Derby management professional Jane Brockliss has earned top marks and the Doctor of Education qualification from the University of Derby.
Jane Brockliss is co-creator and Director of Repton-based Awbery, which works with private and public sector companies and multi-national organisations across the UK and Europe, delivering high-impact leadership and management development programmes, HR and coaching solutions.
She will be one of around ten professionals to be awarded the EdD by the University of Derby this year, and will attend the graduation ceremony at the Derby Arena next week on Friday 14th July, where she will be presented with her doctorate by the Duke of Devonshire, who is Chancellor of the University of Derby.
At the heart of Jane’s Doctorate was a ground-breaking study into the success rates of leadership learning transfer in the workplace that Jane devised and carried out over seven years.
Entitled ‘Learning translation – A Network Social Capital Perspective’, the research has made “unprecedented, significant contributions to the knowledge surrounding business leadership coaching and education”, according to Dr Neil Radford, Programme Leader for Doctor of Education at the University of Derby.
“The thesis on Jane’s research, and her explanation of the methodology and the findings, was deemed exceptional by the examiners and she was awarded a Pass with no amendments, which is very rare at doctoral level,” commented Dr Radford.
Jane explains that the research and doctorate were driven by a mix of personal and commercial objectives: “If you asked me at different times from when I started the doctorate in 2009 until I completed it in 2016, I would have given different answers.
“In 2009, my life was very busy with working full-time and having a family. Although I had to ‘think through’ opportunities and problems at work and home, I realised that my thinking had become rather predictable. Long service at Awbery was great in terms of knowledge and client relationship building, but I needed a new challenge.
“In Awbery, we pride ourselves on our real life strategic leadership experience, but my knowledge of learning and education was relatively less strong. The Doctor of Education programme at the University of Derby was ideal: it is academically challenging and encouraged me to look at leadership development from a different perspective.
“As a practitioner and professional doctorate, as opposed to a traditional PhD, the EdD is designed to examine a practical education issue in depth and as such, meant my studies would be of value to Awbery as well as to me personally.”
Dr Radford added: “As a result of Jane’s work, we now appreciate that the workplace line manager is only one of many factors that influence the translation of leadership learning into practice.
“The line manager might not be the most important one for some individuals, instead it seems that individuals vary greatly in terms of which relationships in their social network are important inhibitors or facilitators of a leader’s ability to translate learning into their day to day work.
“Jane’s research provides important knowledge for practitioners of leadership development, but also all situations where learning takes place and is then translated into another situation.”
Awbery is one of the UK’s leaders in the creation of leadership and management, HR and coaching solutions. The Learning Transfer study is the latest in the firm’s ongoing research programme that has also tackled issues such as corporate burnout, mentoring, coaching, and the challenges and opportunities facing HR professionals.
