Cultivate – Why Enrol

“Coming into the Cultivate programme, I knew what leadership looked like, I had seen it, as we all have in former bosses, coaches, parents, whoever. Within 2-days of the very first residential portion of the course, I realised I knew nothing.

The process of having to review and evaluate tasks and your role in them left nowhere to hide and there were times when I really felt that I was out of my depth. I found myself trying to shoe-horn myself into the mould of a leader as I thought it should be, strong, decisive and leading from the front, taking action….. This has always worked for me, from managing and training junior staff to captaining sports teams, my belief had always been that as a leader, you encourage everyone around you and carry them on your back to victory….. Suddenly, surrounded by a group of equals, I started to realise some incredibly important truths:

1. Brilliant people don’t want or need someone else to carry them.
2. To be a brilliant leader, you need to lead those brilliant people and get the very best out of them.
3. Brilliant people will see through any un-authentic, stereotypical, blunt approach to lead them.”

Great Leaders Empower Teams to Achieve Objectives

“The thing the course taught me, that has changed everything I do, is that being a great leader is not about being the figurehead, or the glory taker. It is about being very clear with what you want to achieve and why, then empowering people who understand and share that objective, to deliver it. The definition throughout the course was that great leadership is just plain you. It sounds so simple yet the process of peeling away all the things you believed about leaders and how they ‘should’ be than letting you experiment and see how you get on just being yourself had a huge effect on me.

I honestly believe that had I approached leadership throughout the pandemic in the way I once saw it, being fearless and marching on at the front of the vanguard, my business would have failed. Being myself, caring about my team, caring about my clients, being open and honest with them about the situation, my fears and hopes; is what kept everyone pulling in the same direction. Without this programme, I certainly would never have been brave enough to simply be myself.”