The Best Leaders are Creative Leaders 

• Are you a leader?

• Do you want to be a leader?

• Do you want to guide and inspire others?
  

Live up to your aspirations - the stand out leaders are the ones who understand what leadership is and have developed a capacity to inspire and to motivate.

The Certificate goes beyond leadership itself and examines other areas and techniques that will develop the students capacity to be more effective and inspirational in their aims of leading and motivating others.

• We have included choices for different modules enabling you to focus your studies on your area of work whether it be in the leisure industry or within a formal business environment. 

• Course Duration: Approximately 600 hours of self paced studies.

COURSE STRUCTURE
The Certificate in Creative Leadership comprises 6 modules, as shown below. Please click on the module titles for further details on each.

1. Leadership BBS110
   
2. Motivation VBS111
   
3. Communications VWR100
   
4. Counselling Techniques BPS206
   
5. Life Coaching BPS305 or Business Coaching BBS304
   
6. 1 module selected from the following : Creative Therapies BPS219,  Entrepreneurship BBS204, Relationships and Communication Counselling BPS208, Recreation Leadership VRE100 or Play Leadership VRE101.

LEADERSHIP SKILLS
The module options for parts of this course enable you to tailor your studies towards the industry within which you work. Although many concepts of leadership may be common to different industries, each requires its own approach.  Take, for exmaple, a play leadership role working with children.

The success or failure of any play program or facility is affected more than anything else by the leader. A good leader can create exciting and rewarding experiences for children, even with limited physical resources. A well funded and equipped play facility or program however is doomed to failure if the leader is incompetent. Good play leaders need more then appropriate training, but they also need to have a warm personality, a capacity to empathise with children (i.e. see the world from the child’s perspective), and be particularly sensitive to any children who are not fitting into the social group and are who are not accepted and supported by others in the playground or centre.

Uninterrupted play is important for a child’s social, physical and mental development. Play encourages brain development, stimulates creativity, increases a child’s academic ability, and enhances quality of life through to adulthood. Children who have learnt how to play, will have a more playful and creative approach to life as adults. 

The job of a play worker is to ensure that opportunities and environments are provided which enable quality play to occur for children. This profession is about making contact with all types of children, recognising their play needs, and then responding accordingly.

To do this well requires a wide range of skills and abilities including:

• The ability to communicate with children
  
• Sound understanding of children’s stages of development
  
• Have the required level of physical and mental fitness to work with children
  
• Planning skills
  
• Interpersonal skills
  
• Ability to manage contingencies
  
• Active listening skills
  
• Time management skills
  
• Acceptance of cultural differences in children (and their families attitudes to play)
  
• The ability to adapt the environment in ways to encourage play
  
• The ability to adapt activities to suit the needs and interests of different children
  
• Understand the importance of reflecting on your own practices.

A primary element of leadership is being receptive to or aware of the feelings of others. Any one in a position of power can dictate to others, but to truly lead them and to be able to motivate them, you need to be mindful of the messages you are delivering.  Not only do you need to be able to communicate in a clear and effective manner you also need to be aware of how they will receive such messages, how they will interpret them, how they will understand them and how they fit in with their own conceptions.