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Inspire - Leading for System Impact for UN System Directors (Edition 2)
A transformative learning journey for senior UN leaders, Inspire - Leading for System Impact strengthens the capacity to lead with integrity, systemic influence, and foresight - empowering Directors to navigate complexity and shape organisational culture.
As the United Nations marks its 80th anniversary, it stands at a transformative juncture, balancing the pursuit of operational excellence with the bold vision of UN 2.0, which reimagines how the UN works by placing innovation, data, digital capacity, strategic foresight, and behavioural science at the heart of a renewed, results-driven culture. Such reforms require more than procedural change — they call for a fundamental rethinking of leadership.
In this context, today’s UN leaders must go beyond managing change - they must shape it. They are called on to bridge strategy and implementation, create inclusive and high-performing teams, and lead decisively in the face of volatility, ambiguity, and disruption.
Inspire, thus, supports senior UN leaders in cultivating the strategic foresight, ethical stewardship, and cross-organisational influence needed to lead effectively in this complex, interdependent environment — empowering them to deliver on the UN’s mission with vision and impact.
By the end of the programme, participants will have strengthened their capacity to facilitate systemic change in complex, high-stakes environments by cultivating strategic foresight, adaptive leadership, and influence across teams, organisations, and global partnerships.
The programme will enable participants to:
- Navigate organisational complexity and lead adaptively, applying systems thinking to identify leverage points for action.
- Strengthen decision-making and interpersonal effectiveness using behavioural insights and neuroscience-informed approaches.
- Influence strategically and lead through partnerships, mobilising networks across boundaries and institutions.
- Drive innovation and shape future-ready organisational cultures, modelling adaptive, values-based leadership.
- Translate strategic insight into action, developing a coherent leadership approach and personal action plan for lasting impact.
Inspire integrates online and peer-supported learning, 360-degree leadership assessments and executive coaching into an eight-week, immersive experience. Specifically, it includes:
- Five Micro-learning modules to build foundational insight.
- Five Interactive online workshops (2.5 hours each) featuring UN-specific case studies and live dialogue.
- Two 360-degree leadership assessments to benchmark and measure behavioural growth (baseline and 6-month pulse check).
- Three individual executive coaching sessions and two peer coaching sessions to deepen reflection and accountability.
- Access to the UNSSC Learning Platform with curated frameworks, readings, and discussion spaces.
- Participants also receive a Reflection and Action Workbook to anchor insights, track progress, and sustain behavioural change beyond the course.
Over the course of eight weeks, participants will review the following themes and topics:
- Understanding Leadership Agility: Utlising an action-oriented model of complexity, Directors map current leadership challenges, surface agility strengths and frame individual goals for the learning journey.
- Navigate Organisational Complexity: Distinguish between technical and adaptive challenges; apply systems acumen tools to diagnose institutional dynamics; identify leverage points for impact during transitions and reform.
- Lead with Clarity Under Pressure: Making evidence-informed decisions under stress; balancing decisiveness and empathy; sustaining psychological safety and trust when operating in volatile, high-pressure contexts.
- Leadership Conversations in Action: Translate concepts into live leadership conversations. Practise peer consultation for high-stakes dialogues, alignment across teams of teams, and culture-shaping moments.
- Influence Systems and Mobilise Strategic Partnerships: Mobilise partnerships across boundaries; broker coalitions for shared outcomes;
- Leading at the Edge - Turning Uncertainty into Strategy: Scenario-based foresight; converting disruption into strategic direction; reinforcing a culture of learning and results at the organisational level.
- Action Planning: Synthesis of insights; concrete leadership commitments; implementation planning to scale behaviours across departments/divisions and inter-agency interfaces.
Designed for senior UN Directors (D1/D2 levels) who lead at the organisational or interagency level. This includes those heading departments, divisions, or multi-disciplinary teams and/or engaged in high-level coordination, policy, or system transformation.
The tuition for the programme is $ 3,000 inclusive of access to all programme sessions, materials, assessments and coaching sessions, and access to the programme learning platform for one year.
