How do you turn an inflection point in your career into an opportunity? How can you catapult your career to the next level? Executive Leadership Development: Analysis to Action won't give you a specific leadership recipe to follow. But it will teach you how to cook for yourself—strengthening your analytical tools, management acumen, and interpersonal skills. This comprehensive, two-module program with enhanced content and coaching over the course of six months will empower you to build and motivate effective teams, resolve strategic problems, and drive change in yourself and your organization.

Program Dates: January 10 – 22 and
April 17 – 22, 2016 (this is a two-module program)
Application Deadline: Accepting applications for waitlist only
Program Tuition: $34,000 USD
Additional Leadership Coaching (Optional): $3,000 USD
Program tuition includes private accommodations, all meals, course materials, and three one-on-one coaching sessions.

Overview

Three weeks. Two modules. One incredibly rigorous general management program for executives on the verge of achieving great things. Executive Leadership Development: Analysis to Action prepares you to take the helm—to analyze critically, articulate strategically, think holistically, and lead with confidence.

Over the course of six months and two on-campus modules, you'll interact with Stanford's world-class Graduate School of Business faculty and gain insights from a diverse group of highly motivated peers. You'll experience dynamic presentations, hands-on role playing, guest speakers, two 360-degree leadership assessments, three one-on-one coaching sessions, webinars, and more. It's experiential and empowering. You'll learn how to use Critical Analytical Thinking to communicate an argument based on sound assumptions and sound logic. You'll use design thinking principles to solve real-world business challenges. And you’ll develop and refine a set of personal leadership skills to achieve greater results.

Faculty Directors
Other Faculty
Francis J. Flynn

Paul E. Holden Professor of Organizational Behavior; The Hank McKinnell-Pfizer Inc. Director of the Center for Leadership Development and Research; Codirector of the Executive Leadership Development Program

Francis J. Flynn

Anne Beyer is an Associate Professor of Accounting at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the Michelle R. Clayman Faculty Scholar for 2008-2009 and 2010-2013. She teaches the introductory class in financial accounting and received the MBA Distinguished Teaching Award in 2013.

Thomas M. Siebel Professor of Business Leadership, Strategy, and Organizations; Affiliated Faculty, Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford; Codirector of the Executive Program in Strategy and Organization

Professor of Political Economy

Laurence W. Lane Professor of Organizations; Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs; Professor of Sociology (by courtesy), School of Humanities and Sciences; Codirector of the Stanford- National University of Singapore Executive Program in International Management

Thoma Professor of Operations, Information and Technology; Faculty Director, Stanford Institute for Innovation in Developing Economies (SEED); Codirector of the Value Chain Innovation Initiative; Director of the Strategies and Leadership in Supply Chains Executive Program; Graduate School of Business Trust Faculty Fellow for 2014-2015

Adams Distinguished Professor of Management; Director of the Managing Teams for Innovation and Success Executive Program; Director of the Influence and Negotiation Strategies Executive Program; Codirector of the Executive Program for Women Leaders

Robert L. Joss Consulting Professor of Management

Thomas D. Dee II Professor of Organizational Behavior

Atholl McBean Professor of Organizational Behavior and Human Resources; Professor of Sociology (by courtesy), School of Humanities and Sciences; Academic Director, Stanford Innovation and Entrepreneurship Certificate; Director of the Managing Talent for Strategic Advantage Executive Program; Codirector of the Customer-Focused Innovation Executive Program

Dorothy J. King Lecturer in Leadership; Director of the Interpersonal Dynamics for High-Performance Executive Program

David and Ann Barlow Professor of Political Economy; Professor of Political Science (by courtesy), School of Humanities and Sciences

Theodore J. Kreps Professor of Economics; Professor of Economics (by courtesy), School of Humanities and Sciences; Codirector of the Executive Program in Strategy and Organization; Graduate School of Business Trust Faculty Fellow for 2014-2015

Morgridge Professor of Organizational Behavior; Professor of Sociology (by courtesy), School of Humanities and Sciences; Hank McKinnell-Pfizer Inc. Faculty Fellow for 2014-2015

Professor of Finance; Director of The Emerging CFO: Strategic Financial Leadership Executive Program; Dhirubhai Ambani Faculty Fellow in Entrepreneurship for 2014-2015

Charles A. Holloway Professor of Operations, Information and Technology; Director, Center for Entrepreneurial Studies

Video Introduction
"Effective leaders rarely emerge unexpectedly. Rather, they develop their skills by way of personal experience and practical education. As an integral piece of that education, this course is intended to help 'rising stars' realize their leadership potential—to envision competitive strategy, implement meaningful change, and achieve extraordinary results." — Francis J. Flynn, Faculty Director

