Learning to Lead: A Personal Reflection on the DCU Emerging Leaders Programme

This blog post is written by Stephen Fowler, a 2020 EPL graduate, who is currently a Senior Consultant at Oliver Wyman. He is a part of the 2024-2025 Emerging Leaders Cohort.

As I come to the end of the DCU Emerging Leaders Programme, I have taken the time to reflect on what I have learned about leadership from taking part in the programme.

My last class in DCU was completed over Zoom in the second month of lockdown during the Covid pandemic. It was an anti-climactic end to an incredible undergraduate experience at DCU where I had expanded my knowledge, developed close friendships and created many fond memories.

In 2024, I was very fortunate to return to DCU to take part in the Emerging Leaders Programme where I have had the privilege of learning about what makes a great leader.

The DCU Emerging Leaders Programme is a unique opportunity for young professionals to develop their leadership skills as they embark on their journey into leadership positions in their careers. I have been fortunate to join many other DCU alum who work in a range of exciting roles across a variety of unique industries to develop my leadership toolkit and learn what makes a great leader.

Why I applied to the DCU Emerging Leaders Programme

I began my first full-time role in January 2024 and have begun preparing for the next stage of my career where I will have to take charge of projects and become a leader. I joined the programme because I sought to develop my leadership skills before transitioning to a role where I need to manage a team.

The Emerging Leaders Programme has primed me to take a proactive approach to leadership. I have had the pleasure to attend some fascinating and engaging seminars, network with other young leaders and learn from a mentor and coach.

How was the programme structured

The programme takes a holistic approach to leadership. The programme consists of 12 events with guest speakers on a range of leadership topics. Every event dealt with a different concept that leaders must navigate when guiding a team. Each young leader is matched with a leadership coach and a mentor who we regularly meet with for tailored sessions for personal development on leadership topics. 

Leadership topics covered included concepts ranging from networking to leading in times of crisis to integrating ESG principles into leadership. These interactive sessions gave us the opportunity to learn about leadership from a novel angle and pose questions to a diverse group of successful leaders. These sessions include a leadership insights personality test and were complemented by regular mentoring and coaching sessions.

What I learned as part of the programme

A major part of the programme has been the opportunity to learn from both a leadership coach and a leadership mentor. My own mentor is a fellow DCU alum and holds a wealth of international experience both professional and voluntary. My mentor gave me some key insights into leading a team and beginning in my first leadership role. 

My leadership coach helped me to analyse my own leadership style, identify how I can grow as a leader and establish my leadership goals. My leadership coach had an exceptional background across a variety of roles in Ireland and abroad. Both my leadership coach and mentor’s international experience added to the programme as they introduced me to leadership styles from other cultures.

A special part of the programme was the personality insights test with organisational psychologist, Gay White. The test helped me to better understand my own personality for leadership. The test gave me an insight into how to personalise my leadership style to gain the most from my strengths and identify areas for growth.

Each event gave me an insight into leadership from a new perspective. The different speakers challenged my preconceived notions of what makes a good leader, and each speaker opened up during the sessions to tell us the hurdles they overcame to become well-rounded leaders. Over the course of the programme I learned some key takeaways which cut across many of the sessions:

Knowing your why: As a leader it is key to understand the “why?” of your organisation or project. Leaders must understand the value that their work delivers and use that as a guiding north star to lead the team. Leaders must have a vision of what success looks like and share this vision with the team to motivate them to achieve the shared goal.

Having empathy: Leadership involves working as part of a team with other human beings. To ensure every team member can reach their full potential and contribute to reaching the shared goal, a leader needs to put themselves in other people’s shoes. Managing team members’ needs and respecting their limits is integral to motivating them to perform at their best.

Learning from Mistakes: Failure is part of the process to becoming a good leader. Over the course of the programme, we listened to many esteemed leaders who had led extraordinarily successful teams across a range of industries. Each leader spoke about how learning from mistakes and failures had helped them to become better and more rounded leaders.

Giving back: Great leaders are leaders in all aspects of life. Leadership opportunities often exist outside the workplace. Volunteering is critical to developing leadership skills. Leadership skills apply in all aspects of life, whether professional, sporting, voluntary or otherwise. Great leaders harness their skills to help others inside and outside the workplace.

Why I recommend the programme

It has been a privilege to make friends with the other participants in the programme who are all fellow Dublin City University alum and are embarking on their own exciting leadership journeys in a wide variety of disciplines. Learning from their experiences has helped me to navigate key issues in leadership and motivates me to continue pursuing my own leadership journey.

I would highly recommend the DCU Emerging Leaders Programme to any young professional who wants to develop themselves as a leader. The programme has provided me with a leadership toolkit for a future leadership role, instilled me with key concepts that I have incorporated into my leadership style, connected me to an exciting network of diverse leaders and given me the confidence to pursue a leadership role where I will manage a team.

If you'd like to learn more about the Emerging Leaders Programme, you can do so here.