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45 minutes

The Accidental Change Leader

Why do delivery roles increasingly overlap with change leadership and what happens when influence matters more than authority?

Two Blurred People Sat at a Boardroom Style Table with Yellow and Teal Shapes

Practical reflections on supporting teams through uncertainty  

At some point, the delivery work becomes secondary. Suddenly you’re managing resistance, reading the room, and holding people together through uncertainty – and nobody formally gave you that job. This panel discussion is an honest look at how project and programme professionals find themselves doing leadership long before anyone calls it that. Real experiences, real lessons.

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Key Conversation Points

During the session we’ll discuss: 

  • The unexpected leader: 
    Project, programme and change professionals find themselves taking on leadership responsibilities, often without a formal leadership title. 
  • Leading without authority:  
    How to navigate the challenge of influencing people when you don’t necessarily have formal authority over them.  
  • When the people challenges takes over:  
    The hidden realities of delivering change – Even with the right plans, processes and governance in place, people don’t always respond as expected. 
  • What experience teaches us:  
    Having explored the realities of leading through delivery, we finish by reflecting on what the panellists have learned and what they would do differently. 

Whether you are leading transformation, working in a project role, or helping your organization respond to increasing complexity and change as an analyst, you’ll leave with practical insights into how hidden influence and accidental change leadership manifest in your organisation… and what you can do about it. 

Speakers

  • Jennifer Sproul
    Chief Executive

    Jennifer Sproul is the Chief Executive of the Institute of Internal Communication (IOIC), the professional association for internal communication. She leads IOIC’s efforts in setting standards and advancing the profession through qualifications, career development, thought leadership, and best practices.

    A passionate advocate for the value of internal communication, Jennifer is a regular speaker and co-hosts the podcast ‘The Future of Internal Communication’.

    https://www.ioic.org.uk/
  • A black and white headshot photograph of Ket Patel
    Founder, Change Agitators

    Ket is the founder of Change Agitators which aims to support business to do change differently. He supports organizations with training to develop key change management capabilities including presentation, facilitation, change impact assessment and resistance management.

    https://www.linkedin.com/in/ketpatel-changeagitator/
  • A headshot image of Susannah Chambers

    Susannah is laser focused on empowering teams – and the individuals that make up those teams – to recognise and articulate the value they create. She is hugely passionate about enabling the building cultures, often through coaching, where everybody’s voice is heard. The aim of this is to enable teams and individuals to recognise, celebrate and increase their value so that flow can be achieved and enjoyed with both health/wellbeing and commercial benefits!

    Susannah is a Senior Agile Delivery Manager with experience over several years as Agile Coach Lead for an international fintech organisation. Susannah retrained from the world of education and project management into agility around 7 years ago when she pivoted her career to become a Certified ScrumMaster. Prior to that she had built up over 20 years’ practical experience serving individuals and teams on projects through from local to an international scale across a wide range of sectors including tech, retail, construction and education. Referred to when speaking at an international conference as a “walking/talking/singing/dancing career portfolio”, Susannah believes in modelling the behaviours one wishes to encourage in others.

    As well as her day-to-day work coaching, including those relating to agile approaches to work as well and her broader eclectic career portfolio, Susannah has studied Leadership Coaching at Harvard Extension School and achieved an ‘excellent’ grade Diploma in Coaching at the University of Cambridge. Susannah now works as Lead Tutor on the Certificate in Coaching programme at the University of Coaching. She also created the Metrix & Chill approach to teams articulating their value. Susannah’s mission in life is to bring joy! Her favourite way to spend her time is being with her 3 children and making music.
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