Take a sneak peek at this intensive program for emerging leaders from around the world.
Webinar Preview
Executive Leadership Development: Analysis to Action – A Preview
Learn more about our innovative new program for emerging leaders, Executive Leadership Development: Analysis to Action (ELD), during this complimentary webinar led by Stanford GSB Professor Jesper Sørensen. This one-hour online session will introduce ELD and a sample program session: Innovation in Established Companies.
Key Benefits

Executive Leadership Development: Analysis to Action will help you:

  • Improve core analytical skills required for approaching business challenges holistically and making better executive decisions
  • Enhance your understanding of the critical interface between strategic challenges external to the organization and internal organizational leadership, and execution issues
  • Apply design thinking principles to solve business problems—learn effective ways of designing teams, business operations, change management initiatives, and organizational structures and culture
  • Develop greater awareness of your leadership style and how it’s perceived by others
  • Understand relevant psychological principles needed to create high-performance teams and increase employee motivation
  • Hone interpersonal skills to increase your impact on the organization
 
 
 
 
 
 

Unique Features

The program’s three-week, multi-disciplinary curriculum follows Stanford’s MBA program structure—maximizing linkages across three key themes: Analysis, Design, and Leadership.

CRITICAL ANALYTICAL THINKING
The primary objective of Critical Analytical Thinking is to provide training, practice, and feedback in the construction, presentation, and critical evaluation of clear, concise, and well-reasoned arguments. You’ll hone your analytical and critical thinking skills and learn to strategically apply them to real business issues, taking into account industry analysis, and economic, financial, and policy perspectives.

DESIGN THINKING
Learn design thinking tools and techniques and put them into action to tackle design and business challenges. This experiential learning process draws on methods from engineering and design, and combines them with ideas from the arts, tools from the social sciences, and insights from the business world. You’ll explore mindsets of empathy, rapid prototyping, collaboration, iteration, and feedback.

BUSINESS AND DESIGN CHALLENGES
To focus the classroom content around real-world situations, each participant is asked to submit both an organizational and design challenge in advance of the program. These should ideally be big picture leadership, strategy, or organizational design issues you will encounter as you work toward the next level in your professional advancement. The curriculum will provide fresh perspectives for addressing these challenges, enabling you to put learning into practice.

LEADERSHIP ASSESSMENT & PERSONAL COACHING
Personal leadership development is a key focus of the program. To enhance your awareness of your leadership style and how it’s perceived by others we combine classroom learning with Stanford’s proprietary 360º in-depth leadership assessment tool called LEAP (Leadership Evaluation and Action Planning). LEAP is designed to help you strengthen your leadership skills so you can improve your performance, energize your workplace, and advance your career. It also helps you set priorities and develop a 100-day action plan. To further enhance your personal learning experience, you will work with a leadership coach in a small group as well as a one-on-one session during ELD Module 2. In addition to helping you get the most out of the LEAP process during your program week, your coach will work with you in two remote coaching sessions after the program is complete to help you follow up on your goals, enhance your insights and maximize your personal impact.

Download LEAP in-depth leadership assessment information

 
 
 
 
 
 

Program Highlights

UNDERSTANDING COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
Many firms are successful in their markets, but have only a limited understanding of the reasons behind success. This lack of understanding can be dangerous: seemingly sensible decisions can turn the firm's fortunes for the worse. More generally, firms with a sustained competitive advantage are ones in which managers throughout the organization have a deep understanding of the firm's key success factors. This session will present a framework for analyzing the firm's basis of competitive advantage, and allow you to consider the implications of different sources of competitive advantage for strategic decision making.

MOTIVATING EMPLOYEES TO WORK HARDER AND SMARTER
In these tough economic times, leaders must find ways to motivate their employees to work harder and smarter. Most managers tend to rely on "carrots" as means of motivation. This session will explore alternative "psychological levers" — tools that truly motivate and inspire employees to perform.

STRATEGY BEYOND MARKETS
Most business school classes focus on firms' interactions with customers, competitors, suppliers, and shareholders in the form of mutually beneficial voluntary exchange transacted in markets. In contrast, these sessions consider firms' strategic interactions with comparably important constituents, organizations, and institutions outside of markets. Strategy beyond markets is a central component of a company's approach to achieving superior overall performance, and it must be integrated with the company's market strategy. Examples of topics to be discussed in these sessions include boycotts, activist pressures, regulation, judicial decisions, and political risk, all of which substantially impact firms' performance and profitability.

LEADERSHIP VIGNETTES
This session will draw on a collection of video cases featuring leaders talking about the toughest challenges they have faced, the decisions they have made, and the lessons they learned from these experiences. You will then discuss how these challenges relate to your own careers and to your development as leaders.

