Leadership Programme

2022 saw the launch of our ILM and City and Guilds accredited Polaris Leadership Programme as part of the Polaris Leadership Academy.

Following a successful pilot programme which ran from April – June a further two programmes were ran in September – November to meet the demand of this new and exciting programme for managers.

45 managers and aspiring managers completed the programme

Experienced, new and aspiring leaders were taken through a motivating programme and covered topics such as:

“I thoroughly enjoyed the course. The content was interesting and relevant. It was great to meet people from other parts of the community.”

The sessions have been great and easily applicable to work, with useful tools.

“The training was very, very good. I learnt a great deal to share with my team. All was relevant to me as a manager. Everybody in the team was amazing. I really enjoyed the course”

As part of the programme we have invested in providing every attendee with a personalised report using the DISC Personality system. This provides a universal language of behaviour. The acronym DISC stands for the four personality styles represented by the letters: D (Dominant, Driver), I (Influencing, Inspiring), S (Steady, Stable), and C (Correct, Conscientious). Knowledge of the DISC System empowers you to understand yourself, family members, co-workers, and friends, in a profound way. Understanding behavioural styles helps you become a better communicator, minimize or prevent conflicts, appreciate the differences in others and positively influence those around you. A mixture of experienced, new and aspiring managers participating in the Leadership programme in our Bromsgrove office.

“It think it was a great way to understand your own personality type and how you many need to adapt this when dealing with different members of your team. It’s definitely something I am more aware of and differ my style with each member of my team”

“I have had such a great experience on this training course and it is probably the best course I have been on to date. I think one of the best things for me was that the course not only taught me new knowledge but made me self-reflect on things I do well and things I can do better. For example, one of the first activities we did on listening skills really got me thinking and allowed me to recognise it was an area that I could improve on.

I think having the different speakers and sessions worked really well and there is nothing I can think off that I would add. It was a really good opportunity to meet other people that I wouldn’t necessarily come across otherwise. In terms of the cohort, I know the majority of participants were already managers however I think the sessions are invaluable for aspiring leaders and managers. I think moving forwards, it should be considered to include more participants who are not already managers. I really liked the opening messages from senior managers across the company - it is really good to hear their stories and how they started out with the company”

- Aspiring Manager – Cohort 1