Goal

The flagship program “Leadership for Excellence” is a development offer for professors and other leaders, tailored to the specific challenges of the Berlin University Alliance. It helps participants move through complex leadership structures efficiently and purposefully while guiding change processes successfully.

The program strengthens participants’ leadership competencies, creates room for networking and exchange, and promotes the development of a shared leadership philosophy across the Alliance.

“Leadership for Excellence” centers on five workshops and four discussion events that feature leadership impulses from renowned experts. A cohort of up to twelve participants from Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Technische Universität Berlin, and Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin completes the flagship program together over the span of one year.

Contents

Workshops

Over the course of five workshops, participants engage intensively with selected challenges of their leadership duties. They receive focused, evidence-based input from the trainer and then work in a solution-oriented way on concrete case examples.

The workshops fall into two areas with distinct emphases.

Focus 1: Reflecting on leadership
These sessions are designed to help participants examine their role and function within the university—and Alliance—context, along with the core tasks and challenges that come with it. Topics include leading without formal authority as well as designing and implementing change processes.

Focus 2: Implementing Leadership

These workshops concentrate on introducing concrete tools and building competencies that help participants cope more easily with their diverse responsibilities.

Discussion Series “Excellently Connected — Rethinking Leadership”

In four evening events under the banner “Excellently Connected — Rethinking Leadership,” distinguished experts offer participants fresh leadership impulses. Each session also provides informal space for exchange and networking, both with the guests and among the Alliance’s leadership circle.

The experts come from academia as well as from politics, business, and the arts. In concise talks, they share their experiences of leading in challenging situations, open up new perspectives, and provide inspiring ideas for participants’ own leadership practice. After each keynote, the experts invite discussion and then close the evening in conversation with the guests.

Alongside program participants, professors and other leaders from Berlin’s universities and Charité are invited, creating a platform for networking across the entire Alliance.

Individual Coaching

For many challenges, peer exchange within a group is the ideal setting. Some issues, however, are highly individual and are better addressed one-on-one.

Within the flagship program, participants therefore have the option to take advantage of individual coaching.

Target Audience

For the sake of close exchange and an intensive learning atmosphere, each cohort is limited to twelve participants, who complete the program together as a group.

Because of its thematic focus, the program is aimed in particular at professors from the four Alliance partners and at individuals who hold leadership responsibility in joint research projects or on the governing bodies of the Berlin University Alliance and the partner institutions (e.g., members of the governing boards of the Berlin University Alliance and its partners, heads of excellence clusters and collaborative research centers).

Program Dates and Registration

Please note that the program is currently only available in German. For current program dates, futher information and registration, please check here (in German).