CHEAD Creative Leadership Programme 2025-26

“In times of crisis, organisations fall back on muscle memory – old behaviours that no longer serve us. Creative leadership means resisting the reflex and reimagining what’s possible.”

— Laura Bambach Jordan, Campaign Magazine 30 April 2025

 

The CHEAD Creative Leadership Programme is a professional development initiative designed to meet the urgent need for more equitable, imaginative, and context-responsive leadership and training in Art & Design, Creative Media and Related Disciplines in Higher Education (HE) in the UK.

A Programme Crafted Exclusively for Leaders in Art, Design, Creative Media and Related Disciplines

Rooted in creative disciplines and a values-driven approach to institutional leadership, this programme offers a unique space for academic colleagues—engaged in teaching and/or research across art, design, creative media, and related disciplines—to explore new models of leadership, grounded in care, craft, community and cyclical wisdom.

The programme intends to support the current and next generation of creative academic leaders in our sector, from Programme Leader, Associate Deans to Heads of Department.

At a time when the higher education landscape is undergoing significant transformation, this four-month hybrid programme provides a safe and dynamic learning environment to equip you to lead with confidence and authenticity.

Course Structure

CHEAD’s Creative Leadership Programme is delivered online and in-person via key note presentations, discussions, small group work, fireside chats and peer-learning constellations.

The course consists of five days learning delivered over four themed weeks from November 2025 – February 2026 and offers a structured progression through key areas:

• Week 1 (2 days) Identity – Breaking Open Leadership
• Week 2 (1 day): Expertise – Reclaiming how we speak, how we lead, and who we speak for
• Week 3 (1 day) Support – Leading from the inside out: care as institutional strategy
• Week 4 (1 day): Advocacy – What we offer now shapes what comes next

Online presentations will be recorded. In-person sessions are relaxed. There will be a 1.5-hour lunch break and regular breaks are scheduled for anyone who needs to step away.

 Course Dates

• 5 and 6 November 2025, 09:30 – 17:00 (Location TBC)
• 3 December 2025, 09:30 – 17:00 (Online)
• 28 January 2026, 09:30 – 17:00 (Location TBC)
• 25 February 2026, 09:30 – 17:00 (Location TBC)

The Programme will enable you to:

• Critically examine dominant leadership paradigms: Through reflective dialogue and systems-focused training, explore how power, voice, and exclusion shape institutional cultures and personal leadership experiences in HE and the creative sector.
• Develop and express a personal leadership identity: Build confidence through relational and embodied leadership training, rooted in creative practice, lived experience, and values-led decision making.
• Apply learning from the programme to a self-defined Golden Thread project: Use practical tools and strategies developed through the programme’s training components to integrate learning into real-world leadership challenges.
• Design and sustain ecosystems of support: Practise designing relational, resilient leadership environments through training in collaborative methods, care-based design, and peer learning structures.
• Lead advocacy and systems change work: Apply strategic training in influence, systems thinking, and creative leadership voice to effect institutional and sector-level change.
• Contribute to a distributed leadership community: Strengthen your role in a cross-sector leadership network through ongoing commitment to reflective practice, mentoring, and critical collaboration.

 Our commitment to inclusion

CHEAD is committed to building an inclusive and representative cohort for this leadership course and welcome participants from all backgrounds and career stages, and we particularly encourage applications from individuals who are underrepresented in leadership roles across higher education — including people of the Global Majority (Black, Asian and ethnically diverse backgrounds), disabled people, neurodivergent, LGBTQ+ individuals, and those from lower socio-economic backgrounds.

We are committed to creating an inclusive, accessible learning environment. If you have any access needs or require adjustments to take part, we’ll work with you to make sure the course fully supports your participation. 

Programme Costs

CHEAD Members Early bird: £1,000

CHEAD Members Full cost: £1,500

Non-members: £2,125

If you have questions about any element of the programme, please contact info@chead.ac.uk