cranfield Executive Development, we work hard to ensure that our leadership development programmes consistently deliver the value that businesses both need and expect. We get great feedback from course participants, many of whom are only too happy to tell us about the difference attending Cranfield has made within their business and to their personal outlook and career development.

In a recent article in Developing Leaders, my colleagues Susan Vinnicombe, Hilary Harris and I discuss how organisations can successfully become more inclusive when it comes to promoting talented women into senior roles.

A generation ago when successful people reached the top of their business they were eyeing retirement. Golf and spa retreats. Now we’re working longer and reaching senior positions earlier in our lives, that’s not looking very attractive.

Standard leadership development programmes stay above the shoulders, and that’s the problem. They’re often focused primarily on the cognitive and a hard set of frameworks and matrices. People are loaded up with content and sent back into the boardroom, groggy from the weight of it.

There are many practical reasons why we spend our working lives in offices, meeting and conference rooms, but it doesn’t mean it’s doing us any good.

I was chatting to a fellow runner recently, while on our regular 5km route, about my work in helping individuals switch jobs. They expressed the frustration they experience when their organisation changes their role from underneath them. This led me to think about transitions coaching being useful for individuals to navigate organisational change, not just those undertaking key career moves.

Business success is a cycle that justifies itself. Having the skills and determination to deliver success is all that seems important on the way up. But when you reach the top as a CEO or entrepreneur, it can start to seem more like a trap - a bubble of habits and behaviours that’s holding you back.

In February 2019, we invited HR and L&D professionals responsible for investing in the development of their organisations' high potential employees to join us at Chelsea Football Club to explore Cranfield's new General Management portfolio, meet our tutors, and learn how to align the different development pathways with the specific needs and challenges embedded within their own organisational context. 

February 2019 saw the launch event of Cranfield's refreshed General Management portfolio at Chelsea Football Club. 50 HR and L&D professionals came together to explore the new courses, meet the tutors, discuss how to invest in the development of their organisations' high potential employees and learn how to align the different development pathways with the specific needs and challenges embedded within their own organisational context. 

In workplaces around the world, great talent is getting harder and harder to find. The latest statistics show that, as technology continues to transform organisations and skills-needs are changing rapidly, global talent shortages are reaching new heights.