CRISIS MANAGEMENT
What should management do when a crisis focuses the harsh spotlight of public opinion on its organization? Whether it results from a firm's own missteps (think BP) or from strategic activism or media action (think Greenpeace), crisis is increasingly on the agenda for today's executives. This session will explore the skills and organizational structures required to prepare for, and productively manage, a crisis to avoid bringing lasting damage to a firm's reputation.

STRATEGY AND ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN: TRANSLATING STRATEGY INTO ACTION
This session will examine the role of organizational design in executing a company's strategy. The group will begin by identifying JetBlue's strategy and then discuss how the company's organizational design supports this strategy. The case of JetBlue Airways will be used to evaluate the way a company culture is built and reinforced and how it can support the execution of the company's strategy.

COACHING TALENT
Advancing to executive ranks typically means relying less on one’s own knowledge or technical skill and more on being effective at developing others; yet most leaders are relatively unprepared to do this. Coaching is among the most powerful and yet undeveloped/underutilized skills at a leader’s disposal. We will introduce you to coaching fundamentals (listening, inquiry, reframing and setting up experiments) as well as provide an opportunity to practice and further develop these competencies.

COMMUNICATING EFFECTIVELY
As a leader, you spend the majority of your time communicating with others—team members, subordinates, and clients. You probably don’t spend much time thinking about the way you communicate, nor are you likely, in a business setting, to get honest feedback on the way you communicate. Yet the quality of your communication largely determines your effectiveness. This session will help you appreciate the nature and complexity of a specific form of communication—persuasion—and provide guidelines for boosting the strength of a persuasive message. We will draw on specific examples from other organizations to highlight our takeaways.

The course mixed rigour, intensity, and some fun, making for a conducive setting for learning. The quality of the teaching staff was excellent. Some of the principles taught served to confirm for me that I was proceeding along the right path for my organization, while others gave me new insights and ideas to apply. If you are a new leader, the course will provide you with much food for thought, and is highly recommended.
– Jill Tan
Official Assignee & Public Trustee
Insolvency & Public Trustee’s Office
Singapore
Before this program I was searching everywhere to find that magic recipe for solving my organization’s problems. Here I learned the simplicity of small, practical implementation steps - steps I've already used to build a team that is moving forward. I would recommend this program to anyone who wants to move their organization, their own position, and their future to the next level.
– Reza Fateh
Chief Information Officer / Chief Technology Officer
Pars Online
Stanford’s approach to teaching is amazing – it’s very inviting and you learn a lot. The small breakout groups let you delve deeply into concepts, express your thoughts, and learn from others. I have already recommended this course to a peer. It’s been invaluable.
– Julie Arndt
Manager - 787 Regulatory Administration Development Programs
Boeing Company
This program has reconfirmed that I am ready to move to the next level. It also gave me the opportunity to really step back and reflect on what I do, how well I do it today, and where I need to make improvements. It’s been a tremendous experience.
– Debora Bielicki
Director of Global Sales - Technology Services
Hewlett-Packard

Who Should Attend?

Executive Leadership Development is ideal for emerging leaders preparing to take on more significant leadership roles. It’s specifically designed for:

  • Mid- to senior-level executives with at least 10 years of work experience, and a minimum of 3 to 5 years of management experience—from any size company, any industry, and any country
  • Executives who have recently been promoted to a position of significant managerial responsibility or are clearly on track for such a role
SAMPLE Participant Mix
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CONTACT

Kerry Symonds
Associate Director, Programs and Marketing
Phone: +1.650.723.0505
Email: ksymonds@stanford.edu






The Stanford Difference

The Place: Immerse yourself in innovation.
The Experience: Transform your thinking, your career, your company.
The Approach: Challenge yourself with research-based learning and real-world experience.

Facilities

 
 
 
 
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Stanford University
The Stanford campus is world renowned for its natural beauty, Spanish mission-style architecture, and temperate climate. With more than 8,180 acres (3,310 hectares), Stanford's campus ranks as one of the largest in the United States. Participants in Stanford's Executive Programs become part of a quintessential university setting, residing together, walking or biking to classes, and enjoying access to Stanford University facilities.
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The Knight Management Center
Opened in spring 2011, the Knight Management Center has transformed the Stanford Graduate School of Business into a vibrant and unified indoor-outdoor, living and learning community. Participants will take classes at this new state-of-the-art campus, which features tiered classrooms with extensive floor-to-ceiling glass, the latest in audiovisual technology, numerous breakout and study rooms, outdoor seating areas to encourage informal discussion, and an open collaboration lab that employs hands-on and design thinking techniques.
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Schwab Residential Center
Designed by renowned Mexican architect, Ricardo Legorreta, the Schwab Residential Center gives residents ample privacy while promoting collegial interaction through shared lounges, outdoor meeting areas, a library, and an exercise room.