Lead and manage: Best self, great teams, amazing together 2026
Lead and manage: Best self, great teams, amazing together is an eight-month leadership programme. We aim to support you to learn, develop and grow what you need to flourish in your social change leadership roles.
The programme runs between September 2026 and April 2027 with in-person half day workshops at One Strawberry Place, Newcastle, and online action learning sets and speaker series. It explores the concepts and ideas from our three leadership frameworks – Best self, Great teams and Amazing together.
What we’ll learn together
Across the eight months we will explore together
what helps us be our best selves in our social change leadership role
what makes a great team, and being part of and leading great teams
how we can lead with others so we are amazing together and what helps us collaborate and do our best and most ambitious work together
These are energising days to learn together — from us and each other — and give time out of the busyness of the day to day to reflect on your own leadership, and connect and build relationships with your peers. We give a practical introduction to key leadership and management theories, models, frameworks, tools, techniques and approaches. Each person receives a printed copy and PDF of the Best self, Great teams and Amazing together learning resource packs.
It’s about growing and developing ourselves to be able to do our best for ourselves, our organisations, and our region.
To learn more and booking your place
We’re now taking bookings for our 2026 programme, which runs September 2026 to April 2027. If you’d like to find out more before booking your place, email Robert. You can also tell us you’re interested in taking part in future programmes.
You can also talk to us if you’d like us to run this in your area or as an internal programme for your organisation.
Creating cultures of learning, development and growth
Yes We Can is working to create cultures of learning, development and growth in our VCSE sector in the north east. This is one of our contributions to us all having what we need to flourish in our social leadership roles.
For the next three years – 2026-2028 – we commit to running our A coaching approach and Reflective practice programmes at least once a year, and our main eight-month leadership programme – Lead and manage: Best self, great teams, amazing together – once a year.
2026
Feedback and impact
Future dates TBC
Contact us
The programme elements and dates
Eight half-day workshops
(in-person)
Starting well…we’ll connect and learn about each other, form ourselves as a learning group, set the scene about leadership, have lunch together
8 September 2026, 12:00 for 13:00-16:00
Leadership workshops…we’ll explore the concepts and ideas from our three leadership frameworks – Best self, Great teams and Amazing together – across six sessions
13 October, 10 November, 8 December, 12 January, 9 February, 9 March, all 12:30 for 13:00-16:00
Ending well…we’ll reflect on our learning journeys, make plans for our ongoing learning and how we’ll stay connected, celebrate our achievements, have lunch together
13 April 2027, 12:00 for 13:00-16:00
Action learning sets (online)
We’ll work collaboratively in small groups through listening and asking questions to support each other, gain insight and take action on your real work challenges and learn from each other. Each set will meet three times for 2.5 hours online
Action learning set #1
24 November, 26 January, 23 March, all 9:15 for 9:30-12:00Action learning set #2
24 November, 26 January, 23 March, all 13:15 for 13:30-16:00Action learning set #3
25 November, 27 January, 24 March, all 9:15 for 9:30-12:00
Speaker series (online)
We’ll hear from three guest speakers to learn about their social leadership, their leadership journeys, and what’s most important to them in their leadership. We’ll meet online for 75 minutes
6 October, 1 December, 2 February, all 10:00 for 10:15-11:30
What else?
The programme is supported by learning resources, tools and templates. We’ll have a shared lunch before Starting well and Ending well workshops, and social time together after Ending well.
We’ll also invite you to the programme’s network and community of practice to support you to keep learning, developing and growing together with your peers.
“As you become a senior leader, your role can become lonelier. Not only does “Yes we can” give you tools and strategies to lead more effectively, it also connects you with peers in a similar situation and helps you develop new networks.”
