Leading in a Bilingual Country

Leading in a Bilingual Country (henceforth ‘LIBC’) is a development programme for senior leaders to create an organisational culture in which the Welsh language can flourish. It’s jointly managed by Academi Wales and the Cymraeg 2050 Division of the Welsh Government.

We (Welsh Government) seek to further develop the programme that looks at:

Unconscious bias—understanding how inherent bias in people and organisations can inhibit moving Cymraeg forward and how an understanding of group dynamics and actively seeking diverse views around the topic can address this.

Empathy—how leaders explore and protect the opportunity to listen to others’ opinions and experiences of Cymraeg to develop mutual understanding.

Using effective communication that is based in positive and social psychology—i.e., more strengths-based, proud, inspiring, and inclusive

Role of leadership—to create the right conditions to begin making positive changes through small steps and celebrating small wins.

We are seeking contractors to co-deliver this programme. Contractors must meet the following criteria:

Background in leadership in Wales Public Services and familiarity with the principles and values of the One Welsh Public Service

Demonstrable experience of delivery of learning and development to diverse groups of senior leaders from public services in relevant areas of Leadership Development and Management of Change

A commitment to and experience of working with the principles, values and spirit of Cymraeg 2050.

The successful contractor would be tasked, in the first instance, with leading 2 cohorts per year with a ‘train the trainer’ element (outlined below) as an integral part. In subsequent years, when the train the trainer element has developed, we envisage increasing the number of cohorts per year.

The contractor will also co-facilitate with Prosiect 2050 officials a community of practice/post-programme implementation process to consolidate learning from the programme once leaders have completed it.

The programme will be based on a detailed theory of change and will be iterative, i.e. it will be refined and adapted based on formal and informal feedback of each cohort as they progress through the programme and as they interact in the community of practice. This will be an organic process to ensure LIBC remains fit for purpose and relevant to the current context at the time of delivery.

We will therefore be working collaboratively with the successful contractors to co-design, adapt, quality assure and deliver LIBC.

We will review every session in preparation for subsequent sessions to ensure the learning matches the dynamic of a given cohort. We will also evaluate each cohort based on the findings of the theory of change. This is likely to include, as a minimum, a baseline and end-of-programme cultural survey of the participants’ organisations in relation to Cymraeg.

An integral part of this new iteration of LIBC will be the ‘train the trainer’ aspect. The aim of this is to upskill suitable public sector staff to delivery LIBC in the future, but also to make them ambassadors for culture change at a decision-making-level for Cymraeg in their organisations. We envisage this turning into a peer network over time.