December 2025 News Bulletin

Please see our latest news and events below

🎄 Looking Ahead Together: A Christmas Message from Our Director

As we enter the Christmas holiday period, marking the end of one year and the beginning of the new, it allows me to provide a message of thanks and goodwill to the Academy’s leadership community  and wider health & care staff.

The season’s focus on kindness, generosity, inner thought, and positive action encourage people to pause, appreciate things, resolve conflicts and work toward the common good for others, moving from personal introspection to outward acts of compassion and community building. These are equally applicable in your personal life, with family and friends, as to your professional and leadership roles.

All my colleagues involved with the Leadership Academy extend our seasonal greetings to you, your family and teams. We look forward to working with you in the New Year where we all have the privilege of commissioning/ providing/ improving/ managing and leading services – there to help others.

Very best wishes, Clive and all the Leadership Academy team     

HLM Appraisal Hub refreshed and new Support Hub launched

The HLM Appraisal Hub has been refreshed with a cleaner, more modern look, updating the colour palette to NHS Blues and Neutrals. The platform itself is unchanged, so users can continue to access it as usual.

A brand-new HLM Support Hub is also now live on a new platform, allowing instant updates and easier access to the latest guidance. Improvements include tailored user journeys, quick-navigation anchor buttons, streamlined user guides, and new resources such as a Facilitator Toolkit and HLM 360 development materials.

The Support Hub is accessible via the Appraisal Hub banner and is optimised for all devices.

To find out more please visit our website news page

Introducing Our New Future-Fit Leadership Programme 2026

We’re excited to announce a new cohort of Future-Fit Leadership—a dynamic series of six standalone masterclasses created to inspire fresh thinking, share proven best practices, and explore the possibilities that lie ahead.

Delivered as focused micro-learning sessions, each masterclass equips participants with practical ideas they can immediately apply within their own practice and with their teams.

The Programme:

• Session 1: Career Agility in the NHS—Thriving in a Changing Landscape
  Tuesday 27 January 2026, 12.30pm–2.00pm
• Session 2: Adaptive Leadership Mindset
  Thursday 26 February 2026, 12.30pm–2.00pm
• Session 3: Psychological Maturity—The Next Step in High-Performance Leadership
  Monday 23 March 2026, 12.30pm–2.00pm
• Session 4: AI and Leadership—Harnessing Technology Without Losing the Human Touch
  Tuesday 28 April 2026, 12.30pm–2.00pm
• Session 5: Building Smarter Teams—The Power of Skills-Based Work
  Wednesday 20 May 2026, 12.30pm–2.00pm
• Session 6: Innovating From Within—How Leaders Can Unlock Intrapreneurial Thinking
  Thursday 11 June 2026, 12.30pm–2.00pm

For full programme details and booking information, please see information pack below:

Mentor Development Programme: Closing 25th January 2026.

A refreshed Mentor Development Programme is launching in 2026, focusing on mentoring as a driver of personal growth and organisational change. The virtual course explores self-awareness, social justice, system understanding and practical mentoring skills.

The programme includes three mandatory half-day online sessions:

• 26 March 2026, 9:30am–12:30pm
• 23 April 2026, 9:30am–12:30pm
• 21 May 2026, 9:30am–12:30pm

Applications close 25 January 2026 and places are limited. Open to both new and experienced mentors.

Please visit our website news page for more information and how to apply.

The Mary Seacole Local Programme – Applications Open – Cohort 30: Closing 11th January 2026

The nationally recognised Mary Seacole Programme is now accepting applications for its next cohort, offering leadership development for first-time or aspiring healthcare leaders. The six-month course blends online learning with virtual workshops, focusing on practical, workplace-based leadership skills.

Programme features:

• Six-month blended programme
• 100 hours of online study via virtual campus
• 6.5 days of virtual workshops
• 12 modules covering leadership fundamentals, HR, finance, recruitment and appraisal
• One written reflective assignment

Funding

• Applicants from organisations within the NELA partnership are eligible for fully funded places.
• Applicants from organisations outside the partnership are required to pay a £150 fee.

