Manchester Leadership Development Programme

A practical, accelerated leadership development programme for managers and leaders moving forward in their careers. Develop your critical thinking and strengthen the capability to master challenges and opportunities as a leader.

Upcoming Session:

7-11 July 2025

Fees:

£4,990

Duration:

5 days

The Manchester Leadership Development Programme is a short, flexible, accredited, open leadership development course. It inspires and guides you to think creatively, organise differently and develop a mind set which is critical for development.

The programme explores the core modules for business success – leadership, leading teams, finance, strategy, innovation, and project management. Accredited by CMI (Chartered Management Institute), it combines skills development with one-to-one leadership coaching. We can also deliver the programme online to a closed cohort of your employees. Please contact us to discuss in more detail.

Key Information

Fees:

Core modules only: £3,990 , Core modules + ILM Award: £4,490, Core modules + coaching: £4,740, Full programme: £4,990

Duration:

5 days

Upcoming Sessions:

7 - 11 July 2025 | 28 July - 1 August 2025 | 20 - 24 October 2025

Delivery:

Face-to-face

Location:

Manchester

Key Information

Course topics

ModulesLeadership in Practice

Delivered by Dr Courtney Owens, Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Leadership and Organisational Psychology .

This module is an interactive session which focuses on you as a leader. Using Hogan Psychometric Assessment, you will discover your strengths, your blind spots, how your leadership changes under pressure and how you can improve. Areas covered include:

  • Before you lead others, know, and lead yourself
  • How your personality influences your leadership
  • Leading at your best vs. leading under pressure

Leading Teams and Talent

Delivered by Dr Paul Evans, Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Leadership Development.

Leading Teams and Talent focuses on practical application. During the session you will learn the principles for building and leading a high performing team and understand talent development and the impact on team dynamics. Areas covered include:

  • Motivation and influence
  • Effective vs dysfunctional teams
  • Developing diverse talent

View the module overview for more information >>

Strategy and Innovation

Delivered by Dr Mike Kennard, Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Strategy and Innovation.

This one-day interactive session encourages you to think more strategically about choice, whilst giving you the tools and process for promoting innovation in everyday work. Challenging the assumptions that the two are separate areas, it brings strategy and innovation to life through leadership, because successful leaders know that they cannot do one without the other. Areas covered include:

  • Strategic tools, strategic choice and creating great strategy
  • Strategy, opportunity and risk
  • Driving innovation as a process

View the module overview for more information >>

Project Management

Delivered by Claire-Marie Boggiano, Lecturer in Project Management, Change Management and Leadership.

The project management module takes real world examples of projects and applies the common sense, tools, and theories you need to achieve results. Throughout the session, you will progress step-by-step through each stage of a project, learning valuable best practices and avoiding common pitfalls. Areas covered include:

  • Lifecycle, processes, tools, and techniques
  • Success and failure: evaluation and decision making
  • Planning, execution and closing

Finance for Management

Delivered by Nigel Moody, Financial and Development Consultant.

This module is led by an expert in commercial finance, who will give you the knowledge and tools to join in the financial conversation and make a valuable contribution, even when finance is not your background. You will be taken step-by-step through the key financial documents every leader must understand, interpret and be able to question. Areas covered include:

  • Commercial business management
  • See company financial accounts in 3D
  • Develop your own unique business dashboard

View the module overview for more information >>

ILM Level 7 Award in Leadership and Management

Ian Crowther, Programme Director

This module takes your learning from the programme and applies it to your working world. You will develop a work-based project, focusing on a real-life challenge or opportunity for your organisation. By applying your learning from different leadership modules through reflective practice, you will critically assess the effectiveness of your leadership. During the module you will:

  • Undertake a series of online webinars
  • Be supported by academic experts
  • Create a 2,500 word project assessment for a Level 7 Award from the Institute of Leadership and Management.
  • Explore a real-life challenge or opportunity within your workplace
  • Use your knowledge to develop a plan to deliver value

Leadership Coaching

As part of the course, you undertake one-to-one professional coaching sessions with a qualified leadership coach. Using insight from your Hogan Leadership Psychometric assessment, you will work on the areas most important to your personal development as a leader. The coaching will help you to:

Become more self-aware as a leader

Have a deeper understanding of any obstacles you must overcome

Build your ability to lead with greater confidence.

View the coaching overview for more detail >>

How you learn

You’ll learn through a blend of workshops, group learning, reflective discussion, e-learning platform, one-to-one coaching, and guided webinar support.

There will be an assigned assessment (2,500 words) as part of this programme.

How you benefit

The programme is designed to help you understand how to get the best out of your business, giving you the capability to master the challenges and opportunities you face as a manager and a leader.

  • Develop increased self-awareness as a leader
  • Understand your team and how to get the best from them
  • Build your confidence to ask difficult questions and make informed decisions
  • Gain a practical understanding of financial management
  • Construct a framework for thinking more strategically
  • Learn a proven process for promoting innovation
  • Hone your project management skills with a toolkit for delivering major projects
  • Design a work-based project to apply your learning and deliver business impact

How your organisation benefits

  • More effective leaders
  • Applied practical skills
  • Change/repositioning
  • Growth and productivity
  • Retaining talent
  • Business project

Who should attend

The course attracts leaders, managers, directors, department heads, CFOs, and CEOs from a wide range of disciplines including sales, marketing, quality, engineering, health and safety, operations, logistics, customer service, legal and IT.

Professionals from diverse sectors and backgrounds work together around common themes, benefitting from the opportunity to network, generate ideas and share best practice.

There is no formal entry requirements for this programme, but you should have some experience in a leadership or management role.

Course Lead

Dr Ian Crowther is a Lecturer in Management at Alliance Manchester Business School. Ian has held senior management posts in several leading UK banking institutions over a 16 year period, and has both led and developed management teams and senior executives during this time.

Award

You can choose to apply for other courses at AMBS after you complete the Manchester Leadership Development Programme – for example, other short business courses or our Global MBA.

If you apply and are accepted onto the Global MBA, the Manchester Leadership Development Programme can count as one of your electives. This means you can choose to do two electives instead of three during your MBA. To be eligible, you'll need to:

  • Apply for the Global MBA within five years of completing this programme
  • Mention your attendance on this course in your application.

For further details, please do contact us.

Staying in Manchester

If you choose to stay in Manchester during your time on one of our short business courses, you can benefit from preferential rates at the Hyatt Hotel, a modern and elegant hotel located at the heart of our campus and adjoining the Executive Education centre.

FAQs

Reflecting on the coaching and mentoring elements of the course and the practice we've done, I'm confident that I can develop these skills and see how they work in the real world.
Andy Lewis
Project Manager, AlphaPlus Consultancy