Research commissioned by the Centre for Excellence in Leadership (CEL) has found that whilst further education sector leaders understand the importance of sustainable development and believe that the sector has a responsibility to help realise a more sustainable way of life, many feel that they are on a steep learning curve.
CEL's research report, "Leadership for sustainability: Making sustainable development a reality for leaders", was published at a consultation seminar today. The report is based on two research projects conducted for CEL, one by Forum for the Future, and the other by a team from the Education for Sustainability Programme at London South Bank University (LSBU). Two key findings were that:
* distributed leadership, self-awareness and adaptability in leadership style are three of the key qualities for effective leadership for sustainability
* sector leadership development needs to encompass systems thinking, futures thinking and management of uncertainty.
Research participants and other stakeholders who attended the CEL's Leadership for Sustainability conference in May 2007 had the opportunity to review the interim research report. Representatives from four colleges involved in one or both of the research projects presented short case studies about their experiences of responding to sustainable development.
CEL's sustainable development strategy, "Towards leadership for sustainability", will be presented at the House of Lords on 15 November 2007. The purpose of the consultation seminar today was to give a small number of 'leaders for sustainability' the chance to review and help develop CEL's proposals for the strategy.
CEL's programme director for sustainability, Conrad Benefield, said, "We have spent two years developing our strategy, which is strongly founded upon the experiences, knowledge and needs of leaders and organisations in the FE sector. That we have a group of senior leaders here today, during one of the busiest weeks of the FE calendar, bears testament to the enthusiasm generated by this project, and we appreciate their valuable input in helping shape our strategy."
Lynne Sedgmore, chief executive of CEL, said, "The research projects and conference workshops have given us a clearer understanding of the relationships between sustainable development and leadership, and what we can do to help leaders embed sustainable development within their organisations. We intend to work with other sector agencies, use our influence and share good practice in order to make progress in this important area. Sustainability has not been an integral part of leadership development in the past, but we will look at how we can introduce and embed it in all our programmes in future."
NOTES TO EDITORS
1. CEL's research report, "Leadership for sustainability: Making sustainable development a reality for leaders", is available to download here
2. "Leadership for sustainability: The sustainable development
challenge for leaders in further education", CEL's report of the conference on 16 May 2007, is available to download here
3. The four colleges that presented at CEL's Leadership for
Sustainability conference on 16 May 2007 were Pershore Group of Colleges, Leicester College, Guildford College and Southwark College.
The conference was hosted by CEL and Forum for the Future.
About CEL
The Centre for Excellence in Leadership (CEL) was launched in October 2003, as a key national agency within the Success for All initiative.
CEL has a crucial role to play in developing organisational leadership in the further education system to anticipate, influence and respond to government policy initiatives, including, for example, the 2006 white paper, "Further Education: Raising Skills, Improving Life Chances".
CEL's remit is to foster and support leadership improvement, reform, transformation, sustainability and quality improvement. It serves the existing and future leaders of all providers within the further education system, including FE colleges, training and work-based learning providers, adult and community providers, offender learning, specialist colleges and voluntary organisations.
Following the publication of the white paper, CEL is involved in the introduction of a mandatory principal's qualification and the development of the quality improvement strategy for further education.
The white paper also heralded an expansion of CEL's diversity and equality remit.
CEL now operates through a charitable trust formed by its operating company on 1 April 2006.
To date, more than 1,160 different organisations and 25,800 individual participants have engaged with CEL. No fewer than 15 participants from recent cohorts of CEL's Senior leadership development programme (SLDP) have been promoted to the role of principal.
CONTACT
Lindsay Baugh: (07736) 246 697 or (01707) 392 552
Email: lindsay.baugh@howardsgate.co.uk