The Leadership Accelerator

The Leadership Accelerator is an immersive four-day course designed to provide established managers with the opportunity to revisit leading practices in creating a more cohesive, productive team in their organization. Using case studies, exercises, simulations, and extensive discussion, Professor Brent Smith, Senior Associate Dean of Executive Education, will guide this small cohort through the state of the science in leadership.

The program is designed around four building blocks:

Leading Oneself: The foundation of good leadership is self-awareness of our strengths and weaknesses as managers and an understanding of our own developmental mindset. Becoming an effective leader is a lifelong process requiring good learning habits. This building block is intended to develop a leader’s ability to focus their development on critical needs and build a framework for learning throughout their career.

Leading Others: The primary responsibility of a leader is to get the best from his/her employees. Yet, leaders often underestimate the effect they have on employee motivation, commitment, and engagement. This building block focuses on developing habits to enhance employee performance.

Leading Teams: Leaders must align the interests of a diverse set of employees around a common goal. When employees work in teams, problems of collaboration and conflict frequently arise. This building block is dedicated to developing habits of team leadership focused on setting a common, compelling direction for the team and addressing problems of team commitment through effective team coaching

Leading the Enterprise: This final building block is intended to teach leaders the basic principles of organizational alignment to improve the effectiveness of their function, business unit or organization by comprehensively diagnosing culture, process, and people.