Inclusive leadership programme

Programme overview

In the first year of this programme, the Academy will support teams of four awardees in 12 different engineering organisations in the industry. The teams are made up of people at different levels of seniority across their organisation. They include a mid-career leader, a senior leader, an early-career leader and a human resources leader.

 

Programme phases and design

The design of this programme champions ongoing and supported learning because our scoping showed that inclusive habits and behaviours are built up over time through the actions we take. The programme is broken down into two phases: the Learn phase and the Act phase.

• Learn phase - In the Learn phase, each engineering leader in your team will receive high-quality, engaging inclusive leadership training to develop their own understanding of inclusion and how to embed it in the workplace. This training will be tailored to different seniorities of leaders.
• Act phase - During the Act phase the teams are supported by an external expert EDI provider to design, deliver and evaluate an inclusion-focussed project, bespoke to the needs of their engineering organisation, over a 12-month period. The project will support them to gain valuable experience in delivering an initiative to increase the inclusivity of their organisation’s culture or the products/services their organisation delivers.

 

Inclusive leadership programme Cohort 1

Programme benefits

During this time, all awardees will have access to one or more of the following support mechanisms to ensure strong support whilst embedding their learning through the delivery of their EDI project:

• Reciprocal mentoring with a colleague in their own awardee team (when two mentors, typically one more senior than the other, enter an equal partnership with one another to exchange perspectives and guidance)
• Sponsorship from the senior leader within their awardee team (when a senior leader advocates for a more junior leader, to raise their profile in ways that they wouldn’t be able to do by themselves and creates opportunities for them to influence)
• Top-quality coaching with professional psychologists (to support participants have some 1:1 time to secure their learning and explore emotive or challenging concepts in a safe space)
• Peer-to-peer workshops (to connect with peers and embed learning through discussion, sharing of ideas and constructive challenge).

There will also be many opportunities for the teams to meet with awardees in different engineering organisations, discuss challenges, share learnings and support each other, so this is a fantastic opportunity to build professional networks both inside and outside of their organisation.

As Awardees progress through the programme, the Academy and our partners will support them and their fellow awardees to build your profile as a role model of inclusive leadership within the engineering industry. This may take the form of support with producing thought pieces or blogs, accessing speaker opportunities, or networking at events where you can meet with influential Academy Fellows and other stakeholders.

Scoping and consultation phase 

The Academy carried out an in-depth four-month period of scoping and consultation in 2022 to inform this initiative. There are four written outputs that have informed the Academy’s approach to Pilot delivery, as listed below: 

• Scoping and consultation phase summary report that includes the Academy’s recommended approach to Pilot delivery 
• Logic model and theory of change narrative for Pilot programme
• Participatory systems mapping to explore the role of leadership in making the engineering industry more inclusive
• Literature review on the impacts of different interventions on increasing inclusive practice and behaviours of leaders in organisations

Output documents

  Related programmes and resources