Creative Leaders | 2025

• This course has closed.

Deadline extended to noon on Friday, October 3rd

Overview

Cultural and Creative Industries Skillnet along with Animation Ireland, Fís Éireann/Screen Ireland and Coimisiún na Meán are excited to open applications for Creative Leaders 2025.

As businesses move more and more into the digital age, the need for creative leadership is increasing. This is especially prevalent in the creative industries where large creative teams are working intensely on long-term projects in a virtual remote world.

What will this course cover?

Leading Self

• Completion of individual Personality profile report
• Building Self-awareness
• Communicating with different personality types
• Understand your leadership style
• Time Management/Productivity
• Goal Setting/OKRs

Leading Teams

• Leading with Emotional Intelligence
• Creating an interdependent leadership climate
• Leading vs Managing
• Creating a high-performance team
• Creating alignment and cohesion
• Giving Effective feedback
• Leading Future Leaders – Multigenerational

Design Thinking

• Understanding Creative thinking
• Creating empathy
• Defining problems
• Ideation
• Prototyping
• Testing

Inclusive Leadership

• Equality, diversity and Inclusion principles 
• Conscious Inclusion vs unconscious bias
• Inclusive leadership behaviours – Allyship
• Critical Thinking & Problem Solving
• Building Trust

Personal Value Proposition

• Leadership Statement
• Personal Brand – from invisible to invaluable
• Finding your Why
• Understanding your core values

Managing Stakeholders

• Managing multiple stakeholder
• Strategic Networking
• Courageous Conversations
• Influencing others – managing upwards
• Presentation Skills/Pitching for Impact

All participants will be asked to complete a Clarity4D personality profile questionnaire at the beginning of the programme; this will provide them with an individual report on their personality preferences and how to communicate and influence others.

Testimonials

“I would highly recommend the Creative Leadership course to anyone managing people in the Creative Industry. Personally, I have since secured permanent employment in the field, made meaningful network connections all while honing my creative and critical thinking and expanding my professional skill set –  I couldn’t recommend this course enough.”

Niamh MacKenna (Studio Meala)

“The Creative Leadership programme was much more than I expected it to be: besides the technicalities of learning about stakeholders, conflict management and managing habits and time, I have come away from this programme with a better awareness of myself. In doing so, I am constantly learning how to apply this knowledge to better my people and leadership skills, direct my career and even manage my own daily life. I would highly recommend this programme and I’ll guarantee that you will get much more out of this programme than you think.”

Deborah Tan (Jam Media)

“I took part in last years’ Creative Leadership course and cannot recommend it highly enough. Both Fiona Flynn and Stephen Fagan were fantastic course tutors who brought us through such a range of topics which all helped with leadership vs management in the workplace, feedback, understanding emotional intelligence and goal settling among many others.

I found the clarity 4d report and the 1-1 coaching sessions invaluable and it really changed my communication and organisational skills both in and out of the workplace and gave me an overall much more positive outlook on my role and career.”

Deborah Doherty (Elephant Goldfish)

Assignments

As part of the blended learning approach, participants will complete assignments and projects to support the embedding of learning, including a reflective learning journal, group projects, and presentations.

Participant profile

The programme intends to develop high-performing teams in the Irish cultural and creative industries by developing authentic leadership abilities within individuals who have moved, or wish to move from a technical/ creative role into a position where they are leading a team, within the larger organisation, as well as those who are transitioning from outside of the industry, including returners. Focusing on empowerment and leadership through authenticity, the course will support candidates in discovering their own leadership style and provide them with the tools to foster growth within the larger organisation.

In the short term, this course will provide individuals with leadership and management skills to deliver positive results and create a thriving workplace climate that fosters innovation, creativity and problem-solving. With continued growth, the course will affect a cultural shift in the development of high-performing teams throughout the target industries.

Tutor information

Fiona Flynn

Fiona is an experienced Senior Manager, Consultant, coach and facilitator. She is a passionate and active supporter of Women in Business and developing Female talent within organisations. She is President of PWN Dublin (Professional Women’s Network) – a global Not for profit volunteers organisation supporting Gender Balanced Leadership. Fiona has significant experience in building and developing teams to deliver results and growth in market share in a highly competitive fast paced environment, with over 20 years sales and marketing experience, 12 years of which was spent working in the highly competitive telecommunications and internet sectors. She is an accredited Emotional Intelligence coach. 

Stephen Fagan

A creative entrepreneur with a proven track record, Stephen is the Managing Director of Studio Meala, a qualified coach and creative professional. Stephen has over two decades of experience in the audiovisual industry, where he transitioned from creative roles to Managing Director. His hands-on experience allowed him to practically apply, design and coaching tools to real-world scenarios, establishing two internationally recognised animation studios in the process. As a qualified coach, Stephen works with Creative, Entrepreneurs and small businesses to develop in alignment with their own core values to create long term success.

There will also be a number of guest tutors throughout the programme, names to be confirmed.

Materials/equipment/software needed

Sessions will take place online apart from a number of key sessions that will be in-person in Dublin city centre.

Venue/location

Online and In-Person

Costs/fee

€250

Closing date for application/enrollment

Thursday, October 2nd, at noon.

Dates and times of the course

Starts October 25th.

• 16 Weeks Part-Time
• Workload Approx 3hrs Per Week
• 3 x 1:1 coaching sessions
• 3 x in-person sessions

A draft schedule is below, please note dates are subject to change: