Investing in people to inspire and develop their capability to lead change
We know that to bring about change that can make things better for our communities, we sometimes need to change the approaches, behaviours and mindsets of those who work to support those communities.
By helping people to think differently whilst working alongside them to build the skills and capabilities to lead change, we have an opportunity to change the systems those people connect with.
We know that we can create an optimistic vision for the future by building on what’s strong and our strengths-based leadership work will help us to deliver on this.
Our aim is to inspire conversations and actions towards tackling physical inactivity across the systems and places where we all connect.
Leadership Learning Series
Strengths Coaching
Leadership Academies
Place Based Approaches
Throughout our Accelerator funding phase (2023–2025), these principles were developed and refined, enabling us to build a strong evidence base alongside valuable learning and insight into what effective, system‑wide leadership looks like for our places and systems.
This learning now underpins our transition into the Deepening funding phase (2026–2028), where our focus is on embedding and sustaining impact across TaAF and our partners, strengthening collaborative leadership, and accelerating progress in tackling physical activity inequalities across our communities.
Going Deeper, Building Further
At its core, our Deepening Leadership programme includes:
- A 12 month System Leadership Development programme for the TaAF team, involving up to 25 people, with six full day collective learning sessions per year focused on collaboration, peer learning, and tackling real system challenges.
- Strengths based coaching for both the TaAF team and senior system leaders across priority sectors, providing individual and group coaching to embed new ways of thinking and working.
- A Train the Trainer programme to upskill local leaders to become facilitators of systems leadership in their own places, creating a sustainable, locally owned model. You can find out more about this programme here, read the Person Specification here, or apply here.
- Strategic Deep Dives with key organisations or networks to support deeper application of systems leadership to complex problems related to physical inactivity and inequalities.
Systems change is at the heart of the programme. We continue to build on our people-led approach, recognising that lasting system change happens through supporting leaders to adopt new behaviours, mindsets and ways of working that can influence complex systems over time.
The leadership offer focuses on behaviour change among system leaders in key positions, supporting them to work across organisational boundaries and sectors. It applies systems thinking directly to complex challenges such as physical inactivity, health inequalities and active environments, and builds distributed leadership capacity through the Train the Trainer model, reducing reliance on external expertise over time. Rather than delivering isolated leadership development, the programme intentionally shifts relationships, decision making and ways of working across the system, creating the conditions for sustainable change.
If you would like to learn more about our work please contact Beth Kay our Leadership Workstream Lead at leadership@taaf.co.uk