What is the Senior Leader Accelerator?

The Durham Senior Leader Accelerator is a practical, accelerated leadership development programme for managers and leaders moving forward in their careers.

The programme explores the core modules for business success – leadership, strategy, finance and technology in business.  It combines skills development with one-to-one coaching, enabling participants to explore their individual strengths and to contextualise their learning.

What is Leadership Coaching?

Coaching is a skilled business conversation that enables the person being coached to come up with their own options and to feel empowered to move forward with a clear sense of direction. In practice, this means working alongside a professional guide, as part of a collaborative, structured process, enabling you to talk about yourself, your team and the business in complete confidence.

The coach is a “critical friend”, providing a trusted, independent and non-judgemental space to explore what might be holding you back, to explore how to navigate ways forward and to kindly challenge along the way.  You'll leave every session with clarity, focus and a clear next step towards impactful change.

The benefits of coaching alongside a taught programme

The Senior Leader Accelerator gives you access to exceptional academic thinking, frameworks and practical tools for you to apply in the workplace.  Coaching enhances the experience further, providing the time and space to apply the learning to your individual context and to embed this within your role.

Working alongside a trusted coach around the modules, you'll be supported to:

• Become more self-aware of your leadership style
• Build the confidence to lead with intent as you apply new thinking
• Step back from the day-to-day to think and lead more strategically
• Turn learning into commercial, measurable impact

The real benefit of coaching lasts well beyond the programme itself. It challenges you to think differently, to look at situations from new perspectives and to broaden how you approach problems. These are skills that you carry with you long after the last session, shaping how you show up as a leader.

Contact us

Contact us at exec.ed@durham.ac.uk to find out more.