Leading through the storm: intensive training workshop for students on leadership amidst global crises

News

Posted on Friday 22 May 2026

In an era of shrinking civic space and unprecedented geopolitical volatility, how do peacebuilding practitioners and rights advocates navigate the various dilemmas and challenges for leading effectively?

Next month, the Department of Politics and IR will host a two-day leadership training workshop led by Nic Hailey, John Gray, Nina Caspersen and Eric Hoddy. This intensive workshop will bridge the gap between academic theory and the messy realities of international practice. The event brings together current MA students from the Department’s human rights, IR and peace and conflict programmes with frontline Human Rights Defenders based at the University.

Most leadership training is designed for the corporate and business worlds, which means they often fail to account for the dilemmas, pressures and operating contexts that characterise the third sector. From navigating donor dilemmas to managing the fallout of sudden funding freezes, the modern peacebuilding and human rights leader requires ethical maturity, proficiency in practical conflict skills, experience in teambuilding approaches and an ability to effectively apply a range of leadership styles.

“This training initiative is one of the ways we support our students' transition into professional practice”, says Jappe Eckhardt, Director Postgraduate Taught Programmes at the Department of Politics and IR. “By moving beyond the lecture room and into these high-stakes, applied scenarios and skills building we want to ensure our graduates possess the practical confidence to apply leadership approaches in complex, real-world environments.”

The leadership curriculum explores:

The ‘growth mindset’ for leadership
Character strengths and leadership styles
Donor ethics: how we might navigate dilemmas of funding sources?
Strategic management and leadership: leading teams through redundancy and funding cuts
Developing practical conflict skills
Developing the coaching toolkit

The workshop will be delivered by:

Nic Hailey, Executive Director of the NGO International Alert and previously Director General of the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office: Drawing on his extensive diplomatic background and his role leading a flagship peacebuilding NGO, Nic will guide participants through a live ‘crisis briefing’. Nic will draw on real-world case studies to challenge students to navigate the trade-offs between mission and survival.
John Gray, Executive Coach (Master Practitioner), faculty member of the Academy of Executive Coaching, and Associate of the Centre for Applied Human Rights (York): A specialist in the human element of leadership, John will facilitate intensive sessions on conflict resolution and coaching-based leadership.
Nina Caspersen, Director, York Peace Lab and Associate Dean (Research) at Faculty of Social Sciences, University of York: will lead discussions based on years of experience in senior institutional leadership and academic strategy.
Eric Hoddy, Executive Coach and Lecturer at the Department of Politics and IR, University of York: will facilitate sessions on leadership styles and character-based approaches to leadership that draw on positive psychology and virtue ethics.

Building the next generation

This initiative is a cornerstone of the Department’s commitment to excellence in teaching in our human rights, IR and peace and conflict programmes. Our curriculum is grounded in the realities of global practice, provisioning our students with the foundational skills required to navigate a complex and fractured world.

Are you ready to lead?

Learn more about our master’s programmes in the Department of Politics and International Relations:

MA in Applied Human Rights

MA in Peace and Conflict Studies

MA in International Relations and Human Rights

For more information about the leadership workshop contact eric.hoddy@york.ac.uk or poli-graduate-office@york.ac.uk.