End-of-Year Reflection: What the Leading Into the Future Programme Taught Me
By Nina Rogers
As I look back over the past year, one piece of work continues to stand out for me – the Leading Into The Futureprogramme. Partway through the programme, I drafted some reflections but never published them. Now, a year on, returning to those words feels important. They captured what we were noticing in the moment and, with the distance and learning that time offers, their relevance feels even stronger – not just for the group we worked with, but for anyone leading, learning or supporting others in a challenging and fast-paced world.
What follows is both a look back at what we built and an articulation of what the experience ultimately taught me.
Safety Isn’t a Nice-to-Have – It’s the Foundation
At the time, I wrote:
“Feeling safe is one of the main components for learning, I think we can all accept that. If we don’t feel safe in ourselves or our environment then it’s almost impossible to take in new information because our bodies are working so hard to assess the threat - real or otherwise.”
When my colleague Francesca and I set about designing the Leading Into The Future programme, safety was at the forefront of our minds. Before we thought about the content, we thought about how to make the conditions right for learning. We asked ourselves; how do our participants get the most out of this course, what makes a safe environment, how do we build trust, how do we want people to feel, and what do we have to do as facilitators to embody these things.
We decided to start with 1:1 coaching sessions prior to our first session – because our hopes and fears, challenges and barriers are deeply personal. What holds us back and what we individually need to make us feel safe can be different and we wanted to get an understanding of that as part of the induction into the course. It gave us a deeper understanding of the people we were about to work with over the coming year and it allowed us to think carefully about who we would match up in buddy groups – this was the beginning foundations for connection.
By the time we met as a full cohort, we already knew something of who they were as people – not just as leaders.
Connection Before Content
We were running the course monthly and only for two hours a session, so we were incredibly limited with our time together as a group. Time pressure can often mean that jumping right into the learning materials is the priority, but with our vision for safety, trust and connection we opted for using our time to build connection.
We start with a check in, using the first 20 minutes or so to bring everyone into the space, allowing people to hear where everyone else is at, how they are arriving and what they are brining into the space. This is always an important starting point, it creates time to connect, to settle in, to adjust to the different pace the course provides away from the day job, it sets the tone and is the foundation of safety in the space.
“I particularly appreciate the checking in and checking out aspects of the training”
– Leading into the Future Participant Feedback
When people know they can show up exactly how they are and receive acceptance it sends the body a message that this space is safe. This is particularly important in a group setting, more so in a group of strangers and more so again when it’s online.
We keep our teaching inputs short, we opt for breakout rooms for peer discussion, we use a popcorn style when we are speaking in the wider group so everyone is in control of when they want to share and we end with a check out – we don’t rush this. Closing the space is as important as how we open it.
“The theories introduced are simple yet profound. I have found this extremely relatable to my practice. It puts into to context what I experience and try to do on a day to day basis.”
– Leading into the Future Participant Feedback
These simple structures turned out to be far more than “nice touches” – they were the backbone of the learning environment.
Role Modelling Matters
Francesca and I role model in this space, we share openly and honestly, we make it okay to be having a challenging or uncomfortable feeling or be bringing in something that feels heavy. We make it okay to show up as our whole selves.
The group reflected this back to us:
“The facilitators are empathetic and experienced and give real life experiences to demonstrate theory into practice. Other participants chip in with their own experiences and make it lively and applicable. This forum creates a very reflective and organic process rather than a passive handing down of information to participants.”
– Leading into the Future Participant Feedback
If we were asking people to show up fully, we had to go first. That choice – to be human, not just “expert” – made a difference.
The Shift We Saw – and What Happened Next
When I wrote the original piece, we were only four months into our year together as a group, and even in this short time we could already see that the group were leaning in to the group safety:
“We are only four months in to our year together as a group, and in this short time we can already see that the group are leaning in to the group safety. People are sharing personal and often very vulnerable thoughts and feelings - a sign that they feel safe. We are receiving emails outside the sessions letting us know how valuable the space is to them, sharing how the materials have supported them to make a decision and how they are seeing things differently. To be experiencing a shift like this after only a few hours feels really powerful.”
I also wrote then:
“To be honest we didn’t expect the group to be this quick to show signs they are experiencing safety. For me it feels like evidence of just how important this stuff is. It shows how connection and trust play such a big role in creating group safety. I am inspired by how easy it has felt to create safety, and perhaps most importantly, it has demonstrated that taking the time to slow things down - to create a safe environment actually speeds up the process of learning.”
Now, a year on, those early observations still hold. The safety we invested in from the start continued to deepen. The peer support became stronger. Leaders took what they were experiencing in the programme back into their organisations and applied it in ways we couldn’t have anticipated at the start.
Participants summed up the structure and impact like this:
“I (rated the learning) 10/10 because I found it excellent. I learnt a lot about myself through the process. I feel more confident in my leadership role. The ripple effect of this has continued: we've talked about possibilities, investigated things, and had conversations from each point of view but it has felt like an exploration rather than a pressured or heated discussion.”
“From the outset, the combination of time for reflection, group discussion and learning has made this programme very valuable. The peer support in particular is fantastic in helping to shape my thinking on the issues that we all face in our roles, regardless of the organisation we work in”.
“There is a real positive structure to the training. (12 X 2 hour sessions over a 12 month period). This seems much more beneficial than, for e.g. 3 full day sessions or similar. It enables participants to learn, digest and apply learning between sessions”.
– Leading into the Future Participants Feedback
The design – spaced, relational, reflective – worked.
What I’m Taking From This Year
As I look back over the last year, it is hard to pick out my favourite pieces of work, but Leading Into The Future stands out because of what it confirmed for me. What I hoped, halfway through the programme, was that safety and connection would continue to grow. Now, a year on, I can say: they did. The group didn’t just consume content; they built a community, shaped each other’s thinking, and practised a different way of leading.
For me, this programme reinforced a simple, grounding truth: when we design for safety, connection and reflection first, everything else – learning, insight, courage, leadership – has the space it needs to unfold.
My Key Takeaways From the Year
A 12-month structure gives learning the space to take root and be applied meaningfully over time.
Bringing leaders from across the 3rd sector together creates insight, solidarity and shared learning that no single organisation can generate alone.
Peer learning remains one of the most powerful elements of any development programme.
Simple practices – like check-ins and check-outs – significantly strengthen connection and safety.
Online environments can be genuinely relational when they are designed with care.
We all benefit from more time to pause, reflect and make sense of our experiences, especially in a year as demanding as this one.