Leadership Capabilities for the 21st Century
The Leadership Lab is designed to equip leaders with the mindset, insight, and practices to transform systems and deliver value for businesses, the society they exist within, and the environment they depend upon. | |
Dates21–22 October 2024 Duration, format and locationTwo-day professional development residential seminar; Cambridge, UK  | FeeThe course fee includes accommodation and meals. Discounts may be available for multiple delegates from the same organisation or participants from not-for-profits or developing countries. Find out more |
The Leadership Lab focuses on the leadership capabilities we need to deliver the future we want.
This two-day Leadership Lab explores how the Cambridge Leadership capabilities for the 21st century Framework can help leaders deliver sustainable impact. It identifies ways to catalyse and drive change, collaborate with others to build engagement and support, and provides opportunities to engage with and learn from like-minded peers.
This workshop, conducted at one of Cambridge’s historic Madingley Hall, will combine presentations from experts, interactive sessions, and illustrative case study presentations, to enable you to create sustainability impact through purposeful leadership in your context.
What topics will the workshops cover?
- CISL's Leadership capabilities for the 21st century Framework Development
- Leadership in complexity
- Leading collaboration on a global scale
- Emerging sustainability leadership dilemmas
- Leadership and innovation
- Creating and leading high performing teams
- Leading in your context
- Leadership mindsets, mindtraps and narratives for change
What is the Cambridge Leadership capabilities for the 21st century Framework?
This framework addresses the limitations that undermine the capacity of dominant leadership approaches from transforming systems. Instead, it promotes the significance of purpose, the relational nature of leadership expressed as four principles, and the importance of place and context to identify leadership characteristics for a sustainable future.
Applying this framework identifies currently under-represented mindsets and capabilities that can help leaders elevate their impact and shape the future we want by tackling global issues.
Download our report: Leadership capabilities for the 21st century.
Who should attend the Lab?
The Leadership Lab focuses on the leadership capacity to deliver the future we want. It targets individuals with over 5 years of leadership experience, and will be especially beneficial for senior leaders with strategic or sustainability portfolios looking to advance their leadership acumen.
“Transformational change is inevitable, but the outcome of that change is in our hands. And if there is one factor that will determine whether the transition will ultimately prove positive or negative, it is the leadership we create to drive and shape it.”
Lindsay Hooper, CEO, CISL
Benefits of attending
During this highly interactive programme you will explore emerging capabilities leaders require in light of the challenges and opportunities produced by economic, social and environmental forces. You will have opportunities to engage in problem-based learning exercises with the goal of deepening your understanding of and ability to respond to key leadership challenges. You will hear from thought leaders and expert practitioners, engage with peers through group activities and peer-to-peer coaching, and use journaling to reflect and process different perspectives on leadership as they relate to your context. In addition to fresh insights and knowledge, you will leave the programme with a personal leadership plan to help you put this into practice.
By participating, you will:
- Explore emerging sustainability leadership capabilities required to manage risks and leverage opportunities to benefit people, nature, and planet.
- Share insights into key dilemmas facing those leading transformative change, and discuss how new leadership capabilities can help navigate these
- Reflect together on purpose, values and worldviews, and what it looks like to align personal purpose with your professional and wider societal goals
- Experiment with strategies and tools for influencing and inspiring others
- Explore what it looks like to nurture collective capacity for change
- Participate in building resilience and capacity to adapt
- Engage with problem-based learning exercises with the goal of deepening understanding of and solutions to some of the key leadership challenges. These may include long terms vs short term thinking, misalignment between personal purpose and organisational purpose; and resistance to change or a clash in diverse values.
Watch our recent Q&A webinar with the Lab's faculty
We hosted a webinar introducing the faculty for the lab and the Cambridge Leadership for a Sustainability Future Framework. Watch here to understand more about the context of the lab and hear from ZoëArden, Gillian Secrett and Ian Ellison about some of the leadership dilemmas the lab will tackle. The panel addressed questions from attendees throughout the webinar. These ranged from problems people had encountered to questions about the role of AI and queries about what to expect from the 2-day residential workshops. Watch the video below to get an understanding of how this lab could benefit you.
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Faculty and Contributors
Keynote: Tony Juniper CBE
Chair of Natural England
Tony is a prominent environmental figure and has been active in the defence of Nature for 40 years. He has led major organisations, run global campaigns, written many books and advised at the highest levels of government. He began his career as an ornithologist and went on to join Friends of the Earth, initially leading the tropical rainforest campaign and later appointed as Executive Director and Vice Chair of Friends of the Earth International.
