Setting the background
In 2022, Advance HE was commissioned by the University of Portsmouth (UoP) to co-develop the Inclusive Leadership Programme, iLEAD. This programme would be a central feature in helping UoP deliver its vision 2030 and strategy 2025, and put its values into practice by celebrating diversity and equal opportunity through an inclusive culture.
iLEAD is a targeted programme catering to participants from various leadership levels. UoP committed leadership engagement with the programme over a three-year period, including aspiring managers, leaders and managers, senior leaders and university executive board members.
The evaluation approach
A pre- and post-programme survey was designed to assess the impact of engagement with the programme on participants’ perceived inclusive leadership knowledge, confidence, and ability to role model and empower others towards inclusivity. The content of the survey was based on the programme’s intended learning outcomes and included a mix of close-ended questions (eg, agreement statements using 5-point Likert scales) and free-text responses (to allow participants to express their experiences and perceived gains in more detail).
In each cohort, participants were asked to complete a bespoke online survey one week before the start of the programme (pre-test) and three months after they finished (post-test). The use of a unique identifier allowed for directly matching participants’ pre- and post-test responses. The differences in participants’ scores before and after participating in the programme were used to evidence individual-level change.
Findings
Overall, data from 137 participants (41 aspiring managers, 48 leaders and managers, and 48 senior leaders) over the last two years drew a clear picture of success: participating in the iLEAD programme significantly increased participants’ inclusive leadership knowledge, confidence and ability to role model and empower towards inclusivity.
Although it is clear that the programme benefits all participants across all target areas (ie perceived knowledge, confidence and ability to role model and empower towards inclusivity), our evaluation interrogated the consistency of these results across the different levels of leadership. In doing so, we saw, for example, that the biggest changes in knowledge, confidence and ability were reported by leaders and managers.
This difference may potentially be related to the different content of the programme across the various leadership levels, as there are 16 core modules offered as part of the bespoke provision for leaders and managers, compared to 10 for senior leaders and five for aspiring managers.
The biggest change overall and within each leadership level was in participants’ perceived confidence in inclusive leadership (21% increase at overall level, 18% for aspiring managers, 24% for leaders and managers, and 14% for senior leaders). This finding was very encouraging, as this was the area in which participants scored the lowest before they engaged with the programme.Engagement
However, it’s not just numbers. Participants explicitly attributed benefits gained and changes in their practice to their engagement with iLEAD.
When asked, participants indicated benefiting in each one of the programme’s intended learning outcomes through their engagement with iLEAD. Overall, the three areas, in which participants indicated their engagement with iLEAD benefitted them the most were:
- being curious about and open-minded to others’ perspectives and experiences
- being honest and open to critique about one’s own potential biases and assumptions
- being ready to adopt new ways of working in pursuit of inclusivity.
Learning from free-text responses
In their free-text responses, participants mentioned improvements in their general knowledge, skills and practices around leadership, as well as (i) an increased awareness of what inclusivity means and how it plays out in practice; and (ii) engaging in self-reflection or being open to critique theirs’ and others’ own assumptions and biases.
Participants specifically praised the leadership exploration groups and the open discussions held as part of the programme, which allowed them to share their thoughts and experiences in a safe space, while learning from others. Peer-learning was by far the most common reported gain mentioned in participants’ free-text responses, featuring in almost 30% of the total responses and in almost 50% of the responses of senior leaders.
Finally, it is worth noting that 81% of participants identified practical changes that they implemented after engaging with iLEAD, including:
- engaging in self-reflection, challenging their own biases and assumptions and how these influence decision-making and actions (mentioned by 17% of participants)
- being more open towards other opinions, taking steps to include multiple voices in decision-making and being more responsive to questioning and challenge (mentioned by 14% of participants)
- being attentive to practices, processes and opinions that are exclusive and trying to constructively ‘call them out’ and change them (mentioned by 14% of participants).
What’s next?
With iLEAD currently in its third and final year of delivery, there is still some data to be collected, before we bring everything together for the programme’s overall evaluation. However, with such positive findings so far, the sky seems to be the limit!
These results highlight the importance of evaluation, as it has provided UoP with clear evidence of how it is progressing towards its vision of inclusivity and how its investment in staff development is delivering value.
Our Insights team is proud to support this kind of work, which has transformative potential for individuals and institutional cultures (as described below by a programme participant), because there’s no better advocate for the power of an initiative, than someone who has experienced it.
I feel more confident about my role and that I am able to be an effective, inclusive leader. Not just because of what was taught but through the peer-to-peer experiences throughout, which made me feel that I was a part of a wider community of people with different strengths and weaknesses but similar goals.
“I am more confident to speak up and challenge and push for what I believe to be right. And it’s working!”iLEAD participant
About the author: Dr Panagiota (Peny) Sotiropoulou, is Mixed Methods Researcher in Advance HE’s Insights team. Since joining Advance HE in 2021, Peny has been leading on various internal and external programme evaluations. She has also been involved in multiple projects related to equality, diversity and inclusion considerations in HE.
This article has been kindly repurposed from Advance HE and you can read the original here.