Open Tech Calendar

Don Ledingham, is the founder and Chief Executive of the Ceannas Group.

Ceannas - the Scottish Gaelic word for leadership- has a challenging mission to “change the world through wise leadership. With a global client base they work with senior leaders to enable them to create sustainable and successful futures.

The Ceannas features of wise leadership include:

Searching for the common good;
Making courageous and ethical decisions;
Making sense of complexity.

Don Ledingham has had a lifelong interest in education and leadership. It led him earlier in his career to become a physical education teacher, university lecturer, headteacher, and executive director of education in two local authorities. As his career progressed his interest in the learning process connected with this natural curiosity about the behaviours that translate into great leadership. He completed an MPhil in leadership and then spent two decades researching the characteristics of successful leaders.

Emerging from his own leadership experience; research into high performing organisations; and personal innovation came the Ceannas methodology, which allowed him to focus on his twin passions of teaching and leadership. He is the author of ’A Small Step to Wise Leadership, (2017) and an honorary professor of leadership at Queen Margaret University Edinburgh. He provided the poetry for ‘Edinburgh Revisited’, published in 2019 ,which captured the magic of the city of Edinburgh

He subscribes to the words of Seamus Heaney: ”Believe that a further shore is reachable from here".

Session descriptor:

Wise Leadership: within anyone’s grasp

In this session Don Ledingham will explore the concept of wise leadership. Using examples from his work with leaders he will share ideas and practical steps that enable leaders to change the way they look at their own leadership practice, associated with changes to how they think about leadership .

These alternative ‘ways of looking’ and ‘ways of thinking’ can contribute towards small, yet high impact changes to ‘ways of behaving’ all with a view to creating sustainable and successful futures.