Dozens of young entrepreneurs are learning how to be better leaders and managers thanks to a partnership between Merseyside Community Training and Liverpool John Moores University.

Liverpool Business School Pro Vice-Chancellor Tim Nicol says the joint course will tackle the problem of the accidental manager and help people become better ‘coaches’ of teams and collaborators in their sector.

The first 14 students ‘graduated’ from the six-week course this week with a second intake in July and a summer school planned to offer Levels 2 and 3 in Leadership and Management.

The scheme, supported with European ESF funding, aims to upskill people seeking management and leadership roles to ‘build back better’ across Halton, Knowsley, Sefton, Wirral, Liverpool and St Helens, and runs to December 2023.

'Imposter syndrome'

MCT referred a pick of candidates from its’ Young Entrepreneurship Academy but also offered the course to some of its middle managers.

Graduate Vici Ladeji, an employment coordinator at MCT, who has run a successful events management company, says she did so without any formal training in management.

"I was making decisions about people’s careers without having any real instruction" - Vici Ladeji

“I sort of made it up as I went along and always felt a bit of imposter syndrome. I was making decisions about people’s careers without having any real instruction, so when this came along with LJMU, I thought it was great for my personal development.”

She now hopes to progress to Level 3 and maybe even to degree level.

'Take confidence'

Tim Nichol, Pro Vice-Chancellor for the Faculty of Business and Law at LJMU welcomed the graduates and said there was a growing need for organisations to avoid creating accidental managers by default and that good leadership needed a technical and theoretical background.

He told the graduates: “This is the start of your journey to becoming great managers. I hope you will take confidence and insight from this first step course and progress up the leadership ladder.”

Kevin Rogers, CEO of MCT described the young people as having “passion, drive and a desire to succeed.”

He said: “Young entrepreneurs can have great ideas and a great business instinct, but they soon find themselves managing people and processes, so this is where this course is ideal.”

Regional impact

Liverpool Business School currently works with around 90 organisations to support their leadership training.

Programme Leader in the School of Leadership and Organisational Development Dr Fiona Armstrong-Gibbs said: “Our ESF project is a great fit with the Liverpool City Region priorities of developing a workforce with strong team leadership, collaboration, communication and coaching skills.”