Had you ever considered leading from the back? If not, a session at the English UK Management Conference aims to explain both how and why you might want to consider it.

Ollie Beaumont, Academic Manager at Regent Oxford, says it's a great way to get people working enthusiastically.

"It's really about shifting the responsibility and using listening and questioning rather than telling and dictating to get what you want done. You still have an objective or aim… but you're going in there with an open mind. You are open about what you want to achieve, but you might have a discussion with the teachers or the staff, whoever they might be, come up with it together."

Ollie says he grew to prefer this method of leadership when he started as a young academic manager with staff who "had been teaching longer than I've been alive."

He plans to talk about key areas for managers: vision, empowering staff and feedback. He is also interested in coaching as an element of his management style, recalling an early incident when a teacher asked for advice on dealing with a tricky student but then rejected it all.

"I realised that telling people what to do doesn't work. When an idea is mine I am excited and come in to work early and work on it in the evenings because it's mine; my little project, I am excited by it.

"And if you try and install that in the people you are leading, that element of getting to engage in the task as if it's as if their own you will see that difference between doing it being told to do it and buying into it because its theirs. You need to engage people's mind, heart and body. Are they physically able to do this? Do they know why it's important to do this? Are they passionate about this?"

The English UK Management Conference is being held at the Royal York Hotel in York on Thursday 12 and Friday 13 March 2015.

With big-name speakers and ELT specialists, there are presentations for everyone, including why a happy workplace is more productive, the English UK 'MBA', conflict, communication, CPD, careers, inspection, and more. An Open Space session, moderated by Will Nash,  is designed to ensure managers discuss issues most crucial to their working lives.

Find out more and book your place for the English UK Management Conference 2015.