Leadership Circles

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Education and Entertainment Services

Leadership Circles The use of Leadership Circles is based on a new group coaching model that was started in Cadiz Holdings in South Africa around 12 years ago. It is now being used in the UK, first at Aviva Health and most recently, since 2012 at the University of Southampton. It brings together diverse leaders from across departments and teams. They give participants a broader understanding of their individual leadership impact and their wider role and an opportunity to meet and work with other staff collaboratively. This approach draws on a range of approaches including Transactional Analysis, the Johari window and Nancy Kline’s ‘Time to Think’ process. Senior managers come together to discuss the leadership issues that they are facing in a confidential environment. Members are encouraged to focus on actively listening to each other, ensuring everyone’s voice is equally valued, without interrupting, and drawing on the expertise within the group to solve their own challenges together. The results have been written about, for example in the CIPD magazine People Management (September 3rd 2015), and have been remarkable. Eve Turner Limited is running a workshop on the approach at the Coaching at Work conference in London on July 6th 2016. Participants describe being calmer, more relaxed, changing their behaviour, allowing them time to think and helping them achieve practical outcomes. The Leadership circles at the University of Southampton have become part of a change programme now touching more than a hundred staff through a “pyramid” scheme where previous participants now run new groups. After some training, staff who have been members of leadership circles themselves get some training in how to facilitate them. They then go on to run a circle themselves, pairing up with someone from another area (in the university the pairing is a member of academic staff and a member from the professional services staff as traditionally they have not always worked together). This pyramid scheme, which means staff support other staff year-on-year, with numbers involved growing over time, is unique. Another benefit is that this approach ensures the cost to the organization is limited as external support is at minimal cost.