I read your cover article on Strategic Leadership (CM, April) with interest and would agree that the finding and growing of leadership potential is of the utmost importance for any business. I also concur with Vaughan Burnand’s statement that leadership is required at all levels of a business.

Leadership can come from any part of a business/project structure and leaders may well change roles often as the project moves from one phase to another, sometimes in a seamless and unnoticed manner.

There is, however, no substitute for leadership. All businesses, projects, countries or, indeed, any group, needs it.

Regarding your ‘Further Study’ box, I would like to draw to your readers’ attention an exemplary opportunity that appears to have slipped the net. UCL and Constructing Excellence (under the guise of Bob White and formerly Dennis Lenard) have close links through a new masters degree.

The MSc in The Inter-Disciplinary Management of Projects started two years ago and is ‘designed specifically for the industry’s leaders of tomorrow. It is intended as the premier executive education programme taking forward the new the post-Egan, Strategic Forum-led agendas.’ (visit UCL website: www.bartlett.ucl.ac.uk/graduate/programmes/msc_be/imp_overview.htm).

I am lucky enough to have been sponsored to follow this programme and I can safely say that it does as it promises.

I would recommend that any company looking to improve the leadership skills of its prospective senior management team should consider this programme as an exceptional opportunity. I hope to attend CE’s Strategic Leadership Conference again in June and would welcome the chance to discuss the programme with anyone who is interested.

Gavin Heaphy MCIOB

Source

Construction Manager