Organisational Learning are excited to announce that we will be running a pilot Development Centres programme in Spring Term 2024! LSE’s Development Centres are an investment in current and future leaders at the School and in the sector as well as an investment in you personally and your future development.
Development centres are a learning and development initiative that will help you evaluate and understand your current strengths and development needs against LSE’s Effective Behaviours Framework, LSE’s Ethics code, and Research-backed principles of Inclusive leadership. Taking part in a development centre will shape and support your ongoing and future development plans and provide you with insight to take your career forward.
You can find out more about the programme in the video below.
Development centres: an overview for staff and line managers
Find out more about development centres, Captions are enabled.
If you are a member of PSS at salary band 7 and you would like to participate in the pilot programme, please read the guidance around applying for the programme below.
What can you expect by taking part in a Development Centre?
The development centre will involve you taking part in a day of activities with other LSE staff, through which your strengths and areas for development will be assessed by Chartered Occupational Psychologists. You will be given the assessment criteria for the day before you attend the day itself, but you can expect these to be based around:
The development centre is designed to help you reflect on and identify your leadership capabilities, strengths and areas of opportunity. It’s a self-learning experience to enable your career journey. It’s not a pass or fail, but a unique personal development opportunity.
The process for the development centre, should your application be successful, will resemble the diagram below. You can find out more about this in the application guidance below the image.
Application guidance
Please note: When submitting an application, please keep the 16th & 17th July free, as if successful you will be invited to a development centre on campus on one of those dates.
If you would like to apply for a development centre, please firstly have a discussion with your line manager about this. Your line manager will be expected to attend a briefing session and provide you with long-term support after the development centre, so their support is key in this being a valuable experience.
Once you have discussed this with your line manager and agreed that this is the right opportunity for you, the two of you should complete the application form and return it to the Organisational Learning team at hr.learning@lse.ac.uk no later than 5.30pm on Tuesday, 11th June 2024.
Your application will be assessed against the following criteria:
- Shows a strong commitment to self-development and developing as a leader.
- Shows a strong commitment to using feedback to inform self-development.
- Shows a strong understanding of how personal development can impact the individual and the organisation.
- Shows clear line manager support for the application and the individual’s development.
A development centre, by its nature, can be an intense experience, so here are some things to consider before you apply:
Development centre candidates can often experience nerves or feel the need to impress the observers. As part of your preparation for the centre itself, you should not overthink what you will be asked to do and ensure that the observers get to see the real you in action, so that you can get feedback that is of real value to you.
You should make sure you have the time and headspace before the centre to complete any pre-centre tasks and reading.
If you are a line manager and are interested in putting a team member forward for a development centre, please read through the information on the manager's page to find out more about how you will need to support your team member.
Data from the process will be used accordingly:
Your individual data is confidential and will only be seen by the Psychologists and members of the Organisational Learning as required to complete the development centre.
Anonymised, high-level composite data will be used at School level for talent enablement purposes and so we can identify collective development themes.