Leadership Conversations

Leadership Conversations 2022

Below we set out the dates and themes for our Conversations through to November. Some Conversations are marked “Fellows only” because attendance is restricted to Leadership Fellows. Others are marked “Fellows+” because we are very happy to welcome Fellows’ nominees, such as a member of their top team or a key business partner.

Participants in Conversations from June 2022

Here is an up-to-date list of participants joining us for Leadership Conversations from June to November 2022.

Details are also are available on the Agenda page for each Conversation.

 

Leadership Themes for 2023:

Our 2023 programme is organised around 2 core themes:

Wisdom and Personal Growth

Providing a space for a deeper authentic enquiry into the character, purpose and ambition of our leadership.

Practical Wisdom For These Times

Providing an opportunity to share practical experience, expertise and learning around key contemporary issues.

To read more about these new themes please click here.

 

Leadership Conversation
Leader to Leader Exchanges via Zoom
23rd Sept, 21st Oct, 25th Nov, 16th Dec, 6th Jan, 3rd Feb - From 12.00pm - 2pm
Leading in these times
This is a unique opportunity to be in a longitudinal learning conversation with Fellow leaders over a period of 6 months. A forum in which we openly share and honestly examine our own responses as leaders to events and experiences as they unfold over time, allowing us each to benefit from the longer term wisdom that emerges as we track our true trajectory though events, rather than being swayed by more immediate peaks and troughs. Fellows only
Fee: £295 for the 6 session series
See the Agenda
Leadership Conversation
81
The 'Character' of an Organisation - and how it is different from 'culture'
From 6.00pm on Thursday 30th June 2022 until 3.30pm on Friday 1st July
The character of our organisations has been tested in recent years, irreversible courses of action have been taken that shape our identity. Building character is not a fixed state for us as individuals, nor is it for our organisations it is rather a life-long process of becoming that gets seen most starkly when tested.
How do we define character and differentiate it from culture?
One-night Leadership Conversation fee: £745
See the Agenda
Leadership Conversation
82
What can we learn from working with Government?
From 10.00am until 4.30pm on Monday September 5th 2022
In the course of many of our recent Conversations, a consistent theme has been that of people’s experience of and encounters with different arms of government. Clearly the role of the State has had to shift radically in response to the pandemic and this has introduced very different pressures into the system. What has become very apparent is that old ways of getting things done are no longer working. It can seem to be harder to get decisions and harder to locate where decisions need to be made. Parameters and guidance seem to be constantly changing. Power too may be shifting within the system, as well as morale, energy and accountability….
This Conversation will take the form of a genuine enquiry. What are we learning about our dealings with government in different sectors and with our different perspectives? Are there any common themes that we might use to inform how we approach our own engagement with diverse State entities? What have we been learning as we go? How have we adapted our approaches and mindsets? What is working, not working? What might we do differently as a result of these insights?
One-day Leadership Conversation fee: £450
See the Agenda
Leadership Conversation
83
Working collaboratively across boundaries
From 6.00pm on Monday 19th September 2022 until 3.30pm on Tuesday 20th
This Conversation is for those of us who find ourselves managing complex cross-boundary relationships and projects – which is probably most of us nowadays!! So many of our organisational challenges and inefficiencies come from misunderstandings, misinterpretations or lack of clarity around boundary issues – often leading to various forms of entrenchment, poor collaboration and conflict. We will explore different types of boundaries – structural, hierarchical, cultural, technological, demographic, psychological - and will draw on research and experience to unlock practical wisdom about what it really takes from us as leaders to optimise the massive potential of working creatively and generatively across our different ‘worlds’ - rather than sinking back into them, which of course, especially under pressure, we are all inclined to do.
One-night Leadership Conversation fee: £745
See the Agenda
Leadership Conversation
84
Organisations as Conversations via Zoom
From 1.00pm until 7.00pm on Wednesday September 21st 2022
“In language we build our own identities, our relationships with others, the countries that we live in, the companies that we have and the values that we hold dear. With language we generate life.” Fernando Flores
This conversation will look at the extraordinary power we possess as leaders to shape both our own and others’ experience of reality through language. It will aim to help us be more alert to the power of language and more attentive, purposeful, and often more subtle, in our interventions. Fellows only.
One-day remote Leadership Conversation fee: £290
See the Agenda
Leadership Conversation
85
Wisdom in Leadership
From 6.00pm on Sunday 16th October 2022 until 11.15am on Wednesday 19th
One of the clearest messages from our conversations with Fellows was how much they valued the three day Conversations – the quality and depth that is possible when we really settle into the unique atmosphere of St Georges House. This exclusive Fellows retreat will run once a year for people who want to take this quality time and space, together with group of like-minded leadership peers, to reflect more deeply on how it is for you right now as a leader – in terms of focus, energy, connection and contribution. It is for those times in our leadership journey when we sense something different is being called for from us: a sense of stepping up or stepping into something beyond ‘business as usual’ - maybe a sense of something not being as it should in the world, or wanting to explore new possibilities.
Three-night Leadership Conversation fee: £1325
See the Agenda
Leadership Conversation
86
Moving through the stages of Leadership Maturity
From 6.00pm on Monday 14th November 2022 until 11.15am on Wednesday 16th
