A gap in the delivery of joint professional military education for senior enlisted personnel has resulted in the creation of a new programme for defence.
The design of the Defence Senior Enlisted Leadership Programme (DSELP) has been a collaborative effort over the past year by the Defence Leadership and Business (DLaB) Group’s Defence Leadership Centre (DLC), in partnership with UK Strategic Command, and the Defence Academy’s Learning Capability and Development (LCaD) Group.
The programme focuses on developing the strategic and corporate knowledge, skills, experience and leadership behaviours of executive warrant officers and command sergeant majors who support 1- 4-star military commanders across all of defence.
Key themes of the programme include:
- knowledge of defence policy
- defence strategy
- leadership skills (leading self, teams, and organisations)
- critical/strategic thinking
- organisation design
- ethics
Adopting DLC’s Leadership Edge Framework (LEF), the classroom activities included:
- Warrant Officer’s Mental Fitness and Resilience Course
- coaching approaches (to inspire and empower), including ‘coaching triads’
- motivation
- emotional intelligence
- inclusive leadership
- ethical leadership
- feedback (to build trust and connections)
- building high-performing teams
- strategic leadership
The inaugural DSELP took place across three weeks from the end of March to the beginning of April 2025. Fifteen UK warrant officer course members attended, alongside international mentors and observers, including:
- Command Senior Enlisted Leader (CSEL) for US European Command, Command Sergeant Major (CSM) Rob Abernethy
- US Air Force in Europe-Air Force Africa Chief Master Sergeant, CMSgt Randy Kwiatkowski
- Warrant Officer (WO) of New Zealand Defence Force, WO1 Mu Moffit
- Canadian Armed Forces Chief Warrant Officer, Command Chief WO Bob McCann
- Australian Defence College CSEL, WO Penny Baker
- Baltic Defence College CSEL, CSM Alyvidas Tamosiunas
The programme received strategic insights from the highest levels of defence, including input from General Sir Jim Hockenhull, (Commander, UK Strategic Command), General Tom Copinger-Symes (Deputy Commander, UK Strategic Command), General Tom Bateman (Standing Joint Force Headquarters) and General Zac Stenning (Director Strategy).
The programme also benefited from visits to Army Headquarters, Air Command Headquarters, Royal Navy Headquarters, Strategic Command, and the MOD.
In addition, the Defence Academy also welcomed the new UK Senior Enlisted Advisor to the Chief of Defence Staff WO1 (SEAC) Sarah Cox, who supports the pan-defence programme. She accompanied the Canadian Armed Forces Chief Warrant Officer and Australian Defence College CSEL to observe the DSELP classroom activities and were also given an overview of the Defence Academy’s wider outputs, including briefs from:
- Joint Services Command and Staff College
- Learning Capability and Development Group
- Defence College for Military Capability Integration
Speaking at the conclusion of the programme, WO New Zealand Defence Force WO1 Moffitt:
From April 2026, the DSELP classroom syllabus will be replaced by DLC’s new Defence Connecting Leaders Programme which is a residential, modular programme consisting of three separate modules (Lead Self, Lead People, Lead Organisation). Each module will run across three days.