Alex Robinson
CEO of Hubbub
Alex is CEO of Hubbub, a creative charity that inspires action that’s good for the environment, and for everyone. Hubbub's campaigns support individuals, households and communities to make a difference. By helping everyone get involved and building mainstream support for action on climate, Hubbub helps businesses and government to make positive choices too. Hubbub was named 'Charity of the Year' by Charity Times in 2023. After a successful career as an entrepreneur in the music industry, Alex turned to his passion for environmental and social issues, joining Hubbub in 2017. He thereby joined a very small group of people who have worked with both Snoop Dogg and KPMG.
Celine Crawford
Business Strategist at Arup, ex-Chairperson at Transport Research Arena (Ireland)
Celine Crawford is a C-Suite strategist, adviser, facilitator, connector, leader, mentor and solutionist with 30+ years' international business experience, including 10+ years living and working in Silicon Valley, California. She has a complete understanding of, and enjoyment in, leading business transformation and developing actionable strategies that support behavioural change and business growth. Celine is an expert stakeholder manager, facilitator and communicator. She is presently a Business Strategist at ARUP.
Kim Wylie
Vice President of People at Builder.ai (ex-Farfetch, ex-Google)
Kim Wylie is the VP of People at Builder.ai She previously spent 12 years at Google and 5 years at Farfetch in a variety of leadership roles across Learning and Development, Digital and Culture Transformation, Change Management and People / HR roles. She is a Certified Clifton Strengths Coach, and Neuroleadership Institute 'Brain-Based' Coach, and practises a human-centred leadership style, informed by principles of Design Thinking, Positive Psychology, inclusion, wellbeing, and neuroscience.
Jon Khoo
Environmental Policy Lead at The LEGO Group, Chair of Trustees at Surfers Against Sewage
Jon Khoo has over a decade's experience working in sustainability and responsible business. He is the Environmental Policy Lead at the LEGO Group, with a focus on the UN Plastics Treaty, climate policy strategy and the circular economy. Previous to this, Jon was the Head of Sustainability (Europe & Asia) at flooring manufacturer, Interface, where he was part of the award-winning Net-Works partnership with the Zoological Society of London and nylon yarn manufacturer Aquafil and worked on the commercialisation of the company’s Climate Take Back strategy. Jon is also the current Chair of Trustees for UK environmental charity Surfers Against Sewage who focus their campaigning on water quality and plastic pollution.
Sharon Varney
Director - S P A C E for Learning Ltd
Dr Sharon Varney specialises in leadership and organisational development for a complex and changing world; a consultant, author and educator relentlessly pushing the leading edge of practice. Her passion is creating space for learning and developing clarity in messy and ambiguous change situations. Working at a strategic level, Sharon helps to create more effective organisations, but operates at a human level, helping people manage personal change and transition. She has expertise working as a senior manager in large, global organisations across multiple sectors over the course of decades.
ZoëArden
Fellow, CISL; former Director SustainAbility, former Director of Sustainability, MSL Group
Zoë is an independent leadership and communications specialist who has supported more than 3000 business leaders globally to develop their leadership capability and maximise their positive influence and impact. She is passionate about supporting existing and aspiring leaders to strengthen their capability, confidence, courage and commitment to lead change.
Ian Ellison
Associate Director, CISL; former Programme Director for Sustainability at Jaguar Land Rover and Corporate Responsibility Director at Airbus/BAE Systems
Ian supports CISL executive, graduate and online training programmes. Formerly he led Sustainability in Product Development with Jaguar Land Rover. At JLR Ian and his team supported the development of large-scale circular economy projects, the use of science to drive sustainable product development and business strategy culminating in the development of JLRs first electric vehicle.
Gillian Secrett
Director of Leadership and Culture, CISL, Board Member of the International Leadership Association
Experienced CEO and Board Director, Gillian is now focussed on researching and developing leadership capabilities in others, to drive value for shareholders, stakeholders and ultimately long term wellbeing for people and planet, through strategic integration of sustainable solutions. Dedicated to helping leaders and aspiring leaders take a “deeply human” approach to leadership, to build and align personal purpose and goals with organisational purpose and strategy. To enable leaders to unlock energy and clarity of direction, build resilience and deliver results through high performance teams amidst a context of ambiguity and complexity.
Lou Drake
Fellow and Programme Director, CISL
Louise (Lou) is a Programme Director in the postgraduate education team at CISL, where she is a content lead for the Master’s in Sustainability Leadership. She also contributes to cross-organisational thought leadership and research specifically on the topic of leadership capabilities for a sustainable and just future.