Leadership Foundation

Resources for Aurora

Welcome to Aurora resources!

The self-directed learning materials are intended to be an on-going resource available to participants to increase their knowledge and aid their further development as leaders. We appreciate that in our busy complex lives finding time to attend long training programmes or undertake academic study to further our careers is often difficult or impossible so Aurora is a multi-part leadership development initiative that includes:

• Development days are focussed on knowledge areas and skills key to the growth of successful leaders. It isn’t possible in one short day to fully cover all relevant content so you should see these days as a starting place for your development rather than an end in themselves. They are intended to provide an introduction to the subject, to signpost areas for individual development, to offer an opportunity for engagement and discussion and unparalleled networking opportunities.
• Role models who will attend the development days and bring their wealth of experience to the discussions, providing useful examples of ‘how I made it work for me’ as well as emphasising the importance of the subject areas covered.
• Mentors to provide in-house insights into ‘the way things are done around here’; guidance and advice on the sector and career progression; encouragement and to facilitate networking and building supportive connections.
• Self-directed learning materials to supplement the content of the development days and provide an opportunity to continue development under the four strands.
• A locally organised action learning set to generate solutions to real-time problems and challenges.
• An on-line mail group for discussion of important issues (LF-Aurora@jiscmail.ac.uk).

Using the resources
The self-directed learning materials are organised by development strand headings and include suggestions for reading and reflection; things to discuss with your mentor, other Aurora participants or colleagues; activities to undertake and interesting videos and websites. You should feel free to follow the strands of most interest to you and use the resources that best match your learning styles. Do as much or as little as your time and energy allow. From experience we know that the most successful development arises from the application of the learning so whichever strand you choose to follow, always consider:

• How can I use this in my day-to-day activities?
• What is transferable to my own role or situation?
• Who can support my practice of this skill?
• How will I know that I have successfully integrated this learning?

Aurora resources pages

Please email the Aurora team and let us know if there are any additional materials we could add to the resources page and which resources you find more useful than others. We look forward to hearing from you.

Good luck with your continuing leadership journey.

The Aurora Team.

Women and Higher Education Leadership: Absences and Aspirations
Professor Louise Morley, Centre for Higher Education and Equity Research (CHEER), University of Sussex. This paper aims to stimulate discussion on women’s participation in higher education (HE) leadership. The review examines international literature and the diverse theoretical frameworks and vocabularies that are marshalled to examine factors that may drive or depress women’s aspirations and career orientations. The global literature can be classified into at least four analytical frameworks: gendered divisions of labour (Lynch, 2010); gender bias and misrecognition (Bardoel et al. 2011); management and masculinity (Billing, 2011); and greedy organisations and work/life balance challenges (Currie et al, 2002; Guillaume and Pochic, 2009). The paper also includes examples of structured interventions that have been developed to encourage more women to enter leadership positions in universities.

Read Professor Morley’s report to gain insight into the factors affecting women’s participation in securing leadership roles and accessing leadership training.