enterprise & systems leadership

Full-day module within the Leadership Pathway, for leaders who need to lead across organisational boundaries - partner organisations, other services, delivery partners - where they don't hold direct authority.

Focused on building shared purpose and trust with people outside your own chain of command, and turning that into real collaboration rather than competing priorities.
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    • To understand what changes when leading across a boundary, versus leading your own team.

    • To build a shared vision and purpose with partners, grounded in what the people you serve actually need.

    • To build the kind of relationships - frequent, informal, trust-based - that make collaboration possible.

    • To surface and resolve conflict directly, rather than letting it go unaddressed.

    • To shift from competing priorities to joint decisions that benefit the whole system.

  • 09:30 – 09:45
    Welcome and introductions
    Setting the tone for the module, reviewing pre-course themes and expectations.

    09:45 – 10:30
    What is systems leadership?
    Introducing the core shift the day builds on: leading through influence rather than authority, once you're working with people who don't report to you. In pairs, participants identify one relationship where they already lead without formal authority, and what currently makes it work.

    10:30 – 11:15
    Shared vision and purpose
    In small groups, participants take a real cross-boundary challenge from their own work, map where each stakeholder's priorities differ, then draft a shared statement of intent and outcomes all parties could sign up to.

    11:15 – 11:30
    Break

    11:30 – 12:15
    Building relationships across boundaries
    Trust as the currency that makes cross-boundary work possible. Participants map their own cross-boundary network, mark which relationships are purely transactional, and identify one they need to invest in now - before they need it.

    12:15 – 13:00
    Surfacing and resolving conflict
    Treating disagreement as a sign of engagement. In pairs, participants practise raising a real difficult cross-boundary issue early - one plays the counterpart - then swap and debrief what worked and what didn't.

    13:00 – 13:45
    Lunch

    13:45 – 14:30
    From competing to succeeding together
    Working through a shared scenario in small groups, participants separate each side's stated position from the interest underneath it, then build a joint decision - on resourcing or budget - that both sides could live with.

    14:30 – 15:15
    Sustaining it over time
    What long-term commitment looks like in a system relationship. Participants score their key cross-boundary relationships on how much they've invested versus how much they'll need, and flag the gaps.

    15:15 – 15:30
    Break

    15:30 – 16:00
    Applying it to your own system
    Mapping one real cross-boundary relationship you need to strengthen, and leaving with a practical 30-day action plan to build trust, alignment and influence in it.

    16:00 – 16:30
    Commitments and close
    Agreeing what you will do differently from tomorrow, and how it connects to the shared standards set at pathway kickoff.