Personal Leadership: Becoming Me

07 Jul 2022

After the successful launch of an innovative personal development programme across the nuclear industry, the University is offering Becoming Me to its early career Research Staff via Researcher Development.

The Becoming Me programme was planned and piloted during lockdown by Prof. Andrew Sherry and Mike Perrett in response to a question, “What can we do to help young professionals?” The response was to develop an innovative online coaching programme that takes a structured approach to combine soft skills development with personal coaching.

Most courses focus on what; building core knowledge, expertise and technical skills for a particular job. Becoming Me focuses on how; how appreciating our strengths and motivations helps us embrace who we are, how building effective relationships within our workplace culture helps us flourish in our job, and how taking positive action to grow and progress helps us thrive in making a difference. Emotional intelligence is weaved throughout the programme, that is built on the unique perspectives of its authors: Andrew Sherry is a Professor of Materials and Structures, who’s led developments in industry and was a Chief Scientist and Special Advisor of the National Nuclear Laboratory, whilst Mike Perrett has 30 years’ experience bringing coaching, leadership development, behavioural change and more to “blue chip” manufacturing companies.

Using videos, podcasts, case studies and breakout discussions, Becoming Me has been delivered to delegates from more than 20 companies across the nuclear sector and is now being rolled out more widely through the Nuclear Institute. The University successfully piloted the programme earlier this year and is now offering Becoming Me to all early career research staff. The format fits around busy schedules, with total of 20 hours from Sep-Dec comprising interactive Zoom, coursework and mentoring.

Watch a short briefing video about the programme including delegate feedback here and register on the Training Catalogue.