New Executive Leadership Development Course for Emerging Leaders

Stanford GSB will introduce a new executive education program, Executive Leadership Development: Analysis to Action, in January 2012. The course, aimed at high-potential executives and emerging leaders from around the world, will help participants develop the tools they need to diagnose and solve business problems, effectively lead individuals, groups, and organizations, and ultimately rise to the next level in their enterprises. The program is still accepting applications.

Delivered in two modules (January 15-27 and April 15-20, 2012) and enhanced with 360-degree feedback and leadership coaching, this innovative program will help executives sharpen analytical skills, gain a better awareness of how they are perceived as leaders, and develop a fresh and informed perspective on how to accomplish individual leadership objectives. Participants will have access to the same world-class faculty members who teach in the full-time Stanford MBA program. Participants will receive a new Apple iPad2 with access to course materials.

The program will include:

• Topics essential to leadership development, including a focus on applying critical analytical thinking to crucial business issues — part of the intellectual skill set that defines exceptional leaders. In small group settings, faculty will provide intensive training, practice, and feedback in the construction, presentation, and evaluation of clear, concise, and well-reasoned arguments. By honing critical analytical thinking skills, participants will be able to better identify and communicate arguments and improve decision making.
• Discovery of the principles of design thinking and how to use those principles to create organizational structures, work groups, and individual jobs, as well as social networks, change efforts, and cultural norms.
• Refining a set of personal leadership skills, including influence, motivation, and communication, through the use of in-class training and exercises. The program incorporates leadership coaching; additional coaching after the program may be added for a fee.

Participants will hear from and have access to more than 20 Stanford faculty. The program is codirected by Francis Flynn, the Paul E. Holden Professor of Organizational Behavior and the Hank McKinnell—Pfizer Inc. Director of the Center for Leadership Development and Research at the business school, and Jesper Sørensen, the Robert A. and Elizabeth R. Jeffe Professor of Organizational Behavior and director of the Center for Social Innovation at the school. Sørensen also serves as a director of the Stanford Institute for Innovation in Developing Economies.

All course work, accommodations, and meals will take place at Stanford GSB’s state-of-the-art Knight Management Center, opened in April 2011, and at the adjacent Schwab Residential Center on the Stanford campus.