Approach | Stanford Leadership Institute

The Stanford Leadership Institute believes a multi-faceted, interdisciplinary model is the best way to address the challenges facing today’s leaders. That’s why we are working on multiple fronts — researching, teaching, convening, and engaging people impacting our world.

Explore All Initiatives

It All Starts With Research

We’re fostering new research that focuses on vital issues of business and societal importance — from the latest disruptive technologies to demands on global health. We encourage collaboration across disciplines, the Stanford campus, and the world to advance breakthrough ideas that can be transformed into practical leadership insights.

Students in a lecture in a GSB classroom, about 6 students in the shot listening.

Teaching Transforms Ideas Into Practice

Informed by the institute’s research, we will enhance curriculum and programming to help leaders be more aware and agile, proactive and principled. This effort, beginning at the GSB and extending to more communities, will keep Stanford at the forefront of leadership education.

Convening Extends Our Impact

We’re inviting academics and practitioners to take part in the conversation and to come together so new ideas can flourish. The institute provides opportunities to discuss emerging challenges, formulate practical solutions, and inspire new research.

Dean Soule moderating a panel at the 2025 Sustainability Conference

Juan Manuel Santos speaking at an speaker event for the GSB

Engaging Experts For New Insights

We seek out distinguished leaders and scholars to enrich our research, teaching, and convenings. By bridging practical experience with academic insight, the institute equips leaders to move from reacting to change toward shaping it.

Focus Areas of the Stanford Leadership Institute

We are exploring five key areas that reflect major forces shaping business and society.

Science and Technology

Scientific discoveries and new technologies are transforming every field of human endeavor, creating unprecedented opportunities and risks. Examining a range of advances from artificial intelligence to biomedicine, the institute informs how leaders can responsibly design, scale, and govern these innovations to improve people’s lives while mitigating negative impacts.

Environment and Resources

Addressing sustainability challenges at a time of rapidly growing resource needs requires the adoption of new technologies, the creation of new business models, and fresh thinking about the role of markets and governments. The institute explores the impact of business and policy decisions to equip leaders with new solutions.

Markets and Economies

A competitive and innovative private sector that delivers broad economic opportunity requires effective markets and institutional rules. By evaluating key factors, including market structure, innovation and competition, and economic policies, the institute leverages expertise from across the university to guide how business and government leaders shape our future prosperity.

Government and Governance

Many of today’s debates about corporate purpose, regulatory policy, and the future of capitalism hinge on systems of institutional accountability in firms and governments. The institute advances work on corporate governance, politics, and policy to balance shareholder and stakeholder demands and frame new approaches for institutional and organizational efficacy.

Society and Culture

Today’s leaders and their organizations are impacted by societal and cultural forces but have the agency to shape them. The institute empowers leaders to be agents of change by giving them a greater understanding of how movements, policies, and strategies can deliver enduring social benefits.