Leadership and Policy Programs

This workshop explores the dimensions of organizational change where leaders work with culture to initiate and sustain change. Particular attention is paid to the power of creating diverse networks and maintaining broad engagement. Key principles that govern organizational change in the public sector and how to communicate change within the organization and to key stakeholders is distilled from participants' and instructor's experiences, to demonstrate a set of practical principles and insights for leading organizational change.

Transformational leadership requires the leader to create a vision and then articulate that vision. To effectively create the vision, the leader must listen fully to the needs and values of the constituents. And to effectively articulate that vision, the leader must design written and oral discourse that inspires the transformation. The transformational leader makes use of strategic listening and speaking skills in communicating successfully.

In this workshop, participants explore concepts in results and performance accountability, with a focus on the systematic use of data to gauge and improve performance within an agency or program.

This workshop provides, in a hands-on setting, a framework for using joint problem solving. Today's complex issues challenge the ability of professionals and managers to negotiate satisfactory results. Managers often must negotiate with multiple groups starting within their own agencies and often involve outside contractors, other agencies or other organizations. In this context, a successful outcome will require "joint problem solving" to create durable agreements.

This workshop explores the nature of story and its role in the work of leadership, particularly in creating effective teams and organizations. Participants examine the power of the story as a tool for leadership and persuasion. The session illustrates how the story is a powerful means of communication - allowing you to influence the interpretation your employees give to facts, to mold perceptions, and to ensure that the message you need to convey is remembered and repeated.

This workshop explores the dynamics of groups and the importance of the leader's role in moving through those dynamics. While many types of groups will be considered, the nature of formal groups and staff groups (e.g., including the dynamics of staff meetings) will be the primary focus. Issues associated with consensus and dissent, group development, group dysfunction and functionality, member roles, and the role of authority, situational and otherwise, will all be considered.

This workshop is designed to give participants an exposure to the psychological and group dynamics that enhance and impede effective individual and collective decision making. Intensive and informal, the workshop offers the rare opportunity for individual participants to learn how to work from the "inside out" on decisions they currently face. Through use of simulations, cases, and assessment tools, participants are given "real time" practice on how to reach decisions that are more conscious, robust and reliable.  

This workshop addresses the processes of exerting leadership and being a skilled negotiator. The workshop faculty present a framework for effective leadership, which incorporates understanding how one views the world; learning structured approaches for understanding the issues and framing them in ways that promote resolution; and using exercises to apply this approach particularly in situations where clear formal authority lines are lacking.  

This course explores the personal capacities and discipline that make it possible to shape, host and participate in dialogue, especially dialogue on contentious and important issues. Dialogue is a way of listening and talking, thinking and feeling together collaboratively, characterized by an open welcome of and respectful curiosity about the other, creating new and sustainable understandings about a question that matters. 

The ability to manage yourself and your relationships with other people is the hallmark of an emotionally intelligent leader. Research shows that emotional intelligence is twice as important as I.Q. or technical skills, for all jobs, at all levels in an organization. Emotional intelligence, unlike I.Q., can be developed. This interactive, practical seminar discusses the building blocks of emotional intelligence, the impact it has at work and specific strategies for developing your emotional intelligence.

Understanding Public Policy and Legislation is a three-day program that covers the public policy process and how Congress works with executive agencies, the White House, and others. The training introduces participants to the people who make and implement policy – former members of Congress, senior Hill staff, active lobbyists, authors, and high-ranking officials from executive agencies – so that they can both hear from instructors on their area of expertise and also glean from them what made them successful public leaders and managers.

Through case studies, readings and discussions, participants gain a deeper knowledge of the policy-making process and the tools to apply that understanding in their own work. Topics include the dynamic environment surrounding agency mission and programs, factors that place issues on Congress’ agenda for action and the perspectives, roles and responsibilities of key actors in the process.

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