Nottingham Business School deliver first management and leadership course for women in SMEs
Nottingham Business School deliver first management and leadership course for women in SMEs. Two course attendees give their verdict.
From 18-20 March, Nottingham Business School delivered the first in a series of 3-day management, innovation and leadership courses specifically for women in small or medium-sized businesses (SMEs).
Women play a huge role in businesses across Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, but they are often paid less than their male counterparts and are more likely to miss out on career development opportunities due to factors such as childcare or caring for relatives.
The Managing and Leading People in Organisations course gives women the opportunity to learn in an environment that is designed to be supportive of those that have never undertaken a higher education course, and uses real case studies and examples from their own business and sector, with a focus on women in SMEs.
The course delivery was fantastic. The passion and thirst to impart knowledge really shone through with examples that are up-to-date and related to things we're doing and experiencing.
Denise and Deb, LOL Laughterworks
The course explored:
- Management and leadership issues and trends in organisations
- Effective leadership and management techniques
- The role of leaders in developing high-performance leaders
- Individual leadership qualities to engage and motivate every learner
- The opportunity to apply learning to a real leadership challenge
Upon completion, participants can receive 20 credits towards further qualifications such as a postgraduate diploma or certificate.
Participants are also eligible to receive 3 hours of completely free career coaching to support the path to progression.
The Sherwood Group
One of the participants on this course was Anna Fawcett, Marketing Manager at The Sherwood Group – a Nottingham-based printing business that produce greetings cards, bespoke packaging and creative design solutions.
The best part about the course was the focus on leadership and communication skills. We covered how male and female leaders communicate in different ways, the importance of emotional intelligence, and the growth mindset.
Anna Fawcett
Although still relatively early in her career, Anna aspires to work her way up to board level and wants to become a marketing director.
While she doesn't feel like she has any specific barriers to progression in her current position – her employer was very supportive of her enrolment on the 3-day course – she felt it was really useful in identifying the skills and knowledge she is currently lacking to take the next steps up the ladder.
She is also planning to take up the 3-hour career coaching offered by the university as a follow-up to the course.
Anna said: "The course was very good. The course leader was very knowledgable and experienced and kept us engaged throughout the course.
"I would highly recommend it to any women – whether it's female entrepreneurs or someone else, the course helps to define your own success and focus on developing skills to be successful."
You can find out more about The Sherwood Group on their website.
LOL Laughterworks
Also on the course were Denise Tooley-Okonkwo and Deb Hodson from LOL Laughterworks. Denise and Deb are both qualified counsellors, clinical hypnotherapists and laughter therapists who provide bespoke staff engagement, team building and employee wellbeing sessions to corporate clients.
While many of the other course attendees used it for their own personal development, LOL Laughterworks wanted to see first-hand the latest developments in management and leadership for use in their own delivery when working with corporate clients.
Denise and Deb originally heard about the course through an attendee at one of their own events and wanted to sign-up for the first session.
We knew from NTU's reputation that the course would be well researched and it helped us to re-enforce some of what we already knew that we'll use in our own sessions.
This was 3 days well spent and for anyone that is thinking of enrolling for their own or their team's development, the course is a very empowering thing to do.
LOL Laughterworks
You can find out more about LOL Laughterworks on their website.
Interested in signing up?
The Managing and Leading People in Organisations course is delivered under the Priority Skills for D2N2 SMEs project which is part of the High Level Skills programme*.
If you are interested in finding out more about the course or want to sign up, please contact helen.whitehall@ntu.ac.uk.
Courses are running throughout 2019 and 2020 with the next available dates on 17-19 June 2019. Places are limited, so apply early to avoid missing out.
To find out more about the ESF High Level Skills programme and the wider support available that NTU can offer, visit our website.
You can also contact us via any of the below channels:
- Email: esf@ntu.ac.uk
- Phone: +44 (0)115 848 8899
- Twitter: @NTU_SME
- LinkedIn: SME Support at NTU
* The High Level Skills programme is part-funded by the European Social Fund (ESF).