Designed for experienced leaders

Join colleagues from across campus to develop your leadership skills and help you inspire excellence and engage the university community.

Take ULead to:

  • Enhance leadership capacity through interactive peer-to-peer learning
  • Strengthen leadership effectiveness
  • Increase self-awareness through a 360 self-assessment.
  • Deepen understanding of how to develop effective leadership competencies
  • Gain coaching skills to enhance relationships with others and develop direct reports
  • Build relationships with other leaders across campus and create a network for the advancement of the overall university

ULead helps with visioning and strategy, which really encouraged me to step back from an operational perspective, look at the bigger picture, and better position my team for where we’re going in the future.

Heather MacIntosh,

Senior Manager

Applicant Eligibility

With a limit of 25 people per cohort, ULead typically receives more applications than there are seats. The following criteria will be used to assess eligibility:

  • Experienced MaPS in the following Career Framework Classifications: M2-M4, P4-P5, R5-R6 and T4-T5
  • Minimum one year in a leadership position at the University of Calgary at time of application
  • Minimum three years of formal leadership experience with people management responsibilities
  • Ideally, candidates have completed UManage or participated in comparable leadership development training
  • In a position that has significant influence over others and/or significant decision-making responsibilities
  • Committed to attending scheduled workshops and ULead sessions over the course of one year
  • Candidates must be comfortable with and open to:
    • assessing and gaining self-awareness of their leadership behaviours 
    • being held accountable for their leadership development 
    • applying knowledge and skills from ULead to develop their team’s performance 
    • seeking feedback and coaching from others to improve effectiveness as a leader 
    • committing to themselves and their cohort by taking responsibility for pre and post workshop activities associated with learning outcomes

  • We recognize the value of diverse and inclusive leadership. We encourage members of the designated groups (women, Indigenous peoples, persons with disabilities, members of visible/racialized minorities, and diverse sexual orientation and gender identities) to apply. To ensure a fair and equitable application process, we strive to offer accommodation at any stage during the process to applicants with disabilities. Please contact [email protected] for information or support.

Prerequisites

Required Prerequisites

These courses must be completed before applying to the ULead program:

Recommended Prerequisites

Program Structure and Timeline Commitment

ULead is currently paused for applications, stay tuned.

ULead is currently paused for applications, stay tuned.

Program kick-off and orientation

• Establish group norms

• Presentations by participants

Participant Commitment 

• Pre-work activity

• Active participation in kick-off meeting

• Brief presentation by each participant

• Preparation of LPI (360) assessment list for submission

360 Assessments will be launched. 

Provide list of employees, manager, and others to participate in the Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI) Assessment. 

Understanding Self: 360 Assessment and Debriefing

• Debrief of assessment tool and how to analyse your own results

• Discussion of areas of opportunity

• Creation of Development Plan

• Connection to The Leadership Challenge

Participant Commitment 

• Complete online assessment as pre-work

• Active participation in workshop

• Creation of Development Plan

• Post-workshop activity

Meeting the Challenges of Leadership

• My Big Leadership Challenge Presentation

Participant Commitment 

• Pre-work activity

• Based on work area and 360 feedback, participants will present a significant challenge they are facing as a leader

The Power and Science of Coaching 

  • Distinguishing between coaching, mentoring, consulting, and training
  • Essential coach-like skills including asking powerful questions, listening attentively, creating awareness in others, and helping others to make plans and take action
  • Using positive psychology tools and techniques for increased personal awareness and satisfaction and to help others increase their own awareness and positivity
  • Connections between a coach approach and applied neuroscience
  • Practice a coach approach for implementation immediately back at work

Participant Commitment

  • Pre-work Activity
  • Active participation in workshop
  • Post workshop action plan

Strategy to Execution

  • Understand how your team planning process fits into Eyes High
  • Consider different collaborative approaches to team goal setting
  • Understand techniques for effective execution of plans

Participant Commitment 

  • Pre-work activity
  • Active participation in workshop
  • Post-workshop action plan

Developing High-Performance Teams

  • Diagnose the dynamics of a team and apply concepts of high-performance teamwork to increase individual accountability/alignment and team productivity
  • Effectively build and maintain effective team relationships, communication, and conflict resolution. Creating meeting decision-making practices to capitalize on team diversity and talents

Participant Commitment

  • Pre-work activity
  • Active participation in workshop
  • Post-workshop action plan

Leading through Influence

  • Assess Your “Professional Relationship Account”
  • Difference between authority
  • Influence: Influencing Up, Influencing Across, and Influencing Down
  • How to build relationships that grow your influence

Participant Commitment

  • Pre-work activity
  • Active participation in workshop
  • Post workshop action plan

Leading and Facilitating Change

  • Explore how to lead and facilitate organizational change through systems, process, and people
  • Identify alternative methods and approaches to facilitating change, noting the benefits and potential drawbacks of each of these alternatives.
  • Supports Leadership Competency “Envision the Future”

Participant Commitment

  • Pre-work activity
  • Active participation in workshop
  • Post-workshop action plan

The Leadership Challenge Continues

Further development for leaders who have been working to implement The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership® over the past ten months

Participant Commitment

  • Pre-work activity
  • Active participation in workshop Post-workshop action plan

Program Celebration

  • Wrap-up
  • Key learnings
  • Program feedback Recognition and Photos with the President of the University of Calgary or ELT Member

Participant Commitment 

  • Attend celebration
  • Share learning
  • Provide feedback

Post-training assessment of the application of learning