Programme – The European Leadership Programme

What we offer

The European Leadership Programme (ELP) is a five month long post-graduate residential programme where the Fellows receive leadership training and support in their vocation discernment during their time in Brussels. Participants live in a shared community, and apart from their daily traineeship or work, they help in marginalized communities, receive spiritual coaching and professional mentoring, and get in close contact with senior actors in the Brussels EU ecosystem.

Segments of the Programme

Leadership

We offer workshops to improve your knowledge on EU issues, leadership and management.

Never stop learning

The ELP offers the possibility to attend workshops, seminars and conferences related to EU issues and leadership.

EU Affairs

Meet people from higher ranking positions of the EU ecosystem through private sessions.

Meet the EU leaders

Our private sessions with EU decision makers and leaders last around 90 minutes.

Volunteering

Every second week, our Fellows engage in a community service activity of their choice.

Volunteer

You can serve meals in an elderly home, offer teaching lessons to asylum-seekers or serve breakfast to refugees.

Coaching / Mentoring

One on one spiritual coaching and professional mentoring.

Self-development

Ignatian-inspired spiritual coaching and professional mentoring, in order to discern on your vocation for the common good.

Community

We have two co-living houses available to rent where you can live in community.

House sharing

Living in a community with other Brussels- based professionals, forging lifelong friendships and professional connections.

leadership

Workshops, Seminars and Conferences

Learning by doing

We believe that leadership starts with the self. We believe it is not a tool outside of us, but a never ending learning process. It is part of our everyday life, how one behaves and it can be demonstrated through consistent actions, respecting our own values.

This segment is woven into the fabric of all the other segments. You can identify and learn leadership styles not only during the training, but also by listening to the testimonials of the guest speakers from the wider EU eco-system, by getting to know your bosses, colleagues and fellows, and by doing your own share of volunteering among others.

To give a solid and tangible form to your perceptions and development, you will be required to develop your own Personal Mission Plan (PMP), whose guidelines will be prepared during the inauguration day and offered in the spiritual retreat.

Leadership Game

FLIGBY identify, measure, and help develop leadership skills.

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Training

Eu affairs

Discussions and testimonies with leaders

Learning, discussing and reflecting with leaders from the EU ecosystem.

The EU Affairs segment allows our Fellows to be immersed in the administrative and political life of the EU institutions having the opportunity to meet with political leaders in Brussels, Luxembourg, Strasbourg and beyond.

Some of our speakers are in high ranking positions or were placed to influence historical decisions, others made life changing decisions by joining or quitting the institutions. This segment allows our Fellows to meet with leaders and to hear first-hand stories and testimonies about their vocation. Importantly, this is done within an intimate and relaxed setting, in order to foster an open and candid conversation.

The purpose is for our Fellows to have the opportunity to engage with our guest speakers and learn lessons which can hone their leadership qualities, complement their vocations, and further their understanding about various industries. The programme includes such meetings with a variety of leaders drawn from careers in fields such as politics, the Church, non-governmental organisations, and more. The result is that our Fellows are exposed to insightful testimonies, which few ever have the opportunity to hear, and which can have the capacity to be eye-opening and possibly life-changing.

Get to know our speakers

Our sepakers come from the world of politics and the EU ecosystem.

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Speakers

volunteer

Volunteering – Walk with the excluded

ELP it’s about impact, goodness and making history.

The Volunteering segment of the programme is about providing a holistic leadership experience for our Fellows. All Fellows are required to take on a community service activity of their choice every second week. This is a grounding experience for our Fellows to appreciate all realities and social conditions which are experienced in Brussels, and not just those lived inside the EU institutions or the ‘Brussels bubble’.

In essence, our Fellows will give back to marginalised communities – an important Jesuit concept – while at the same time gaining valuable life lessons that they will take with them as future leaders. The programme works with the non-governmental organisation ‘Serve the City’ in order to help our Fellows choose a community service. Examples undertaken in the past include serving meals to the elderly and the homeless, as well as offering help with language learning for asylum-seekers.

Our Partner

Serve the City offers help ans support to homeless shelters, refugee centers, orphanages, and other social associations.

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Volunteer

Coaching and Mentoring

Unleash your best potential

Spiritual training and career mentoring.

The Coaching/Mentoring segment is the distinctive element of the programme, as we truly focus on personal development by offering to construct a tailored discussion for each Fellow.

The segment is divided into two key components: a coaching element centred on spiritual growth, and a mentoring element focused on career development. By attending the regular individual sessions, you will have the opportunity to be assisted in the “inner reading” of your feelings and experiences, in the discernment of your vocation, and further boost your professional development. The Fellows also take part in a guided spiritual retreat, building on their own calling through required readings on executive leadership, Catholic Social Teaching and Ignatian Spirituality. For mentoring, the Fellows are paired with industry leaders from EU institutions, academia, and the private sector. Ultimately, this delivers unrivalled networking opportunities, as well as bespoke advice for them and their careers.

Naturally, Fellows will draw on both components in their futures, using learned skills in order to manage life in the role of a leader.

COMMUNITY

Make like-minded friends and enjoy Brussels

A community based on shared values.

Our programme brings together a community composed of generous, passionate, and determined people from around the world. They’re world changers and history makers.

Our Fellows become life-long members of the ELP community. While Brussels is the natural home for future European leaders, it can be difficult to forge true connections. What makes the European Leadership Programme unique is the possibility to stay at our houses with the other Fellows who are at a very similar stage in their lives having a wide range of vocations and past experience. Navigating a community life takes patience and management skills, which will be naturally honed due to the environment that our Fellows live in. In this Programme housing means more than renting a room: it aims to bring together a community that will help you to feel more rooted in your new circumstances.

Check our housing here.

Get to know our houses.