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UN Leadership Catalyst Series - Adaptive Leadership Accelerator (Edition 1)
Designed exclusively for UN system directors (D1/D2), the UN Leadership Catalyst Series provides a reflective, high-impact learning space to examine, adapt, and elevate leadership practice in the face of volatility and uncertainty.
The UN system is operating in an environment of unprecedented complexity - characterized by competing priorities, constrained resources, shifting mandates, and increasing demands for agility and coherence. In such contexts, the challenges leaders face cannot be solved through technical expertise alone; they require new ways of seeing, thinking and mobilizing others across boundaries
The UN Leadership Catalyst Series: Adaptive Leadership Accelerator invites senior UN leaders to step into a live learning and experimentation space to explore how they can lead through uncertainty, exercise influence beyond authority, and build collective capacity for change. Grounded in the principles of adaptive leadership, systems thinking, and collective sense-making, it offers a reflective, action-oriented space to transform one’s leadership practice for the realities of today’s UN.
As participants go through the UN Leadership Catalyst Series - Adaptive Leadership Accelerator, they will:
- Recognise and distinguish adaptive from technical challenges in their operational context.
- Strengthen their ability to mobilise people and systems to navigate uncertainty and advance new ways of leading
- Build personal and collective resilience in navigating political, institutional, and cross-boundary complexity
- Develop experiments and learning loops that foster adaptive capacity within themselves, their teams, and entities.
The programme combines structured learning, reflective and peer dialogue over three webinars, each four hours in duration.
Learning modalities will include:
- Expert input and dialogue: Each session will be led by faculty with deep expertise in adaptive leadership and systems thinking.
- Live case analysis: Participants bring real-time leadership challenges and test new approaches with peer and faculty support.
- Online learning platform: A resource hub of supplementary readings and reflection tools accessible throughout the programme.
The programme will comprise three deep-dive sessions, covering the following themes and topics:
Session 1: Seeing the System Anew: Diagnosing the Challenge
- Understanding complexity and distinguishing between technical and adaptive challenges;
- Expanding perspective: from problem-solving to pattern recognition;
- Introducing the concept of staying on the balcony - observing and intervening with purpose.
Session 2: Mobilising People and Systems: Working with Resistance and Energy
- Understanding the social dynamics of change and the loss it provokes;
- Tools for mobilising stakeholders and working across boundaries;
- Navigating conflict, tension, and uncertainty as productive forces for adaptation;
- Practising interventions in live cases through peer consultation.
Session 3: Leading in Motion: Experimentation, Learning and Renewal
- Designing safe-to-fail experiments and iterative learning processes;
- Building personal and organisational resilience under pressure;
- Reflecting on presence, courage, and purpose in leading change;
- Crafting a personal Action Plan - a roadmap for continued experimentation beyond the programme.
Senior UN staff at the D1/D2 levels;
Senior staff operating in relevant fields of international cooperation in complex, fast-changing contexts.
By open enrolment or nomination. (Please note that some UN organizations follow an internal nomination process to identify candidates for the programme).
The tuition for the programme is $1,200, inclusive of access to all sessions, materials and access to the learning platform for one year.
