Future Leadership Programme at Nationwide

The Nationwide Future Leadership Programme helps to support and develop young people at the beginning of their careers to recognise their leadership potential.

Not everyone wants to lead a team or progress into a senior role. But if you did- do you have all the help and guidance you need to make it happen?

Although being accepted on to the programme doesn’t guarantee you a leadership role, at least 72 of the 222 employees accepted on to Nationwide's Future Leadership Programme have gone on to a more senior role since the scheme launched in 2012. By focusing on self-reflection, it’s widely believed that individuals will develop the self- awareness needed to be truly effective leaders, and understand where they'll have the biggest influence on Nationwide’s overall success.

Having ran for 3 years, the programme has now grown and spans across the entire organisation; previously the programme was more specialist, and split by business area. This was refined shortly after the development team saw the benefits of leaders networking across multiple disciplines; “During one event, we’d gathered all attendees from multiple business areas into a room, working through a real-life business problem it was clear that using different skill sets and valuing different viewpoints enabled them to connect more widely.”

Nationwide run 2 cohorts a year, each lasting 12 months and consisting of around 30 participants. There are 3 key modules, including an ‘experiential’ module, and 1:1 coaching with professionally qualified external coaches. There's group work throughout, including a wider business project which can be anything from designing and implementing process maps to reinforcing Nationwide's diversity agenda.

Jackie, Nationwide’s Leadership Development Manager elaborates:

“The programme really supports and develops individuals at an early point in their career. The skills and behaviours required to be a senior leader are more complex than they sometimes realise. We give them time to focus on their longer term career goals, and how they can use their strengths to get there the ‘right’ way.” This in turn allows Nationwide to “get to know our talent pool, and map out how we can help them grow. We strongly believe that the future of Nationwide depends on leaders who demonstrate and role model our culture, values and business objectives. The FLP values and invests in their future.”

Applications are open from May to all existing Nationwide level 2 employees. This is a change from previous years where candidates would have had to be nominated by their senior management team.