To find out more about the Mary Seacole programme and how to apply please visit our website news page

Quiet Leadership Programme Opens for February 2026

A four-week Quiet Leadership Programme begins on 9 February 2026, offering NHS staff an alternative approach to leadership rooted in everyday actions, humility and trust. Delivered through weekly 60-minute Zoom sessions, the programme explores leadership as a social movement rather than a formal role.

Led by Julian Stodd, author of The Quiet Leadership Guidebook, participants will engage in guided reflection, storytelling, and conversations about the impact of small, intentional actions. The programme aims to strengthen resilience, empathy, authenticity and awareness of how personal behaviours shape culture—an approach well-suited to the NHS as it navigates increasing complexity and digital transformation.

Session dates:

• 9 February 2026
• 16 February 2026
• 23 February 2026
• 2 March 2026

Participants register once (for the 9 February session) and are automatically enrolled in all four sessions. Attendance at all sessions is expected.

To find out more about Quiet Leadership and book your place please visit our events page

Events:

(some events may be waiting list only)

Lunch and Learn

Lunch and Learn. Leading Well: Building a culture of care in the NHS

Coaching Others Through Change

This workshop will provide an opportunity for coaches offering support internally during orgnanisational change to consider the impacts on clients and themselves. This workshop is open to internal coaches working at any level, including those in training toward coaching accreditation (any route).

Career Development Workshop

This workshop will focus on exploring your personal career journey, preparing for interview and feeling able to bring your “best self”. Join us for an opportunity to connect with peers from across the region

Career & Interview Skills Coaching – CPD for Accredited Coaches

Designed for accredited coaches to build skills around career and interview skills coaching. The workshop will build the coaching skill set around supporting career planning, interview skills and interview preparation.

Unlocking the Power of AI in Coaching

Join us for a dynamic workshop designed for coaches, coaching students, supervisors, and reflective practitioners who are curious about integrating AI into their coaching practice. Whether you’re working toward a qualification, supporting others through supervision, or simply looking to deepen your coaching impact, this session offers practical insights into how AI can become a trusted companion.

Supervision Café

The Supervision Café offers accredited coaches an opportunity to engage in group supervision. In this setting, coaches can collectively address current challenges in their practice. The format is informal, with facilitated supervision.

Neurodiversity for Coaches

More dates coming soon!

A session for coaches on how to work well with all clients presenting or whom have been diagnosed with neurodivergence. By the end of the session, you will have started to share and explore with each other techniques to explore clients’ needs with them and practice contracting for how to work well together.

Managers Toolbox

More dates coming soon!!

The Managers’ Toolbox is a series of practical sessions tailored for managers with at least 12 months’ experience in role – particularly those leading teams while balancing demands from across the organisation.

These new workshops focus on real-world challenges, offering tools to build high-performing teams, sustain engagement, and lead more effective meetings and more. 

Manager as Coach

Manager as Coach (MAC) is a leadership programme consisting of 3 linked workshops. These can be accessed as a complete series, or in isolation, depending on your own learning needs. The aim of MAC is to support development of a coaching approach when working with individuals, or with the whole team. The programme is aimed at managers at all levels and roles, and those aspiring to their first management role.

Join us to gain insight and skills into how you can give and receive feedback to support appraisal, talent enablement conversations etc.

Quiet Leadership Programme

Join Julian Stodd, author of ‘The Quiet Leadership Guidebook’ for an intimate four-week journey exploring leadership as daily practice through:   

• Guided reflection and storytelling 
• Meaningful conversations about leadership in small actions 
• Connection with NHS peers in a supportive learning space 

Leading Together: Creating Solutions through System Leadership.

This series consists of five concise, stand-alone masterclasses, tailored for individuals whose work involves collaboration across teams, organisations, or system boundaries. The sessions are designed to help leaders strengthen their understanding of system leadership and systems thinking, foster culture and vision within a system, and enhance their ability to work collaboratively at place and system level to improve services and population health within their area.

Future Fit Leadership

A dynamic series of six standalone masterclasses created to inspire fresh thinking, share proven best practices, and explore the possibilities that lie ahead.

Delivered as focused micro-learning sessions, each masterclass equips participants with practical ideas they can immediately apply within their own practice and with their teams.