I have had a great day, or should I say a 'Good to Great' day!

I spent most of the day at the Leadership Event at the Royal Armouries where we were launching the 'from good to great leadership challenge'. The 'we' being Leeds City Council and the audience was the 350 senior leaders from across the Council, Education Leeds and the ALMOs.

The whole event was launched by Dave Page, Deputy Chief Executive with the Council who talked about our strategic priorities and showed everyone a powerful DVD focused on creating a city of enterprise, a city of culture and a city of learning, with an environment and a transport system that supports harmonious, thriving and healthy communities.

All members of the Council's Corporate Leadership Team were asked to give their personal perspective on the challenges and opportunities we face together. I was in the group immediately after Dave with Jean Dent, James Rogers and Sandie Keene... and we were brilliant!

The main speaker for the day was Mike O'Brien from the Pacific Institute who talked about 'Great Culture, Great Leadership, Great Performance' and he was focused and engaging and he really connected with the audience through his analysis, anecdotes and personal stories.

The afternoon session opened with the remaining members of Corporate Leadership Team, Neil Evans, Alan Gay, Nicole Jackson and Rosemary Archer talking about theri personal perspective and again it was engaging and powerful. Rosemary finished by introducing two young people from the Leeds Youth Council, Matthew and Sarah who talked about the things they wanted from us for their city... and it was an incredibly important and powerful statement about the future of our great city.

The day ended with the insights, wit and wisdom of Paul Rogerson, Chief Executive of the Council, who cahllenged us all to take the message into our working practices and build 'One Council'.

It was a great day, a stimulating and throught provoking day. Our challenge as always is to take it forward, to maintain the energy and momentum. We must all:

"set the goal and make it happen;

set the goal and invent the way;

set the goal and create the future."

We must all work to create a city of enterprise, a city of culture and a city of learning, with an environment and a transport system that supports harmonious, thriving and healthy communities... whatever it takes!

Chris