Intermediate Leadership
Workshop 2 – Academic Career Development Programme
| Target audience | Experienced postdocs and junior group leaders |
| Workshop language | English |
| Date | 02. and 03. July 2026 |
| Time | 09.00 am - 05.00 pm and 09.00 am - 1:00 pm |
The positions of junior research group leaders and experienced postdocs are often described as a challenging “sandwich position”. On the one hand, in these positions, you lead single researchers or an entire scientific team, on the other hand you are dependent on the heads of departments etc. This requires competencies in leading a team as well as in lateral leadership.
One aim of the workshop is to introduce you to the tools needed to lead a team successfully.
After a short repetition/ summary of leadership fundamentals, the approach of transformational leadership will be introduced as a new basic model. In the course, you will learn more about horizontal vs. vertical communication and reflect on the different expectations others have of you in your specific leadership role, and get to know instruments for clarifying such expectations in discussions.
In addition, you will learn how to lead discussions in a solution-oriented manner and delegate tasks successfully by enabling your team.
This compact course provides you with tools to motivate and lead your team successfully, and to advance your own ideas and interests within a lateral context.
- The model of team leadership
- Fundamentals of transformational leadership
- Expectation management in a “sandwich position”
- Building trust and understanding
- Target-oriented and inspiring leadership strategies
- Horizontal vs. vertical communication
- “Enabling our team” method
This course follows a process-oriented approach and will continually address the participants’ individual questions in single work and group discussions, exercises and reflection units. Interactive and inclusive methods will be used so that participants can optimally apply the skills learnt to their daily work at the university. Theoretical segments will be recapitulated in the form of short summaries and checklists for the participants to increase the depth of learning.
Dr. Anja Frohnen is an expert for leadership development, leadership coaching and organizational and personnel development in academia.
Founder and Managing Director of Impulsplus, she works nationally and internationally as a trainer and coach in leadership development and personnel development at universities and research institutes.