Published at 11:09, Thursday, 26 April 2012

I WOULD like to start this month’s column by congratulating the winners of the Centre for Leadership Performance’s (CfLP) ‘Rising Stars’ – Richmond Hill Primary School in Aspatria. I’d also like to congratulate the CfLP team on a really great initiative which has given students across Cumbria a real opportunity to try their hand at business.

The apprentice-style challenge has proved to be a fantastic way of focusing initiative and leadership amongst young people and hopefully has given them a taste for developing skills for a successful career in business.

The partners in Britain’s Energy Coast Campus are working hard to ensure that young people are getting the right training to become skilled engineers and technicians to support the future energy industry in this region. But to make West Cumbria one of the most important locations for nuclear and renewable energy production in the UK, we have to make sure this generation’s workforce is also capable of being great managers and business leaders too.

Good leadership is a skill that needs to be developed in any walk of life. Just as a track record as a great footballer does not qualify you to be a great captain or coach, being fantastically qualified as an engineer does not necessarily equip you to be a great manager or leader.

We know there is a demand for leadership development in Cumbria: Britain’s Energy Coast Campus partner, the University of Cumbria, alone gave training to more than 400 Cumbrian managers just from Energus in 2009. That’s why we were then keen to join with Nuclear Management Partners to set up the Centre for Leadership Performance. CfLP’s own vision is for ‘talented and innovative local leaders delivering economic growth and success for the region’.

CfLP brings to West Cumbria great regional, national and international leadership and management training. If you want to be part of shaping the future of the county then you should look at its website and see what it can do for your business and for you.

Published by http://www.cumberlandnews.co.uk