The Leicester Conference has taken place every year since 1957 and is the flagship of all the other Group Relations conferences and institutions around the world. 

For those who are deeply invested in understanding their relationship to leadership and authority in complex, uncertain contexts, it is the home of learning by experience.

This is a two-week unique opportunity to explore eternally relevant questions about Life at Work. 

Curious? book a call

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What kinds of authority and leadership are needed in contemporary organisations? 

How do you exercise authority and leadership when organisational structures and relationships are subject to continuous change?

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About the Conference

Designed for learning from — and through — experience, the conference is for those who wish to discover how to:

• to manage themselves more effectively in their roles;
• to understand and work with below-the-surface dynamics in groups and organisations;
• to develop vital leadership and management skills in thinking - in moments when it seems impossible to think.

What happens at the Leicester Conference?

A temporary organisation is created, in which all members and staff co-create the culture and practices of the organisation as it unfolds. We look at everything that happens within the organisation and surface what meanings are embedded within the behaviours as they happen.

The Groups are formed, and events are consulted to by the staff. The conference is designed to surface our assumptions and myths about organisational and social life. As the conference is fully residential, we have the experience of immersing totally into the life of the organisation, eating sleeping and working together consistently for 14 days. There is nothing quite like it.

My Leicester experiences

Conference staff

Directorate

Eliat Aram, PhD – Director

Dr Aram is the CEO of the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations in London, UK, and an avid Group Relations practitioner with nearly 30 years of experience. She has shaped, influenced, and often directed the Tavistock Institute’s flagship Leicester Conference since 2007. Eliat has had the privilege of staffing GRCs around the world, working across cultural and geographical boundaries.

I am excited to be directing the 80^th Leicester conference, with 80 symbolising a rich tapestry of life, wisdom, and abundance, and to open up the space where we can be – studying, transforming, interrogating, loving and learning (STILL) about Authority, Leadership and Organisation in Fragmented Environments (LIFE) – ultimately, learning from what we discover, uncover, and create together in the Leicester Conference hive.

Milda Autukaitė – Associate Director

Milda holds the MSc Organizational Psychology, Cert. TIHR (P3C, Coaching for Leadership) and is Principal Consultant in Tavistock Institute of Human Relations, Teacher and Supervisor in post graduate Group Dynamics course in Vilnius University. Co-founder and member of Lithuanian Group Relations Society, member of Lithuanian Group Analytic Society. Based in Vilnius and London.

While looking forward to the Conference and living in today’s world I am constantly coming back in my thoughts to the idea of STILL LIFE. Some days I find my inner stillness as a source of strength, and some other – oh well – I am looking for the ways how not to freeze and remain still when I need to find my inner authority. I am looking forward to working together and learning how we can integrate different parts of ourselves in shifting and challenging contexts of nowadays.

Fatima Kamaté – Administrator

With a BSc Psychology, Fatima is Business Support Officer at the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations.

Switching roles is at the heart of what I do. Working across operations, research, and business development, I am often intrigued by what is not always easy to see or articulate within individuals, groups, and organisations.

Having participated in a Group Relations Conference internationally, I find myself returning to the experience and how it has shaped the way I think about and approach life, leadership, and collaboration, particularly in moments of uncertainty or change.

I am happy to be part of the staff team for the 80th Leicester Conference, helping to facilitate such a unique learning experience – one that I believe stays with you long after it ends.

Abigail Johnson, PhD – Administrator and Consultant

Abigail is an Organizational Development Consultant specializing in organizational change. She works across industries including education, government, healthcare, engineering, and technology. She is a member of the New York Center for Group Relations, SIOP, AKRI, and ISPSO. Sha has served on the admin and consulting team at the GRCs of Teachers College, Columbia University, for almost a decade.

Consultants

Lennox Edmund Joseph, PhD
 
Lennox is an international educator, executive coach, and OD strategist with over 35 years’ experience transforming the “managerial mind” of organizations worldwide. He has advised governments, led strategic renewal and post-conflict initiatives, and held senior roles including OD/OE Advisor at the World Bank, twice President/CEO of NTL Institute, and President of The Lewin Center.

