Friday Footnote #55

Each week we share loads of content amongst Team ION and with our network. Content that inspires us, which we find helpful, or just makes us smile. We thought we would start sharing these insights every Friday. Welcome to Friday Footnote.

It's celebration time

Wednesday this week saw us run our first-ever virtual graduation. And if we do say so ourselves, it was awesome!

Our graduations have always been face-to-face, as have our programmes, but due to the Covid-19 pandemic, we had to go virtual.

We celebrated with 4 cohorts - New Leaders 9, Leading Growth 22,24,25 (you know who you are!) - as well as a number of guests from the Welsh Government, Swansea and Bangor University, FSB Cymru and many more. We were also joined by Mark Colbourne MBE, a gold and silver medalist at the London Paralympic Games, and a hugely experienced motivational keynote speaker. In typical ION style, as well as sharing his amazing story, Mark also tasked everyone in attendance to set themselves goals (and put a date on it!) and had everyone cheering on his gold medal-winning ride in their living rooms, offices, and even on a train to Cornwall!

It was fantastic to hear some of the delegates themselves share their leadership stories, and it was great to see them all open their certificates and gifts, albeit on-screen rather than in real life. We were delighted to hear that the delegates, and those in attendance, loved it too:

• A huge well done to everyone on their graduation. Thank you to ION Leadership for a great programme. Thank you Mark for such an amazingly in-depth, inspiring talk. (Natalie Touze, Pettifor Trust)
• You made the virtual graduation a lovely celebration and the feedback from the cohorts is a testament to your hard work in ION and your amazing skills that bring leadership into another league (Rachael Breivold, HomeInstead)
• A great afternoon spent on the ION leadership virtual graduation after gaining my ILM Level 5 in Leadership & Management. Not only spending it catching up with my awesome fellow LG25 group members but also meeting a number of other cohorts, hearing all about their ultimate goals and future plans. (Philippa Jones, WebAdept UK)
• It was great to see your interactions with the delegates and also how they networked across Cohorts. This seemed to work really well. Another fantastic exemplar as to why/how ION is leading the way. Well done everyone on your efforts and in keeping the ION community growing (Emma Dunbar, Swansea University)
• Genuinely moving and inspiring, thanks Mark (James Dyer, Pembrokeshire Coastal Forum)

Keep an eye out on our social channels next week for more graduation insights.

And remember graduates, you are all world-class!

Inspiration

• Want to be a leader? 9 tips from a young and "unapologetically ambitious" CEO (TED)
• Enterprise Club launched for people starting new businesses (4theregion)
• Every leader needs to navigate these 7 tensions (Harvard Business Review)
• 18 leadership traits that should define your legacy (Success)
• Virtual fatigue: UK employees are lonelier than ever (theHRDirector)
• Virtual collaboration won't be the death of creativity (MIT Sloan Management Review) 

Become an extraordinary leader

Thanks to the European Social Fund, we are currently able to offer our leadership programmes fully funded. You can find details of these programmes on the courses page of our website.

Check out the programme details, and don't hesitate to get in touch with our Swansea team if you have any questions.

Missed previous #FridayFootnotes?

Diolch. Team ION