Human by Practice's two flagship leadership development programmes, Aspiring Leaders and Leading the Future, have officially been accredited by the Institute of Leadership. Aspiring Leaders now holds Associate (AIoL) accreditation, and Leading the Future has achieved Member (MIoL) status, the higher of the Institute's two designations. It's a milestone for us, and it followed one of the warmest, most enthusiastic assessment processes we've been through. The Institute described both programmes as excellent.
Aspiring Leaders is a six-module leadership development programme for people who are new to leadership or growing into it, most commonly at middle management level. It's built for the stage where someone is working out who they are in a leadership role at all, not just what the role technically requires of them. It's accredited at Associate (AIoL) level.
Leading the Future is built for people already established in leadership roles who are navigating a changing context, whether that's organisational change, shifting team structures, or the wider pressures on leadership right now. It runs across four modules with leadership coaching embedded throughout, and it's achieved Member (MIoL) status. At this level, the harder work is often unlearning something as much as learning something new, so coaching sits alongside the taught content.
Both programmes use action learning circles, between-module missions, and learning transfer records to put the learning to work day to day.
When people hear "leadership programme," a lot of them picture frameworks, models on slides, theory that doesn't always transfer in to practice. Actually, that's the opposite of what we've built. Both pathways are hands-on and relational from the first module. They're built around real time together: action learning circles where people bring their real problems, and properly protected space for leaders who already have a lot of pressure on them to sit together, reflect, look forward, and get honest about purpose and motivation. There's fun in there too, deliberately, because leadership development works better when
Both pathways are rooted in values-based leadership and human-centred leadership as foundations, aimed at building relational capability - the skill of working well with other people under pressure.
Institute of Leadership accreditation isn't a light-touch review. Programmes go forward for assessment as candidates for "Institute Approved" status, and the design gets checked module by module against the Institute's professional standards. Preparing Aspiring Leaders and Leading the Future for that process meant going back over the modules one by one and checking whether the relational capability we said we were building was consistently there in the design.
I think that's what the Institute of Leadership recognised most in both programmes: the experience of being on them is intentionally different, more human, more alive, than a typical version of leadership development, and the design behind that experience is now recognised against a professional standard, not just our own judgement of it.
What does Institute of Leadership accreditation mean? It means a programme has been independently assessed against the Institute of Leadership's professional standards and approved as an "Institute Approved" programme, rather than simply claiming its own quality.
What's the difference between Associate (AIoL) and Member (MIoL) accreditation? Member (MIoL) is the higher of the two designations. Broadly, Associate-level accreditation reflects programmes built for people developing into leadership, while Member-level reflects programmes built for people already established in leadership roles, which fits the shape of Aspiring Leaders and Leading the Future respectively.
Who is Aspiring Leaders for? People who are new to leadership or growing into it, most commonly at middle management level.
Who is Leading the Future for? People already established in leadership roles who are navigating a changing organisational or industry context, with coaching built into the programme itself.
Do participants get professional recognition as well as the organisation? Yes. Alongside the accreditation held by Human by Practice, people completing Aspiring Leaders or Leading the Future get membership to the Institute of Leadership in their own right, plus access to the Institute's own learning resources, including a library of online interactive e-learning modules.
If you want the detail on what's in each programme, module by module, Aspiring Leaders and Leading the Future have the full breakdown. And if you want to talk about launching your own cohort, get in touch.