Elev8
Lifting leaders of education
Elev8 is an innovative, online, research-informed vertical development programme for leaders of education.
Integrating 1:1 coaching, group work, self-directed learning and facilitated peer support over 11 months, it maps out a personalised pathway to leadership growth and maturity for leaders in schools, MATs, FE, HE and organisations providing education services.
Traditional leadership development programmes are designed to provide us with new knowledge and skills. This is ‘horizontal’ development. It’s important, but just knowing more isn’t enough to build our capacity for leading people in complexity.
Vertical development builds wisdom. It’s expansive, growing our capacity for understanding. It’s about recognising our habits and assumptions, and learning how they sometimes disrupt our intentions. It’s about seeing things differently and moving from conventional dispositions to more systemic ones. And its about how we relate to ourselves, to others, and to the systems in which we operate.
Vertical development programmes enable greater psychological flexibility, improving resilience and broadening our ability to respond successfully to messy challenges. They are focused on transforming our leadership practice ...
Elev8 is for you if …
You’re at the top of your game as a senior leader in education, yet you sometimes feel like you’re navigating without a compass or a map.
You’re well trained and highly experienced, but nothing’s prepared you to build on shifting sands.
You have such important work to do but so little information or time.
The novelty of the challenges you now face and the complexity of the solutions they require often feel overwhelming.
You’re preparing for a big strategic change or career move and need some help gaining perspective and a sense of direction.
You feel drawn to work on your capacity for leadership and achieve a more balanced lifestyle.
You want to develop your leadership practice in a group context with peers and build your professional network.
You know you need something different from your professional development … a new form of support that lifts you and provides you with the elevated perspective you need to make sense of your work.
How the Elev8 programme works …
Your journey will begin with the Leadership Development Profile, a tool that reveals your primary way of meaning-making - your ‘action logic’ -and provides guidance for development to the next stages.
1:1 coaching - 3 x 60 min sessions to explore your individual growth needs and work on what may be disrupting your effectiveness
Group work - 6 x 120 min group sessions (3 x Professional Learning Groups + 3 x Deliberately Developmental Groups) to reflect together on the experience of leadership, learning and group dynamics
Focus webinars - 2 x 120 min content-focused discussions around some of the theories around vertical development, systems thinking, educational leadership and complexity
Your development will be further enhanced with access to a rich variety of content at a basecamp for learning, through guided journaling and via peer engagement
CLICK HERE to see the brochure for Elev8 2024-25
CLICK HERE for more on vertical development
“We thought students were disengaging, but it turned out that staff were just unable to see their engagement. Recent changes to policy and practice meant they didn’t have the time, and were encouraged to focus elsewhere. Thanks to Ben’s consultancy work with everyone in our community, we learned this just in time and were able to respond before they really did disengage.”
Chair of Governors, secondary school, Suffolk