I approached MiDDLEGROUND’s Leadership Breakthroughs Programme (Module A) with no clear expectations but rather a strong hope that what it would provide for me would be time and space for pause and reflection at a key point on my leadership ‘journey’. In fact what I experienced was a quite unique learning experience which, for a 3 day workshop, provided a level of value for me both personally and professionally which is unprecedented in my career.

I’ve been reflecting on why I felt it was so unique – so valuable. Amongst the answers that I’ve come up with are :
– the mix of delegates was hugely varied in background, but incredibly aligned in aspiration and values. So the quality of peer coaching and group learning was outstanding.
– the mix of content/input with reflection time was sensitively handled and the complementary facilitation styles were used to thoughtful and great effect.
– the encouragement to consider leadership in its widest sense, connecting as much with the concept of leadership in my work as with simply ‘my role as leader’, was unusual and for me impactful.
– the opportunity to take away models and prompts that I am still referring to daily, that don’t so much provide answers, but do provide access to focussed consideration to reach my own answers, was and is invaluable.

I guess that I also recognise, on reflection, that how I approached the Leadership Breakthroughs Programme was as important as any of the above points in terms of why I felt I got such value from it. Perhaps because I didn’t have any fixed or firm expectations of the workshop, I found that approaching the experience with an open, curious and ‘inviting’ mindset allowed me to benefit from the professionalism and experience of the facilitators and co-delegates. I would strongly encourage any future delegates to approach Module A in a similar way.