Holding Space as the Art of Leadership
A new Women-Space Leadership Lab programme
Holding Space as the Art of Leadership
Clear vision. Effective action. Lasting impact
February-July 2024
The Women-Space Leadership Lab calls ambitious women who want to expand their leadership practice and create more space in their life.
Join Dr Maria Kukhareva and Professor Christina Hughes for this innovative and groundbreaking programme to:
Get clarity and create more space in your life
Develop sustainable habits for effective leadership
Contribute to the current thought leadership and increase your own visibility
We have a unique opportunity for a small group of women to engage with our innovative interdisciplinary leadership programme. We want to help our ambitious women build sustainable leadership practices, which impact both wellbeing and performance - for a more connected, authentic and whole-person leadership. We also want to create more visibility for our women leaders – that is why we want you to be our consultants and co-create outputs together.
We have searched far and wide to bring together the best and the latest the world of leadership development has to offer today. You will be engaging with sector leading knowledge and pragmatic proven techniques, essential for sustaining – and enjoying - your effective leadership practice.
We will be exploring four worlds: mind, body, play and work through the lens of indigenous and Zen Leadership; embodied practices; Nancy Kline’s Thinking Environment; Carl Honore’s Slow movement; and Greg McKeown’s Essentialism.
Interested? What to do next:
Read the detailed programme brief below.
Got questions? Get in touch with us.
Want to apply then click the button below and submit your expression of interest. Deadline 15 January 2024.
Programme Brief
The demands on leaders are evolving. Our expectations of what we want in life and career are also evolving. In today's world, it's only fair that women don't have to sacrifice all of themselves to get to the top.
It is time for us to rethink the way we see and do leadership - for us, for people we influence, for our society. For what the world needs right now. We want to empower our best women to do leadership on their terms. We want to challenge the 'everything, everywhere, all at once' mode that most talented, ambitious and caring women are experiencing today. We want to give our women the power and the tools to lead differently. Unhurried, grounded, expansive leadership. Leadership that creates and holds space - for others, but first of all, for ourselves.
This is where you come in.
Shape the future with us: an invitation
We are looking for a small group of women to take part in our new programme: Holding Space as the Art of Leadership. This is designed to support you in developing new leadership practices in this world of ever-increasing demand. You will act as a participant-consultant, benefiting from all the insights and practices; and working with us to create outputs together and inform future iterations.
What we see and what we feel
Higher education is changing: we are living and working in the age of information overload, rapid technological growth, and new sense of urgency. Thirty universities reported financial losses for the last financial year with concerns that more are moving into this position. Restructuring, strikes, the regulatory environment and student expectations add to the challenges those working in universities face. People everywhere are rethinking what makes new leaders and universities fit and ready for the future challenges. There's a growing recognition of the pressure working women are under, and of the leadership roles not being attractive enough for most women, who will have other commitments outside work.
In these VUCA times, the space and time to think is a precious and absolutely essential resource - as well as for our mental and physical energy. Doing the same thing as we've always done, as individuals and as society no longer delivers what is required. In this attention-greedy world, and with universities sometimes described as 'greedy institutions', how do we preserve – or indeed create - the vital calm spaces in our working lives that are needed to step back, reflect and ensure we enter the world, and address it’s challenges, from a grounded, centred, connected place?
This programme is innovative and ground breaking. It is based on the principals of slow and zen leadership, indigenous thinking and informed by the work of Carl Honore, the science of flow and peak performance and Nancy Kline’s Thinking Environment. Our aim is to provide you with the grounding and skills that are absolutely necessary in the current environment for clear vision, effective action and lasting impact.
As a consultant-participant, we invite you to
Take full advantage of the programme and its insights . We have designed monthly online small group webinars led by Maria and Christina beginning in February 2024 and concluding in July 2024;
Provide feedback and contributions as a ‘critical friend’ as we develop our materials and approach with you;
Consider becoming a co-author on any papers and outputs that arise from our learnings from this programme.
Our participant-consultants
This programme is designed for women in roles of influence in academia, in particular:
women who have demanding schedules and find themselves overstretched
women who wish to take on new opportunities but do not feel they have capacity
women who want to create more mental space in their life
women who are curious about integrative leadership and wellbeing practices
women who want to feel more alive and connected - to their energy and the world around them
women who want to achieve success and not feel exhausted when they get there
women who want to be a part of the movement to create new leadership
Core outcomes
create and protect space for reflection, as a group and individually
take part in innovative cross-disciplinary practices that are gaining momentum in the world of leadership development and peak performance
grounded approaches to success, impact and fulfilment
create and maintain a sustainable practice which will enable participants to achieve results without the overwhelm
form new habits, which help to sustain a mindful, resourceful approach to life and work
benefit from peer coaching, group support, and coaching from our faciltiators
explore unhurried expansive leadership practices
Format and Time Commitments
You will be engaging in: whole group discussions; peer coaching; three-way sharing sessions; individual reflections. You will also have a chance to attend a Q&A session.