This two-night Conversation provides a unique space to enquire into the fascinating topic of what ‘maturity’ means in leadership and how it manifests itself. It will be in part a personal reflection and self enquiry – how have we each grown and matured as leaders, what has shaped us personally, what we are being invited into in this stage of our growth? It will be in part an exploration of our role in how we develop and engender leadership maturity in those around us – people who work for us, people we work with. It will be in part a systemic enquiry – are our organisational cultures and practices really valuing and encouraging maturity in our leaders? - or do they even sometimes do the opposite?
Two-night Leadership Conversation fee: £995
See the Agenda
Leadership Conversation
87
How change is changing - a generational lens
From 10.00am until 4.30pm on Wednesday November 30th 2022
This Conversation will be an action enquiry into the nature of ‘change’ – or rather how we view it as leaders, particularly from a generational lens. We will take some time before the conversation to explore and question our own assumptions that underlie how we are experiencing and interpreting ‘change’ today, talking to people who may see the world very differently to ourselves. During the conversation we will then seek to challenge each other and creatively explore whether there are different ways of viewing and understanding ‘change’ that may liberate us to lead in more fruitful and creative ways.
One-day Leadership Conversation fee: £450
See the Agenda
Leadership Conversation
88
Leading in the 'New People Agenda'
From 6.00pm on Thursday 19th January 2023 until 4.00pm on Friday 20th
As we write up this proposed title, in May 2022, for a Conversation in almost a year’s time, we do so in a context where there is a pervasive and undeniable sense that the ‘human agenda’ in our organisations has been irreversibly shifted as a result of the pandemic - most obviously by the emergence of hybrid working, but also a more subtle sense that we accessed different priorities and ways of connecting at work that we do not want to lose as a ‘post-pandemic’ reality starts to consolidate. Alongside this there are profounder shifts in generational expectations and attitudes to working life as well as powerful economic and political headwinds all impacting our organisations and therefore our leadership. There is a risk as leaders that we just ‘suck it all up’ and carry on. But this is probably unsustainable…. This Conversation provides a much needed space to explore how we may need to adjust our own expectations, and the expectations of others, about our role as leaders in the ‘people context’ we find ourselves in today? (Which is already likely to have moved on apace from the climate and context in which we are writing this!)
One-night Leadership Conversation fee: £745
See the Agenda
Leadership Conversation
89
Making Sustainability Second Nature in our Leadership
From 10.00am until 4.30pm on Tuesday 7th February 2023
One theme in our conversations with Leaders is a recurring sense of dissatisfaction that we are not ‘doing enough’ to engender environmental sustainability into our way of life in our organisations and, indeed, in our own personal leadership. How do we get beyond good intentions, words and platitudes into transformed will, behaviour and daily decision-making. Our purpose on this Conversation is to immerse ourselves honestly in this dissatisfaction, to mine our own experience of it, reflect deeply on what lies behind it and to challenge ourselves radically about what is possible if we can shift our mindsets. A particular theme will be how we develop and embed a ‘sustainability mindset’ that informs the very pulse of our ways of working – recognising that many of the deeply embedded patterns, habits routines of life in our organisations were formed from historical attitudes that were very different to what is needed today.
One-day Leadership Conversation fee: £450
See the Agenda
Leadership Conversation
90
Listening and Leading with Wisdom in Diversity
From 6.00pm on Wednesday 22nd March 2023 until 11.30am on Friday 24th
At our recent Fellows dinner this theme came to the fore with passion, concern and a desire to explore... The focus on belonging, diversity and inclusion is one of the great shifts in institutional life over the last decade – and yet there is still a growing and deepening sense that ‘we are not getting this right’. On one hand there are people in minority groupings disappointed and frustrated that good words lead to little change in behaviour. On another there are people in majority groupings disappointed and frustrated that, however they try, they cannot be free of perceptions of dominance and bias. Both can lead to a crippling wariness and self-consciousness. Moreover the ‘boundary’ labels we use to describe and sensitise ourselves to inclusion/exclusion can be counter productive and create unforeseen in-group/out-group dynamics. More positively, there is recognition of the value that can be released into organisational decisions and activities by embracing more neurodiversity and human ‘difference’. How do we get this right? Is it more about listening than enacting? This 2 night Conversation will create a unique opportunity to go to depth on this theme, to explore diversity at a wisdom level, beyond the ‘field of right and wrong’. Is there a better way?
Two-night Leadership Conversation fee: £995
Leadership Conversation
91
Leading with Wisdom on The Board
From 10.00am until 4.30pm on Thursday 20th April 2023
This Conversation seeks to provide a space for us to share our experience and insight of the changing dynamics of leadership on the Board – for those of us who work on Boards, or want to work on them and also for those of us that work with or through them. In these times of complexity, uncertainty and rapid change, there is now so much focus and sophistication in supporting the quality of leadership, engagement and dialogue within our organisations, but to what extent is this also true of the life of our Boards? Is there more we should be doing to renew and realign the way we lead on the Board, given the scale of change we are now facing into? In this conversation we will share experiences, insights and concerns from our experience on and with the Board in order to discern any significant themes and priorities emerging. What is the wisdom that is really needed on the Board in these times and how could we be enhancing our effectiveness in the light of this? As well as sharing the wisdom from our own experience we also hope to invite an input from an expert in contemporary Board dynamics to provoke our thinking in response to this question. Fellows only
One-day Leadership Conversation fee: £450
Leadership Conversation
92
Finding Stillness
From 6.00pm on Tuesday 2nd May 2023 until 11.30am on Friday 5th
We are the first generation to see and act on a global scale, with all the complex interactions, interconnections and multiple impacts that come with that – at pace. How do we find the centre of gravity and inner compass to navigate through this potentially constant overwhelm?

