Course content
The training course Steering and leading with confidence consists of six meetings in the afternoon and early evening (from 13.30 - 19.30 hrs) and a concluding presentation day. Many actual cases are worked out during the training.
At the start of the programme, you formulate your own case/work assignment from your own work practice, which you work on during the training period (academic action learning). This unique learning approach leads to an advice or plan that is directly applicable in your own workplace. The programme is therefore partly a personal learning process.
During each meeting, the progress of your own case is discussed and how you can develop it further with the material from that meeting. You will eventually work out the case/work assignment in a short piece of work (paper) with reflection, which you will present at the concluding afternoon. This may involve, for example, one specific improvement project or a set of several smaller organisational improvements. Several approaches are possible.
Tutors are both scientists who are good at translating this into practice, and practical experts who come to share their experiences with trust-based management.
There are at least four weeks between meetings, allowing sufficient time for preparation (literature study) and working out your case. Holidays will be kept free.
Upon participating in at least five of the six meetings and presenting (with satisfactory results) your final assignment, you will receive a certificate from VU Amsterdam on completion.
Programme autumn 2025
Meeting 1 - Building and maintaining trust - Wednesday 8 October 2025
Insight into how the dynamics of trust and mistrust work, especially in the (semi)public sector. Why is it often so difficult to work more from trust?
Meeting 2 - Conditions for trust - Wednesday 5 November 2025
What makes it possible to manage from trust or not? What is the relationship between control/accountability and trust? How does trust work differently between organisations than between people?
Meeting 3 - Dialogue and trust - Wednesday 10 December 2025
How do you create the conditions for a fruitful dialogue within your organisation and beyond?
Meeting 4 - Good practices - Wednesday 21 January 2026
Case study of some good practices with a focus on political-administrative dimension. What do we learn from these practices?
Meeting 5 - Learning bureaucracy and trust - Wednesday 4 March 2026
How does a bureaucratic organisation keep the citizen in focus; how does it act socially just? How can a bureaucratic organisation embed continuous learning in its organisational culture?
Meeting 6 - Collaboration between organisations - Wednesday 15 April 2026
What does cooperation based on trust in networks or chains require?
Meeting 7 - Closing meeting with presentation - Wednesday 27 May 2026
Participants present their reflections. Diploma ceremony. Closing with drinks.
