The Philosophical Leadership Programme
Leadership Training for Social Care and Children's Services
This programme is run in association with CareKnowledge, a professional development platform offering courses, webinars and resources to practitioners and leaders across social care.
The next course runs in the Autumn (see dates below). Places are limited to 8 participants.
You can read more about the course on the CareKnowledge website, or get in touch with us directly at hello@thinklearning.org
‘I can feel more tangibly the positive difference and impact I can and am making’
Facilitators
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Professor Nigel Tubbs and Dr Rebekah Howes
Duration
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Seven 2-hour sessions online (Thursdays, 10am-12pm)
Upcoming dates
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24th September, 8th October, 22nd October, 5th November, 19th November, 3rd December, 17th December 2026
Leadership development for practice leaders and heads of service
Overview
This 7-week philosophical programme begins from a simple premise: the hardest decisions in leadership are not managerial or technical, but human. Good leaders need to understand the ideas and values that shape their decisions, their connections, and the lives of those they serve.
Through engagement with ideas and texts, the course challenges leaders to think deeply and critically about themselves and what they believe. It asks fundamental questions: What matters most in leadership and why? What kind of leader do you want to be? What kind of culture do you want to shape? What vision do you want to make possible? And how do you keep asking the questions that matter, even when answers are difficult or unclear?
Our programme invites you into the deeper thinking and understanding that makes for intelligent, imaginative and humane leadership. This is about leadership that begins with knowing yourself and your own humanity and grows into the capacity to guide others meaningfully and responsibly.
The most pressing challenges in leadership will not be solved by systems or strategies alone, but by leaders who dare to think more deeply, who can sustain complexity and uncertainty as learning, and who can discipline leadership instincts with intelligent decision making. Our programme exists for those who are ready to make thinking itself their most powerful resource in leading change.
Leadership Themes
An education for leadership
1
Perspective in Leadership, Leadership in Perspective
Plato and the Philosophical Leader
2
3
'What a piece of work is a man'
The 'Intelligent Ear'
4
5
The Power of Leadership
Symposium
6
7
Leading from the Middle
Philosophical Leadership
How we work
In order for leaders to put their thinking into practice, they need to practice their thinking.
This 7-week programme of carefully curated seminar experiences brings people and ideas together through the close reading of texts and facilitated conversation, where leaders explore the ideas that animate the decisions they make and practice the kinds of thinking that most matter to them, in the company of others.
Such practice can be demanding: listening with care, questioning assumptions, holding the bigger picture with the small, and testing ideas. But it’s deeply worthwhile. What emerges is not a manual, but an educational experience which develops a cultivated mindset for thinking leaders.
This programme can be run for a cohort of 7 – 12 participants drawn from across a single organisation or across multiple organisations as part of a professional development programme.
Contact us to find out more: hello@thinklearning.org
Philosophical Leadership
Find out more
The Philosophical Leadership Programme runs in cohorts and is available for in-house delivery within organisations as well as open enrolment. If you would like to talk about whether it is right for your team, or to find out when the next cohort is running, we would be glad to hear from you.
Contact us to find out more: hello@thinklearning.org