Longhorn Leadership Symposia (LLS)

Longhorn Leadership Symposia (LLS) is developed and supported in collaboration with the Conflict Management and Dispute Resolution Office, HealthPoint, and UT Learning & Development.

Objective

Cater to the unique needs and abilities of leaders of people at The University of Texas by creating a collegial community for learning, sharing, and supporting one another.

Rationale

Managers are a historically overlooked population when it comes to providing resources for development and professional support. They also experience an outsized amount of pressure to perform when success is most critical for the University. The Faculty & Staff Experience Survey results indicate that managers have concerns about how effectively UT is managed, how UT cares for employees, and the barriers to effectively do their work. LLS is an effort to support people in these critical positions by creating a community that serves one another in a collective effort to continuously improve service. Because of their outsize role at UT, targeting support to this population will have an equally outsized impact.

Concept

LLS provides a place where leaders of people at UT gather to discuss meaningful topics and share knowledge. We foster a community of peers. From highly experienced to leaders to new leaders with a fresh perspective, engage in productive conversations with a focus on supporting one another and continuously learning how to better serve the community. The term “Leaders of People” was chosen to highlight the expectation and appreciation that this population serves as leaders in our community, and they are stewards of other people throughout the UT community.

Format

Leaders gather monthly in small groups that we call Pods. Each Pod will join a virtual gathering hosted by a Hub. The Hub will launch discussion on a new engaging topic. Through this format, we are able to keep conversations intimate and expansive at the same time. Sessions will include subject matter experts as guest speakers, high-impact workshops, and facilitated discussions on timely subjects. Central to each event, will be collective discourse. Events are meant to start or continue a conversation unbounded by time or place.

Become a Pod Leader

All participants and Pod Leaders in LLS must be managers of people. If you are a manager and interested in becoming a Pod Leader, review the one and a half page Pod Leader Guide. It will help you better understand the commitment-level required. If you are still interested or would at least like to discuss it further, send us an email with the subject heading "LLS Pod Leader Inquiry". 

Registering for LLS

Registration for LLS in UTLearn is only available to people who are designated as managers of people in Workday. 

Before you are eligible to register for an LLS session, you must complete the LLS Acknowledgment in UTLearn.

To register for LLS, after logging into UTLearn, search for LLS. This will bring up a listing of all LLS Pods by UT building location. Choose an option convenient for you and click on it. From there you will see each session that we have scheduled so far. Under Details, you will also see who the Pod Leader is. We highly recommend that you reach out to that Pod Leader before registering to discuss availability. Coordinating a Pod is left up to Pod Leaders who take care to ensure a healthy dynamic for communication and community. If the Pod Leader agrees to include you in their Pod, select a session or sessions and make a request for registration.

If you find find that there is no long capacity in existing Pods, feel free to reach out to us so we can add you to a waitlist. 

LLS Collaborative Success

LLS is a collaborative program developed through a partnership among HealthPoint, Conflict Management and Dispute Resolution, Learning & Development, and the HR ACTION unit. Its success and continuous improvement is due to further collaboration among managers and leaders across The University of Texas at Austin.