What You Can Expect
Enhancing Your Company's Performance
As recent events in the business world have highlighted, companies need leaders who exhibit high standards of integrity, take responsibility for their actions, and are guided by enduring principles rather than short-term expedience. Such leaders are in short supply, however. According to the latest research, today's best leaders are authentic leaders—people whose inner compass guides their daily actions and enables them to earn the trust of their subordinates, peers, and shareholders. This inner compass is not the same for everyone—it is built on each individual's personal life experience: the successes and failures that shape one's values, passions, and vision.
Authentic leadership can be learned. As today's companies work to build the next generation of business executives, they will succeed by developing outstanding leaders who empower leaders at all levels throughout their organizations. The key to these leaders' success is developing self-awareness and emotional intelligence, both of which are goals of ALD.
Conceived and led by Harvard Business School Professor Bill George and HBS Dean Nitin Nohria, this Executive Education program is based on the groundbreaking research summarized in George's acclaimed books, Authentic Leadership: Rediscovering the Secrets to Creating Lasting Value and True North: Discover Your Authentic Leadership. Immersed in a truly transformative learning experience, you will define and explore your own path to authentic leadership. Providing relevant lessons in the classroom, the program prepares you to lead more effectively and build your company's capacity to create a more effective organization that can sustain success.
Taking Your Skills to the Next Level
As you advance in your career, you cannot rely solely on the knowledge and skills that have guided your leadership thus far. Authentic Leadership Development will help you become the type of leader you most admire—one who is trusted by colleagues, who inspires others to do their best work, who is sought out for advice, and who creates exceptional value for the company.
Each ALD participant will be assigned to a Leadership Development Group (LDG) with five other participants. The LDGs are designed to provide a powerful peer-based forum where leaders can discuss the personal roots of their leadership in an intimate group setting and to encourage a higher level of openness and reflection than might be possible in a large class setting. LDGs enable participants to become more aware of the role their life stories and crucibles play in their development and in discovering the purpose of their leadership.
During this intense week, you will explore deeply the qualities of successful authentic leaders and uncover the unique characteristics that comprise your authentic leadership. In the process, you will become better able to:
- Lead with integrity through difficult and pressure-filled challenges
- Understand the impact of your life story and your crucibles on your leadership
- Recognize and address your blind spots as a leader
- Develop your self-awareness and emotional intelligence
- Learn from feedback and daily challenges you encounter
- Balance your intrinsic and extrinsic motivations to find the "sweet spot" of your capabilities
- Adapt your leadership style to different scenarios, while remaining true to your values and purpose
- Be a more effective leader by developing greater confidence in your capabilities
- Become an empowering leader that fosters effective teamwork
- Lead an integrated life that enables you to balance your work and home life
"The value of the program rests in the fact that it places you in a controlled environment that exposes you to cultural diversity in a way not many people experience. By doing so, it provides the perfect environment for deep introspection and self-exploration with the aid of your small group. This combination makes it a uniquely beneficial leadership retreat where anyone can grow as a leader and a person."
William H. Bishop [Department Manager], Norfolk Ship Support Activity, U.S.
"The Authentic Leadership Program had a profound effect on me. My main objective was to take my leadership potential and ability to the next level. I also wanted to understand more about the thought processes of real-life leaders and gain insights into how to adapt and apply that thinking in my day-to-day decision making. As a result, I am deliberating on issues and crises from a more long-term perspective—and am continuing to grow in areas and ways that I never expected."
Pramthesh Patel [Director], Glaxo Smith Kline Pharmaceutical Company, U.S.