Leadership at Diabetes UK
We develop leaders so that they can transform their services, organisations and the world around them.

Based on our leadership philosophy, our programmes are designed to help grow your ability to understand yourself and what helps and hinders you in making change. We aim to build a community among participants to provide ongoing support and inspiration for improving care beyond the programme.
Discovering Leadership
Clinical Champions

Leadership Resources
Selecting the right opportunity for you
To address the diabetes crisis, we need leadership at all levels. This is why we have developed two programmes to reflect the different stages of the leadership journey. Have a look and see which one best meets your current needs.
Expressions of interest
We are currently accepting expressions of interest for both of our leadership programmes. Once you have reviewed the programme details and joining criteria, and know which programme you are interested in, please fill out the expression of interest form.
Participants are assessed on a rolling basis and we expect to have more demand than places, so if interested, please get in touch with us early. Once received, the Healthcare Improvement Team will be in touch to discuss which opportunity is right for you. When the programmes reach capacity, we will close expressions of interest for the year.
Our leadership philosophy
Change comes from all levels of the system
Responsibility for change doesn’t lie in the hands of a few, heroic individuals. The unprecedented scale and complexity of the diabetes crisis calls for leadership like never before – leadership that is distributed at local levels and unleashes the enormous potential of systems and individuals.
Everyone can lead
Leadership is not restricted to those with a formal job role. A leader is anyone with the courage to take responsibility to create change for people living with or affected by diabetes.
Leaders grow leaders.
Leadership is about facilitating change and cultivating cultures of meaning, belonging, hope, compassion and diverse perspectives. Leaders help acknowledge fear and uncertainty and provide space and support for individuals and groups to find their way in the dark.
Whatever the problem, community is the answer.
Leaders recognise the workplace as interconnected systems. Building coalitions and collaborative relationships and sustaining strong networks that are responsive and adaptive to change, are vital to success.
Leadership development is a lifelong journey.
Leadership is a set of skills and behaviours we can all develop. At every stage of your journey, leadership development involves both learning new ideas and unlearning existing ones.
Clinical Champions and Discovering Leadership are Diabetes UK projects in collaboration with Novo Nordisk who are providing support and funding.
Discovering Leadership is kindly supported by a grant from AstraZeneca UK.