The programme practice draws on the rich range of theory and practice, which includes elements of indigenous, embodied and zen leadership; emerging leadership models; resilience, and the 'holistic health' approach.
6 online webinars (February to July 2024): 1 introductory; four sessions; 1 wrap-up (9 hours)
Independent: Reflective journal/ peer support / online resources/practice (ca. 5 hours)
Drop-in sessions - Q/A, meditation, peer support (up to 4 hours)
Schedule and themes
Day 0: Launch and Introduction. Monday 26th February, 12-1.30pm
How would you describe the interplay between leadership and 'holistic health' in your life? What do the words 'muscle', 'discipline', 'space' and 'time' mean to you? We come together as a group and share our hopes and ambitions. We get grounded in some of the practices and elements of the programme, to prepare for Day 1.
Day 1: Body. Monday 4th March, 12 - 1.30pm
How does your body resonate with the pace of your life? What does unhurried living feel like to you? To be unhurried is to move at the right pace for the task at hand. It is also to understand our place in relation to others and have clarity on what is essential and what is 'noise'. We will be exploring Carl Honore's Slow movement and Zen Leadership practices that help create more mental space, at a different pace!
Day 2: Mind. Monday 8th April, 12-1.30pm
Do you have time to think? Nancy Kline argues that “The quality of everything we do depends on the quality of thinking we do first”. So, how do we help each other think well for ourselves? This session encourages deep listening and turn-taking to facilitate our best thinking.
Day 3: Play. Monday 13th May, 12-1.30pm
When are you focused? Have you rested well enough to do your best work? How do you feel after certain activities/ people? How do you replenish - intuitively or purposefully? Have you considered how play, and playfulness fuels your best work self? Play and curiosity are necessary not only for our mental health, but also for our visionary energy at work. Like everything, play requires practice, and even.. discipline! We will focus on: energy management, resourcefulness and harnessing our energy, as well as flow states and JOMO (joy of missing out) as a discipline!
Day 4: Work. Monday 3rd June, 12-1.30pm
How do body, mind and even play help us stay in our genius zone at work? Are your days stop/start? Re-writing long to-do lists? Having to switch your brain from one issue to the next? Constantly switching between tasks is highly taxing for our brain. We also know now that multitasking doesn't work. What practices do you have, to maintain mental clarity and focus, maintain good energy levels, and protect your boundaries, all calm and collected? We will return to some of the mind-body-play techniques, and focus on work application. We will identify what isn’t yours and why you make it yours; monotasking; and Greg McKeown's discipline of Essentialism.
Day 5: Graduation. Taking stock and planning next steps: Monday 1st July, 12-1.30pm
In this final session we share the practice that was most helpful and how we will be keeping it. We also explore the blockages to supportive practice and identify next steps. We consider how we can make this programme even more powerful for the next cohort of brilliant women.
We explore opportunities for publication of our experiences and the value of Zen Leadership and the Slow Professor approaches to the challenges that women experience in higher education.
Programme fees
We are committed to making this opportunity accessible to the Women-Space community. As an introductory offer and in recognition of your dual participant-consultant role, the cost per participant this year is £120 plus VAT to cover our admin costs. Please note that this is a significant discount. When launched fully in late 2024/early 2025 the full cost is expected to be £600 plus VAT. We are accepting self-funding applications and those funded by your department/organisation.
Questions?
Please contact us if you want to chat to Maria or Christina about the programme.
Your programme leads
Dr Maria Kukhareva
A creative, collaborative and insightful leader. Strategic thinker with extensive expertise in Higher Education spanning business, social science, marketing, project management and learning development.
Expert facilitator. Coach. Speaker. Author.
Passionate about developing authentic leaders; social justice and sustainability.
Professor Christina Hughes
Founder and CEO of Women-Space. Professor, Women & Gender. Executive experience in UK universities. Named “Woman of Influence 2023”. Leadership & Coach | Consultant | Author | Speaker | Enabling women to flourish in their careers | Experienced Higher Education consultancy for transformation and change
Leadership Lab
Designing solutions that really work
At Women-Space we are committed to creating leadership development approaches that really make a difference. To you. And your organisations. Today.
This is why we set up the Women-Space Leadership Lab. Our purpose is to promote innovative, radical and pioneering leadership development designed to change the dial on equity progress and workplace cultures.
We do this by bringing together leading trainers, consultants and researchers in the design and delivery of new professional programmes and initiatives.
Some programmes are pilots and we work with participant-consultants to finesse their effectiveness. Some programmes draw on tried and tested models that deliver results every time.
All are designed to support women as much as possible, enabling you to progress and thrive in your career and to live your values within your approach to leadership.
Why? Because without you, we cannot transform the world.
If you would like to register for this programme please click on the button below and complete the form.
Deadline 15 January 2024.