Developing leadership in construction

Expertise at Cardiff Business School is helping to develop and grow leadership in the construction industry.

Whitehead Building Services’ (WBS) leadership team recently completed their bespoke Leadership Development Programme, created by Cardiff Business School with input from WBS’s senior team.

The programme was designed to interrogate and challenge WBS' current practices and perspectives, with module topics including innovation, business development, and understanding business relationships, in order to continue their success and growth.

Course modules were designed to be thought-provoking and interactive, focusing on examples from construction and from other sectors, blending academic knowledge with real-life scenarios.

Delegates were supported to think strategically, and appreciate the power of staff development, innovation, and increased employee empowerment and autonomy.

WBS, a building services based in Newport, South Wales, was instrumental in the development and construction of Cardiff University’s new flagship home of innovation, sbarc | spark, and were also a key constructor of the Business School’s Postgraduate Teaching Centre.

Nigel Williams, Commercial Director at WGS said: “The leadership course helped us both individually, and as a group.  What was great was that all the modules were set in reality, so it meant we could easily relate the learnings from each topic back to the mechanical engineering industry.”

Shaun Johnson, Operations Director at WGS said: “the course challenged the way I was thinking in terms of business development and taught me to think of improving the process of managing things like time and output better, something I’d previously just seen as a task, rather than something that was innovative and could improve productivity – it was a real eye opener for me, and offered a change of approach”.

Sarah Lethbridge, Director of Executive Education and External Relations said: ”We’re really developing some great programmes for the construction industry. Our academics are sharing all sorts of interesting ideas to help these great companies continue to grow successfully.

“It’s wonderful to see the expertise and knowledge that we have here in the Business School making tangible improvements to businesses.”

The programme was designed and created with direct input from the WBS senior team, ensuring that their needs, culture, opportunities and challenges were understood in order to support them in delivering their business objectives in their next phase of evolution.

For more information about our custom programmes, and how we can help your organisation please contact the Executive Education team Executive-Education@cardiff.ac.uk.