%0 Conference Paper %A Willmot, Peter %D 2017 %T Enhancing employability through leadership training %U https://repository.lboro.ac.uk/articles/conference_contribution/Enhancing_employability_through_leadership_training/9558887 %2 https://repository.lboro.ac.uk/ndownloader/files/17190833 %K Employability %K Skills %K Mechanical Engineering not elsewhere classified %X Most university engineering degrees include elements of teamwork experience to a greater or lesser extent and students are frequently placed in positions of leadership. Few universities, however, actively develop leadership skills or provide targeted training as a primary objective within course modules. Leadership coaching is a competence that is outside the experience of most engineering academics and providing it offers a new challenge for them. This paper compares two models for teaching 'leadership', offered as options in the final-year of an undergraduate engineering programme. Both use methods far removed from the usual diet of lectures and examinations. One is focused around a semester-long activity where senior students take responsibility for a team of younger students undertaking an industrially-based project. It is supported by a series of activity-based workshops. The second has similar objectives but is very different in style; it encapsulates a three-day intensive outdoor management course that exemplifies team-work and leadership theory through hands-on activities and provides the main focus for precourse learning and post-course assignments. This paper describes the two variants and the philosophy that inspired them. A short survey reveals how a year-group of students responded to the different training methods and provides a comparison of the two educational models. %I Loughborough University