Students from Jesus College, Pembroke College, and St Hilda’s College have been given the opportunity to join the Future Leaders Programme, which aims to be “A transformative, year-long experience to build skills, values, and character to lead in a changing world”.
So far, participants have been assigned to alumni from their respective colleges who will help them discover career opportunities, widen their connections, and shape their attitudes to different aspects of the career journey.
The programme aims to help students respond to a fast-changing environment, shaped by “uncertainty, automation, and constant reinvention”. The programme seeks to highlight that leadership is not always about being correct, but also about being inquisitive and curious, thinking of solutions to problems and leading with a grounding in values, such as “courage, empathy and hope.” The programme’s website also states that students will learn to develop what the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report in 2025 listed as the most important leadership qualities, which include analytical thinking, empathy, self-awareness, and resilience.
The programme started in Michaelmas Term with a half-day induction on 7 October. A similar induction session also takes place at the start of Hilary Term and Trinity Term to help launch students into the programme for the term. Each term, there are three evening sessions for students to participate in.
During Michaelmas Term there were group sessions and a 30-day online course called ‘Leading with Character’, developed collaboratively by Legatum, the Oxford Character Project, and the Human Flourishing Program (at the Institute for Quantitative Social Sciences at Harvard University). The online course focused on different aspects of leadership. Edward Brooks, the Executive Director of the Oxford Character Project, was also present at in-person sessions during Michaelmas to help participants reflect on the online course.
Michaelmas Term’s part of the programme was themed ‘Leading from Within’, and focused on the qualities of a good leader. There was a session with Nigel Shadbolt, who spoke about his experiences as a leader and the challenges he faced in his experience working with AI. He also talked about the course of his career and how it led to him becoming the principal of Jesus College. The final session then focused on teamwork skills under time constraints with individual feedback from the facilitators of the programme at Jesus College, Angela Unsworth and Neil Unsworth. The Michaelmas Term component of the course ends with participants being assigned mentors to work with for the next two terms.
The Hilary Term and Trinity Term components of the programme will focus on different aspects of leadership. In Hilary, the programme will look at ‘Leading Through Complexity’, exploring the challenges which leaders face. As part of this, the programme will encourage students to work with their mentors, learning from their experiences.
Participants in the programme had the first of two formal dinners with their mentors on Friday 16 January.
Trinity Term will then focus on ‘Leading with Impact’, and participants will put their learning from the past two terms into action, encouraging them to lead with confidence, before the 2026-27 cohort starts the programme in Michaelmas Term of 2026.
