Leadership and management
Develop your skills and knowledge with our curated collection of workshops, online learning, guidance, and resources.
Leader and Manager Competency Framework
Effective leadership, and exceptional leaders, are central to the experience of students and staff and to our 5X社区视频’s future success. To support this, the Organisational Development (OD) team worked with the 5X社区视频 Leadership Forum and a range of stakeholders across the 5X社区视频 to develop the .
Linked closely to our 5X社区视频 values, and aligned with our aims, the framework outlines the important leadership and management principles expected at Sussex, and the everyday competencies which underpin them.
Browse the Manager's Toolkit
The Manager's Toolkit is for all managers - whether you are in your first management role or you are an experienced manager, there is something here for you.
- Coaching skills for managers
- Development programmes
- Effective delegation
- Giving and receiving feedback
- Guidance and resources for managers
- Leader and Manager Competency Framework
- Leader and Manager Essentials workshops
- Managing change
- Managing hybrid teams
- Motivating and engaging teams
- Profiling tools for individuals and teams
- The 70:20:10 model for learning
- Understanding your strengths

Leader and Manager Essentials Programme
Leader and Manager Essentials is a series of workshops designed to support the online Managers' Toolkit. These workshops run on a rolling basis every term and are open to all staff with or taking on management/leadership responsibilities. View the Organisational Development events calendar to see upcoming workshop dates and register via LearnUpon.
- Being a Leader and Manager at Sussex: Introduction
- Building Trust and Psychological Safety in Teams
- Motivating and Engaging Teams
- Supporting Teams through Change
- Coaching as a Manager
- Effective Delegation
- Giving and Receiving Feedback Effectively
- How to Have Difficult Conversations
Guidance and resources for managers
- The has key information about being a line manager at Sussex.
- The is a comprehensive guide for line managers responsible for overseeing new staff inductions.
- The Dotted Line Management Guidance gives an overview of dotted line management, how it is different from traditional line management, examples of scenarios where you might see this at Sussex, and best practice guidance.
- The Manager's Development Channel on Microsoft Teams is a platform for peer support and sharing relevant development opportunities, open to all managers at the 5X社区视频. Join the .
- As a manager, you are responsible for supporting employees who you could reasonably be expected to know are disabled, whether they have told you about their disability or not. You must consider the possibility that an employee who is struggling at work may be disabled and need adjustments. The Workplace Adjustment Toolkit has some Guidance for Managers, which provides information about the responsibility of managers to implement workplace or reasonable adjustments for their team, a step by step process, and signposting to teams who can support.
How we learn: the 70:20:10 model
In this fast-changing world, our time and attention are under pressure, both at work and outside of work. This inevitably results in less time to spend away from the office for learning and development opportunities. In today’s modern workforce, there has been a shift from ‘training as an event’ to ‘learning as a collaborative, continuous, connected and community based activity’.
The 70:20:10 learning model is widely accepted as one of the best frameworks for organisational learning and development. This model suggests that:
- 10% of learning is formal. It happens through structured training programmes and workshops, webinars, and online courses.
- 20% of learning is social. It happens with and through other people such as interacting and collaborating with colleagues, networking, receiving feedback, coaching, and taking part in a mentoring programme (as a mentor or a mentee).
- 70% of learning is experiential. It happens through on-the-job experiences, such as day-to-day tasks and challenges, taking on more complex projects, job shadowing a colleague, practice, and independent research.
Hands-on experience, (the 70%) is the most beneficial for staff because it enables them to practice and develop their skills, to develop their capacity to adapt to new situations, and to address challenges and make decisions. It also offers the benefit of immediate feedback, which allows the staff member to learn from their mistakes and increase their confidence.
As the manager or leader of a team, you should be encouraging this blended approach to learning and exploring the 90% of learning opportunities for staff outside of the training room and formal learning.
Further reading:
Characteristics of a thriving team
A team is more than just a group of people who work together. A high-performing team is a group of people who share a common vision and goals, and who collaborate, challenge and hold each other accountable to achieve results. Research demonstrates that both leaders and employees seek autonomy and psychological safety in equal measures, and high-performing teams need both to succeed, yet these qualities are often absent within organisations.
Managers and leaders can nurture autonomy through a shared leadership model where team members feel that they influence the work at hand. When teams are given more latitude and flexibility to be creative and do things in new ways, they feel safer to take risks and speak up. In a workplace where meaningful interactions are at the heart of the work, psychological safety becomes an abundant resource to support a thriving team.
Research by O.C.Tanner suggests that there are six elements to fostering autonomy within teams:
- Freedom to be creative
- Flexibility in schedule
- Latitude for innovation
- Say in projects worked on
- Ability to prioritise workload
- Flexibility in where employee works
Read to learn more about the individual elements of autonomy and the vital role that leaders play in building psychological safety.
Contact and advice
Organisational Development
Human Resource
Sussex House SH-230
5X社区视频
Brighton BN1 9RH
od@sussex.ac.uk
01273 075533 (ext 5533)
Looking for support from the OD team?
Managers and leaders looking for support with team learning and development should complete the online , providing details of the situation and expected outcomes. An OD Consultant (ODC) will respond within 5 working days.
Follow OD on:
Linked closely to our 5X社区视频 values, and aligned with our aims, the framework outlines the important leadership and management principles expected at Sussex, and the everyday competencies which underpin them.