WIG alumni insights on cross-sector learning, mentoring and leading through ambiguity : Learning at Work Week 2026

Cross-sector leadership development is becoming essential as organisations navigate economic disruption, AI adoption, public service reform, and the transition to net zero. Our 2025 State of Cross-sector Collaboration in the UK survey found that 92% of senior leaders believe cross-sector collaboration is critical to economic growth, yet only 12% believe it is currently effective, and fewer than a third feel confident collaborating across sectors themselves. The gap between ambition and capability highlights a growing need for leaders who can work effectively beyond traditional organisational boundaries.

At our Learning at Work Week 2026 webinar, held on 21 May 2026, senior leaders from defence and Parliament explored how cross-sector learning, collaboration, and mentoring help leaders navigate complexity, uncertainty, and organisational transformation, and what closing the gap between belief and capability to lead across sectors actually looks like in practice.

Key takeaways:

  • Cross-sector collaboration is a leadership imperative: The most complex challenges facing leaders today cannot be solved by any single organisation; cross-sector collaboration, built on shared purpose and trust, is what unlocks collective impact.
  • Transferable leadership skills are more valuable than many leaders and organisations realise: Skills such as convening people around a shared goal, facilitating action, influencing stakeholders, and moving from strategy to implementation are highly transferable across sectors and increasingly in demand.
  • Peer networks and cross-sector relationships are a strategic leadership asset: The relationships built across sector boundaries, through programmes, secondments, or informal communities, consistently prove as valuable as any structured learning.
  • Intentional choices and lifelong learning define exceptional leaders: Leadership growth often comes from stepping beyond familiar environments, taking on new challenges before feeling fully ready, and continuing to learn at every career stage.
  • Leading through ambiguity is a shared challenge across every sector: Effective leadership today is less about projecting certainty and more about navigating ambiguity, building diverse teams, and helping people move forward together with confidence and clarity.

How non-linear career paths and cross-sector learning shape effective leadership

Drawing on nearly 30 years in defence, Lucy Wood, Commercial Director at BAE Systems, shared insights shaped through bold career decisions, cross-sector learning, and experience that challenged conventional ideas of leadership progression.

  • Leadership beyond the expected path:  Lucy reflected on how embracing new opportunities, taking considered risks, and following non-traditional routes helped shape her leadership journey. Leaders should not feel pressured to follow the “expected path”; progress often comes from trying something new before you feel entirely ready.
  • Self-compassion is a leadership strength: Balancing demanding leadership responsibilities with personal commitments is a near-universal challenge. Treating yourself with the same empathy and understanding you extend to your team helps sustain resilience and long-term effectiveness.
  • Cross-sector collaboration is a learnable capability: Lucy emphasised that collaboration is essential for solving complex organisational and societal challenges. Shared purpose, she argued, allows organisations to achieve far greater impact together than they could independently.
  • Leading remote and global teams requires empathy and clarity: In complex, multi-national environments, leaders must prioritise trust, autonomy, communication, and empathy to lead distributed teams effectively.

"When you've got a shared purpose, collaboration can unlock the impact far beyond what any one organisation can do alone."

Lucy Wood

Commercial Director, BAE Systems

Why cross-sector mentoring helps senior leaders build lasting organisational change

Simon Burton, former Clerk of the Parliaments and CEO of the House of Lords, brought a perspective shaped by deliberate cross-sector engagement spanning financial services, business education, and higher education, as well as a year of WIG mentoring during one of the most consequential periods of his career. 

  • Think about legacy from day one: During the second year of his five-year tenure, Simon's WIG mentor asked, "What do you want things to look like when you leave?” That question shaped his long-term approach to organisational change and helped create the conditions for his successor to continue his work of leading the organisation through a values-based approach.
  • Modern leadership requires “grey skies thinking”: Rather than focusing solely on optimistic “blue skies” thinking, Simon argued that today’s leaders must be comfortable with ambiguity, vulnerability, and uncertainty while building diverse teams capable of solving complex problems collectively.
  • Cross-sector mentoring opens horizons that experience alone cannot: Working with a senior mentor from higher education gave Simon an independent space to think clearly, challenged assumptions shaped by his own organisational context, and built confidence to act boldly on his priorities early.
  • Effective leadership is about knowing “who to ask”: Beyond expertise itself, leadership increasingly depends on building relationships with people who bring different forms of knowledge and perspective. Curiosity and openness, Simon noted, are critical for building the networks leaders rely on during periods of complexity and change.
  • Lifelong learning should never be career-stage dependent: Simon began mentoring on WIG’s Step-Up Step Across programme after retirement and argued that leadership learning and development should continue beyond an entire career.

"Cross-sector mentoring opened new horizons and new ways of thinking, built my confidence to be bold about my legacy early on, gave me time to reflect on my role in the wider system, and a safe space entirely outside my own organisation."

Simon Burton

Former Clerk of the Parliaments, House of Lords

How cross-sector experience builds valuable transferable skills

Harriet Wallace, Director of Sustainability at Imperial College London, moved into the role via a WIG secondment after more than 20 years across four government departments, alongside experience in the private sector, and currently also serves as a charity Trustee. She shared five insights into the growing importance of transferable leadership skills across sectors:

  • Leadership skills developed in the Civil Service are highly transferable across sectors:  Harriet observed that experiences gained through generalist roles common in the Civil Service, such as structuring decisions, facilitating effective meetings, and moving from strategy to implementation, are "incredibly transferable" and highly valued in other sectors like higher education.
  • Broadening organisational perspectives on talent: Harriet reflected that exposure to talent from different sectors can help organisations recognise leadership capabilities, perspectives, and approaches they may not have previously identified as priorities within their own context
  • Building impact through organisational understanding: Harriet’s first instruction in her new role was to spend six weeks listening rather than making changes. According to her, taking time to understand existing cultural systems and ways of working can support more informed decision-making, stronger relationship-building, and more sustainable change.
  • Cross-sector work creates a valuable “mirror effect”: Engaging with leaders working in different sectors or countries can reveal strengths, assumptions, and blind spots that are difficult to see within a single organisational environment.
  • Peer leadership networks are “transformative”: Finding informal, generous peer groups (such as a network of sustainability directors) is "transformative" for sharing tips and navigating sector-specific challenges.

"Those generalist skills can feel woolly from the inside the Civil Service, but they are rare and genuinely valuable when you carry them somewhere they are not commonplace and work alongside colleagues with deep sector-specific skills and knowledge."

Harriet Wallace

Director of Sustainability, Imperial College London

Why cross-sector leadership development should be a strategic priority for UK organisations in 2026

The leadership challenges facing organisations today, from economic disruption and AI adoption to public service reform and net zero, are increasingly complex, interconnected, and impossible to solve within a single sector alone. As the experiences shared by Lucy Wood and Simon Burton demonstrated, effective leadership now depends on the ability to collaborate across boundaries, learn continuously, build diverse networks, and lead confidently through ambiguity.

Closing the gap between recognising the importance of cross-sector collaboration and having the capability to do it effectively will be a defining leadership challenge for UK organisations in 2026 and beyond. Through cross-sector mentoring, secondments, leadership programmes, and strategic dialogue, WIG remains committed to helping leaders build the relationships, perspectives, and capabilities needed to create lasting impact across sectors.

Applications are now open for our Autumn 2026 Leadership and Talent Programmes.

Join our upcoming drop-in sessions for:

Women’s Leadership Programme

Advanced Collaborative Leadership Programme

Senior Leadership Programme

Step Up Step Across Programme

Get in touch to learn more and apply. Please contact [email protected] for direct inquiries.

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