Resilient Leadership - The evolution of the role as top executive

As a top executive, you must navigate unpredictability: learn how to build a resilient organisation with a unique trip to Oxford.

In an ever-changing and unpredictable world, your organisation must be resilient. As a strategic and visionary leader, it is your responsibility to build the resilience that ensures your organisation achieves its goals.

Organisational resilience is about more than just weathering crises. It’s the ability of your organisation to anticipate, prepare for, respond to, and adapt to both gradual changes and sudden disruptions.

When making decisions for your organisation, you should take the time to distinguish between the different types of decisions you may need to make, the level of risk involved, and adjust your approach accordingly.

The Resilient Leadership programme provides you with the knowledge and methods to create a more resilient and thus successful organisation. You will learn to lead in a way that builds resilience, enabling your organisation to grow and achieve its goals despite the ever-shifting demands of the external environment—whether it's new technology, environmental and social factors, war, or changing market conditions both locally and globally.

A focused trip to the University of Oxford

On a 3-day trip to Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford, you will learn from some of Europe’s leading thinkers in management. You will experience the echoes of history in one of the world’s most beautiful university cities, where past meets future.

You’ll immerse yourself in the city as if you were a student, soaking up the atmosphere and walking the same paths where students have learned and grown since the 13th century.

The University of Oxford is the oldest in the English-speaking world. It boasts a strong academic reputation, excellent research facilities, and a long history of educating some of the world’s most prominent individuals. It is ranked as the world's best university by Times Higher Education*.

Saïd Business School is renowned for its high academic standards and innovative approach to business education. The teaching focuses on case studies and practical projects, a method also used in this programme to help you better relate theories to your daily life and organisation.

In collaboration with professors Michael Smets, Sally Maitlis, Stefan Baskerville, Elleanor Murray, and Marc Ventresca from Saïd Business School, CfL has created an exceptional programme. The exclusive annual trip to Oxford takes place in May, with limited spaces available.

* Source: World University Rankings 2025 | Times Higher Education (THE)

Target Audience for the Programme

The programme is designed for top executives who are highly ambitious. It offers you space for reflection, far removed from your busy everyday life, and provides fresh perspectives on how to lead your organisation.

You will meet other directors, CEOs, COOs, CTOs, division heads, or deputy directors within the group, with whom you can spar, gain inspiration, and learn from.

They all hold positions in their organisations that are characterised by:

• Strategic responsibility.
• High complexity in leadership tasks.
• Leadership of a management team.
• A requirement to integrate functions, plans, and strategy.
• A need for a holistic view of the business and the importance of divisions or departments working together across the organisation.

Programme Content and Topics

In the teaching sessions, professors from their respective fields will engage you in their considerations regarding leadership. They will challenge you on whether the strategies you choose to employ as a top executive are relevant and effective.

There will be exercises and group work where you and the other participants can relate to your own daily realities and the current situation of your respective organisations.

Here are some of the themes for the programme:

Innovation Strategy and Resilience

Explore how you, as a leader, can build resilience in your organisation by balancing improvements to existing processes with the discovery of new opportunities through innovation.

• How your organisation builds resilience through innovation and strategic approaches—adapting to change and remaining competitive.
• Exploit-Explore: The balance between leveraging existing resources and competencies (exploit) and exploring new opportunities and innovations (explore).
• Four fundamental principles for how you and other leaders in your organisation can foster innovation.

The interplay of resilience at both personal and organisational levels

Your role in creating a resilient and robust organisation.

• Resilience within the organisation: capacity and capability.
• Team resilience: team optimism and effectiveness.
• Individual resilience: mental toughness and resistance.
• Strategic adaptation and fine-tuning—time and again.
• Risk management vs. resilience.

Key Points and Messages from the Oxford CEO Report

We will delve into central themes from the Oxford CEO Report. This comprehensive study examines the challenges and demands faced by chief executives in the global and rapidly changing market. You will gain insights into the qualities, skills, and approaches that today’s CEOs need to navigate a dynamic and uncertain business environment.

• The CEO Report on Cyber-Resilience: shifting the focus from merely defending against cyber threats to building genuine cyber resilience.
• 6 key levers of a successful organisational transformation.

Building Resilience through High-Quality Connections

High-quality connections contribute to both personal and organisational resilience, as feeling connected to and supported by others helps you better manage challenges and collaborate on problem-solving.

• Building resilience through high-quality connections.
• Enabling the success of others.
• Leading by communicating the value and significance of others.

Programme Overview

The programme is a 3-day intensive course that allows you to step away from your busy routine and focus on your development as a leader.

You will have a unique opportunity to network and collaborate with other Danish top executives who face the same challenges as you do every day.

CfL will arrange transportation and accommodation in Oxford during your stay.

One month after returning home from Oxford, you will have the opportunity to participate in an online meeting with one of the instructors. During this session, you will discuss how to apply what you have learned. Think of it as a reminder to make use of your new knowledge, and the instructor will encourage and motivate you to further explore resilience in your role.