Leadership and management isn’t easy. Learning a management theory is great, yet translating this into performance is what matters.

Studying an ILM (Institute of Leadership and Management) qualification certainly shouldn’t be overlooked. It will not only improve your performance as a manager, but it will also increase your employability and enhance your career prospects further.

ILM assessments focus on delivering practical skills and knowledge directly into the workplace. The qualification is founded on work-based learning, with assessments based on projects that relate to the employer, and ensure learning is relevant and applied.

ILM qualifications start at Level 2, (ideally for team leaders) and follow to Level 7 (suited to senior managers) and each level can be achieved at Award, Certificate or Diploma status depending on the number of credits gained.

So what are the benefits of studying an ILM qualification?

The ILM qualification gives you a range of key management skills and techniques to drive better results in the workplace. Building your leadership capabilities, allowing you to motivate and engage teams and manage relationships confidently. 

ILM is an incredibly useful qualification as it enables you to undertake units which either you or your employer think are needed in order to suit your requirements and particular skills gap. ILM provides a broad range of optional units, therefore it is a qualification which can be tailored to your organisation’s learning and developmental needs. Set by a series of levels and regulatory frameworks, the qualifications increase with complexity and knowledge as you develop through the framework.

A qualification that grows and develops with you, it allows you to develop as a manager and diversify your skills according to.

At Roundhouse Thinking, we deliver ILM training at Levels 3 and 5. If you would like further information, please click here. Alternatively, give us a call on 01332 836638 or contact us via email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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Pattonair is a leading global Aerospace and Defence supply chain service provider – working with a wide range of customers across the world with over 40 years of experience in the industry. With its headquarter in Derby, the company employs around 1,000 people in the UK, USA, Singapore, France and Italy.

Having grown significantly over the past four years and invested heavily in the development of processes and procedures, Pattonair identified the need to develop leadership and management skills across the company.

Pattonair has a policy of promoting from within the company and recognised that a training programme was required to support senior managers whether they were recently in post or had been in that position for longer periods of time.

Although the company supports staff with practical training through apprenticeships and higher education support and whilst senior managers were promoted on the strength of their ability to do the job – there was widespread recognition that the softer skills of people management and team motivation often needed to be addressed.

The company also recognised that, in a competitive recruitment market, it was important to clearly demonstrate to applicants that Pattonair is a company that values and invests in its workforce.

Pattonair worked with us to develop the bespoke PILOT programme – focusing on the ‘softer skills’ linked to relationship building, such as communication, personality profiling, delegation and conflict resolution.

The objective was to support senior managers in their role and to give them the ability to better manage and disseminate skills across their teams to increase efficiency, raise standards and boost productivity.

The company therefore brought together 70 managers from across the company for a series of monthly training sessions over 12 months.

The programme is unique in a number of ways.

It is bespoke to the company with all theoretical training directly linked back to the company ethos and practice.

PILOT was developed in line with the company’s core values and behaviours which are at the heart of the company’s operations:

- Building with integrity, fairness and trust
- Challenge and innovate
- Always putting outstanding service first
- Making ambition work

PILOT was totally inclusive and open to all senior managers regardless of their previous qualifications and training with graduates working alongside vocationally-trained former shopfloor workers who had worked their way up into management roles.

Managers from across the business were divided into groups – enabling them to work with colleagues from different aspects of the business.

Training was classroom based our associates travelling to the USA and Singapore to deliver training there and then European managers travelling to Derby College for the majority of training.

The final sessions, focusing on Pattonair’s financial and achieving zero defects models, were held in- house.

The programme concludes with each team completing a community project which has so far included refurbishment work at a homeless charity’s premises, maintenance projects at an animal sanctuary and dry stone walling in the Derbyshire Dales.

Due to the positive feedback received so far, Pattonair has already returned to us to launch Co-Pilot, which is aimed at section leaders and is planning Auto Pilot as a follow up with the management teams to embed further learning into the workforce development programme.

Pattonair will also be working with Derby College to allocate its employer apprenticeship levy on the expansion of its apprenticeship programme (for young apprentices and for existing staff). This will continue the shopfloor training programmes including warehousing and business improvement techniques and expand into new customer service and administration apprenticeships.