The Art and Practice of Public Leadership
Course Length: Ten to twelve days, scheduled over an extended period of time
To schedule this program for your workplace, contact the Management Education Group at 480-705-9394 or click here.
Click here to read what graduates of the Art and Practice of Public Leadership have to say about the program.
Course Overview:
A revolution is taking place in how public leaders are cultivated and managed. Organizations can no longer expect that when they face a leadership void, a pool of qualified and motivated candidates will miraculously appear. The concept of “growing your own” in terms of leadership is permeating organizations of all types. While many organizations have recognized this need, few have sustained a successful method for developing and retaining leaders. The Management Education Group’s Art and Practice of Public Leadership provides a solution for public organizations looking to aggressively address this challenge.
The Art and Practice of Public Leadership is more than a training program. To successfully implement the effort, the organization’s top leaders must be committed to the design and delivery of the curriculum. Top executives work with our experienced consultants to design a curriculum that includes organization-specific examples and case studies. Once the agenda is agreed upon, a comprehensive candidate selection process is designed so that it supports the organization’s succession planning efforts.
The delivery of the Art and Practice of Public Leadership can be tailored to the organization’s needs. Some organizations implement the program by offering workshops weekly and others choose to hold workshops monthly. However the schedule is arranged, the content of the program focuses on practical, thought-provoking, and challenging concepts that apply to the real life experience of a public leader. Typically, the Art and Practice of Public Leadership content includes a multi-rater feedback process, individual development planning, action learning through an organization-specific project, and a variety of subjects including risk taking, collaboration, and political savvy.
Target Audience:
Our goal is to develop executive-level public leaders. As such, the target audience for the Art and Practice of Public Leadership is typically those managers who are one step away from a director-level position. Successful candidates should:
• Have at least six months experience with organization
• Understand clearly why they have been nominated and why they are expected
to commit their time to the program
• Have direct reports or current, relevant supervisory experience
• Are currently accountable for the performance of others
• Plan on a long career with the organization
• Are seen by their peers as a leader
• Have shown an active interest in their own professional development
Course Objectives:
The Art and Practice of Public Leadership is designed to:
• Enhance the leadership skills of selected public-sector
managers
• Prepare selected leaders for taking on the organization’s current
and future organizational initiatives
• Upgrade the organization’s talent pool
• Enhance communications at all levels throughout the organization
• Facilitate individual development planning for selected leaders
Course Outline:
The Art and Practice of Public Leadership agenda is developed in conjunction with the agency’s leadership team and will reflect the most pressing leadership-related issues facing the organization at the time that the program is delivered. In the past, the program has consisted of the following elements:
• 360-degree feedback and individual development planning
• Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
• Action learning through an organization-specific project
• Extensive, experiential learning activities
• Role play
• Outside reading assignments
• Journaling
• Organization-provided guest speakers
The workshop topics are also defined with input from the organization’s leadership team. In the past, workshop topics have included:
• The Challenge of Leadership, based on the work of Kouzes
and Posner’s
• Workforce planning and talent development
• Innovation and risk taking in local government
• Collaborative communication
• Innovative problem solving and risk taking using Appreciative Inquiry
• Conducting risky conversations
• Public presentation and engagement skills
• Enabling diversity in a government organization
• Building, facilitating, and leading effective teams
• Public sector human resource issues
• The ethics of leadership
Click here to read what graduates of the Art and Practice of Public Leadership have to say about the program.