Embrace your potential to lead

Embrace your potential to lead

Transform into a high potential manager who can seize the opportunities and navigate the challenges of new leadership roles

The challenge

The transition to management is not easy. In fact, it is often one of the most difficult moments in a person's career. It can be daunting, and doubts can creep in. Imposter syndrome is rife. High-potential leaders often have great functional experience, but moving upwards often means that the skills that brought you success up to now may not be enough. To work effectively and thrive in your new role, you need a different approach to leadership.

High-potentials need to be able to

Strengthen their foundations for future success

Overcome increasingly complex challenges

Accelerate their impact in the now

Our programmes

Level up your leadership

In-person

Beacon
For high-potential leaders

A comprehensive leadership development programme designed to unleash the boundless capabilities of high-potential leaders.

Who is this for?

High-potential

Blended (Online & In-person)

American Express Leadership Academy

A leadership development experience supporting a new generation of Resilient Changemakers.

Who is this for?

High-potential leaders in the not-for-profit sector

Online

Sky Blue

Sky Blue brings together a dynamic group of leaders from around the world, from many different fields, who have a common focus: our environment.

Who is this for?

High-potential and senior leaders from the environmental sector

Blended (Online & In-person)

Africa Venture

Africa Venture brings together exceptional emerging leaders to work together to address pressing issues facing the region.

Who is this for?

High-potential leaders across Africa

Need help deciding?

Get in touch

How can we help?

Get in touch with one of our learning experts to discuss your development goals.

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We are Common Purpose

A global not-for-profit devoted to good leadership

  • We deliver unforgettable and transformative learning experiences
  • Programmes for people at all levels of their careers
  • Gain the confidence, skills and mindset to be a purposeful change agent, with a difference

Who we are
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Renee Hunt
Former Director, Sky Leeds
"The programme had immediate effect on the leaders we sponsored to attend. They were recently promoted and faced challenges that would require new tools to navigate successfully. A young leader appeared to be overwhelmed before the programme and returned calmer and more balanced. They improved the performance of their teams and also of themselves."
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Antonyraj Zion Raj
Lead Engineer, General Electric (GE)
"The programme gave me the opportunity to identify my core and flex, how to approach a new context and showed me the different leadership styles that one can use."

85%

say our programmes enable them to drive bold innovation

92%

act more courageously in difficult situations

85%

are better prepared to tackle complex problems

93%

are better able to influence beyond their circle of authority

Our approach

Leadership development - with a difference

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Bringing the outside world to you

When it comes to developing people, there’s no substitute for the power of real, raw experience and fresh perspectives. Our convening power enables us to create genuinely diverse immersive leadership experiences with real people and real-life scenarios from across a spectrum of society, delivered in ways that are both challenging and inspiring.

Experiential learning

Our programmes create a carefully constructed microclimate to explore real-life leadership challenges in a safe environment, often leading to the types of purpose-driven conversations needed to achieve transformative change. 

We also focus on the importance of active learning by getting you out of your comfort zone and into the world, seeing things, meeting people, taking part, and taking advantage of processes that stimulate multiple neural connections in the brain and promote memory.

The Common Purpose change process

We follow five tried and tested steps that lead to habitual change in how people think, feel and act.   

  1. Experience: The foundation of, and stimulus for, learning. Being presented with new experiences. Engaging with leaders from across multiple boundaries and being immersed in new environments.
  2. Reflection: Finding relevant meaning. Learning activities to gain a deeper and more personalized understanding of your experience.
  3. Translate: Drawing conclusions. Exploring how to relate new ideas and thought processes back into your role or context.
  4. Practice: Testing your learning. Developing a set of leadership practices that you can use to turn new behaviours into habits.
  5. Assess: Finding the desired outcome. Embedding numerous assessment modalities to help you track your progress pre, during and even beyond the programme back at work. 

Frequently asked questions

Yes, if you have any further questions or would just like to discuss the programme in more detail, please reach out to a member of our team in your specific location who would be delighted to help.

Get in touch

We are a global not-for-profit leadership development organization on a mission to develop people who can cross cultural, social, and institutional boundaries. We work passionately with people to help push the boundaries of what is possible, all so that they can become those who can help us to work better together, be the connectors of our unique lived experiences and lead, with a difference.

Yes! The Common Purpose Charitable Trust was established as a charity in 1989. It is registered with the Charity Commission under the Registered Charity number 1023384.

The benefits of Common Purpose leadership programmes include gaining increased:  

  • Agility in adapting to changing circumstances and environments.  

  • Empathy to what other people feel, think and need. Seeing things from their point of view.

  • Influence in leading change with limited decision-making power.  

  • Openness to new ideas, possibilities and perspectives, including views they might deeply disagree with.    

  • Purposefulness in leading with intentionality, determination, commitment and resilience.

  • Self-awareness to their behaviours and outlook, and how they interpret and respond to situations.

When it comes to learning, there is no substitute for the power of real experience and fresh perspective. Our approach uses a robust behaviour and mindset change philosophy rooted in real life leadership challenges and experiences. To turn those experiences into real learning we follow five tried and tested steps that lead to habitual change in how people think, feel and act.    

  1. Experience: Being presented with new experiences. Engaging with leaders across multiple boundaries and being immersed in new environments.   

  1. Reflection: Learning activities to gain a deeper and more personalized understanding of the learning.    

  1. Translate: Exploring how to relate new ideas and thought processes back into the learner’s role or context.

  1. Practice: Developing a set of leadership practices that can be used to turn new behaviours into habits.

  1. Assess: Embedding numerous assessments to help learners track their progress pre, during and even beyond the programme.

Experiential learning is a core component of our programmes.

Our programmes create a carefully constructed microclimate to explore real-life leadership challenges in a safe environment, often leading to the types of purpose-driven conversations needed to achieve transformative change.

We also focus on the importance of active learning, by getting people out of their comfort zones and into the world, seeing things, meeting people, taking part, and taking advantage of processes that stimulate multiple neural connections in the brain and promote memory.