About James

I've been an unconventional leader since I was a teenager. First with the scout movement, then the Territorial Army. After university I joined the UK civil service on a graduate management development programme. My career is now in its third decade and I've worked in Finance, HR, policy, strategy, IT, change, operations management and internal consultancy. Over the years I've mentored, coached and developed dozens of senior managers and hundreds of people.

Neither a Weeknote nor a Half-Yearnote

Peter Schofield engaging with the wellbeing material produced by one of the learning groups from Cohort 5 of the DWP Project Leadership Academy (photo: James Kemp)

It’s been a very long time since I managed to write a weeknote. The last one was in January. There are too many reasons for this to go into, and I’m not going to try and properly catch everyone up Continue reading Neither a Weeknote nor a Half-Yearnote

Discovery Workshop on Leadership #DWL19

On Friday I attended the OneTeamGov Discovery workshop on Leadership. The workshop was inspired by the Twitter discussion following the results of applications to the Future Leaders Scheme (FLS) last November. Leadership for What? This was the big question of Continue reading Discovery Workshop on Leadership #DWL19

My Path to Project Delivery

At a recent all team event I was asked to share more about my background and pre-DWP work history with the team to help them know me better. Here are my notes from that session. About me My name is Continue reading My Path to Project Delivery

Weeknotes 07-11 Jan 2019

Happy New Year to everyone that I’ve not see to say so in person! I had a great Christmas break. I was last in the office on Tuesday 18th December, although I worked from home on the 19th in the Continue reading Weeknotes 07-11 Jan 2019

Weeknotes 17-21 December

This was my last working week of the year. Not even a whole week, although I don’t actually recall the last time I did a full week, certainly not in December (although some of them have come close despite officially Continue reading Weeknotes 17-21 December