This 3 night conversation is designed as something of a personal leadership retreat to help us get the very best from the unique space at St George’s. It will both give us time and space to explore significant questions we are facing right now in our leadership and also seek to equip us with foundational practices that will enable us to maintain a greater sense of peace, presence and equanimity as leaders whatever life may send your way. Fellows +
Three-night Leadership Conversation fee: £1325
Leadership Conversation
93
Standing in the ‘discomfort’ of leadership – together?
From 6.00pm on Thursday 8th June 2023 until 4.00pm on Friday 9th
This topic came to the fore in conversations at our recent Fellows dinner gathering, the first since the pandemic, when we are discussing what we would most like to have our next Conversation on…. It has always been a truth of leadership that it requires us to step out of our comfort zone, but there is something in the current context that seems to have taken this to the next level. That is partly due to the level of complexity and unpredictability we seem now to be facing into and a growing sense that there are almost no comfortable decisions to be made these days. Our role as leaders of course is to stand in the discomfort, take the uncomfortable decisions at the necessary time and hold for the reverberations of these – without ‘leaking’ our own emotional reactions in the process. This in itself is a constant work and something we will explore in this Conversation, because there is no doubt that expectations on us have grown, particularly in relation to big issues such as mental health, diversity, sustainability, whilst economic and commercial forces seem to be getting simultaneously harsher… What does it really take to sustain our own focus, balance and equanimity in the midst of this? Fellows +
One-night Leadership Conversation fee: £745
Leadership Conversation
94
Ethics in Leadership
From 6.00pm on Monday 26th June 2023 until 4.00pm on Tuesday 27th
This Conversation was first held in 2021. It is an offering at the heart of leadership and one that Fellows have asked to be repeated.
At the core of this Conversation is the question, “How do I find and retain my ethical focus in my life and my work and so live at peace with myself?” Leading in any system has us face ethical dilemmas, choices that cause a level of inner conflict. Choices that cause us to question, what I should do, what is called for, when to speak up, when to stay silent, what kind of person I am becoming, what I really want to embody as a leader. Fellows +
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