Trained in social psychology, management, and organizational behaviour, he is co-editor of The Art of Strategic Change (2024) and is dedicated to cultivating cultures that liberate the human spirit and enable deep organizational healing.

Saleem Khliefi, BA Social Work

Saleem is a group therapist, Organizational consultant and a member of OFEK. Born and raised in Nazareth, Saleem studied Social Work, worked as Psychotherapist at different psychiatric clinics for children and adolescents’ psychotherapy and served as professional team advisor and trainer at ELEM training department (ELEM is a non-profit organization for children and youth in distress). He worked as a project coordinator at ‘Al-Qaws’, an organization for the Arab LGBTQ community.

Nowadays he is working as a Social Worker at the National Prison Services, with decades of working internationally in the Group Relations field.

The ability to continue on keeping a learning stance in fragmented environments is a subject that I would love to explore and learn more about. Considering the events on the local and global scale, this ability is much needed, more than ever.

Michelle S. May, DLitt et Phil

Michelle is a professor in the Department of Industrial & Organisational Psychology and Programme Manager for the Doctorate in Consulting Psychology at the University of South Africa. She is also an Executive Committee Member of the Interest Group in Systems Psychodynamics of Organisations (IGSPO), SIOPSA.

Martha C.M. Mens, DRs

Martha is a Clinical Psychologist and Master Psychodynamic Counselling. She is very passionate in making the group relations perspective more accessible and applicable within the daily practice of organisational life and is a past Chair of Group Relations Netherlands. She worked more then 40 years  as a senior consultant located within the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations for several other departments. She works now as a independent consultant.

Martha also works as co-program developer, supervisor and consultant in the Post Academic Executive Programme Inside Dynamics in Organisations at the Utrecht University School of Governance. She is a keynote speaker about Task and Emotions in Organisations.

Mark Patterson, MSc. Leadership and Coaching

Mark Patterson is a Senior Leadership and Organisational Development Consultant at The King’s Fund, the UK’s leading health and care think tank. He is Director of the Top Manager Programme (TMP), one of the longest-running leadership development programmes in the UK and brings over 18 years of experience as a leadership coach and facilitator working with senior health and social care leaders, entrepreneurs, and non-profit executives.

A graduate of the Leicester Group Relations Conference, Mark holds an MSc in Leadership and Coaching and is an accredited coach. He draws on systemic and group relations approaches in his work, supporting leaders to navigate complex human systems and organisational change. Mark has a growing interest in what it means to lead with wisdom and humanity in the foothills of the AI era.

Dr Christopher Scanlon, DPhil

Dr Christopher Scanlon is an independent psycho-social researcher/consultant, Consultant Psychotherapist in adult & forensic mental health & Training Group Analyst, Institute of Group Analysis (London) and Irish Group Analytic Society (Dublin).

Marco Valerio

Marco is a lecturer, researcher, and leadership facilitator working at the intersection of systems psychodynamics, mindfulness, and mind–body processes. His work explores embodiment, unconscious group dynamics, and how authority, leadership, and role are taken up in groups and organisations. He has directed and staffed several Group Relations Conferences.

Monica Rocio Velarde Lazarte, PhD

Dr. Mónica Velarde Lazarte is a socioanalyst, organisational consultant and psychologist working internationally in the Tavistock tradition with a focus on authority, role and ethical imagination in contemporary institutions. Founder of Socioanalytic Practice, Wild Thoughts and the Territory.  Professional Partner and Trustee of the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations.

Gunjan Zutshi, MBA

Gunjan is an organization development consultant and coach with 30 years of experience. Co-founder of AgileSattva - a firm that uses humanistic and systems psychodynamic approach to change and leadership development in organizations. Her work is guided by Group Relations (GR) methodology, has been associated with Group Relations India for over a decade and she has been part of Group Relations Conferences since 2010, both as member and staff.

Gunjan is also a Provisional Teaching and Supervising Transactional Analyst - Psychotherapy (PTSTA-P) with a psychotherapy practice in Bangalore. She is a certified member of South Asian Association for Transactional Analysts (SAATA) and International Transactional Analysis Association (ITAA).