The Executive Leadership Program at Florida International University's Center for Leadership aims to develop ethical and effective leaders through self-insight and practical leadership skills. The program tailors content to meet the unique challenges of executives, leveraging proprietary research and feedback from practitioners, and includes hands-on application of lessons through personalized action plans. With a rigorous evaluation process and a focus on enhancing decision-making abilities, it has proven to provide significant ROI and transformative results for participants, including promotions and leadership improvements.

1. Ethical and Effective Leadership
Garth D. Headley, head of Corporate Relations at FIU’s Center
for Leadership, on their top ranked executive leadership programs.
07.2014
Essentials of leadership
development,
managerial effectiveness,
and organizational
productivity
Vol.31 No. 7
The Standard of Global Leadership Development
Presented By

2. What is your overall leadership vision and mission specific to Executive Leader-
ship Program?
Through our Executive Leadership Program (ELP), we aim to develop leaders
with a grounded understanding of self and impart leadership skills consistent with
ethical and effective leadership practices. We believe it’s the combination of self-
insight, and development and practice of leadership behaviors that equip leaders to
make personal and professional decisions that can positively transform their organi-
zations and communities.
We are very focused on being practical. Once you complete our program, you
will be able to begin applying the principles immediately on returning to work! The
center expects that individuals participating in our program will leave with a better
understanding of their personal drivers and how these affect the way they view their
world and in turn the quality of decisions they make for themselves and the organi-
zations they serve. Additionally, they will leave having learned and had a chance to
practice some key leadership skills found to be consistent with effective leadership.
We are committed not only to training leaders to be more effective, but also to
continuously incorporating the most current research into our training programs,
as well as feedback from the practitioners themselves who attend and complete our
programs.
What makes your program unique and different?
The Center for Leadership Executive Leadership Program is a unique resource de-
veloped not only on the strength of our proprietary research, but also by leveraging
extant and impactful leadership knowledge from around the world. In addition, we
tap executives who attend our programs, the practitioners of leadership, for informa-
tion on what is proving effective in the field and we feed this information back into
our research directives and our program. In this way, the program remains current,
relevant, to the point and resonates!
Program content is based on our Leadership Competency Model (LCM) and de-
veloped by the center’s multi-disciplinary academic faculty, in collaboration with
key partners around the world. LCM identifies five core competencies for effective
leadership -- Leading Self, Leading Others, Strategic Focus, Managing Work and
Connecting with Others. This proprietary research forms the foundation of our
program and provides participants both unique and practical perspectives. The ELP
is designed to provide building blocks for executives to develop their unique leader-
ship blueprint, and it also allows customization for specific peer groups, including
C-Suite executives, women leaders, educators, and high-potential executives.
Participants are placed in cohorts that best match their organizational experience
Educational Institutions
Leadership Excellence Rank
#Globalleadership14 Global Leadership Excellence 2014
Garth Headley
1
Company Name: Florida International
University Center for Leadership
Program Name: Executive Leadership
Program
Program Director: Dr. Mayra Beers
Address: 11200 SW 8th St, CBC 223, Miami,
FL, 33199
Call: 305-348-5323
Email: beersm@fiu.edu
Visit: lead.fiu.edu
Ethical and Effective Leadership
Our editorial team interviewed Garth Headley from Florida International
University’s Center for Leadership, at the Leadership Excellence Awards this
past April. Following are the excerpts from an exclusive interview.
Video

3. and needs (Director and above). Program content is tailored to meet
the unique leadership challenges of executives while maintaining our
core leadership philosophy and is highly interactive.
How many people do you impact, every year, with this program?
During the past year, approximately 100 participants have at-
tended our executive leadership training program. Over the last five
years, the center’s growth has been deliberate, targeted and grounded
on developments in the field. At present there are more than 600
alumni of the program. Participants are nominated by their organi-
zations and to date more than 140 organizations across the United
States, Latin America, the Caribbean, Europe, and Africa have par-
ticipated.
How long does it take to complete this program?
The programs are three to four-day resident schedules, with spe-
cific targeted cohorts offered throughout the year. Pre-work read-
ings and assignments, assessments, and questionnaires are part of the
preparation for participants attending the program. Action planning
is a key part of every program and ensures participants apply lessons
to real-world, on-the-job challenges. Each participant also spends a
one hour, one-on-one, with an executive coach who helps them craft
an actionable and practical plan for returning to work.
How is this program delivered, both online and in classroom?
The Executive Leadership Program emphasizes the value of peer-
to-peer learning and interaction and its resident, face-to-face, format
has proven highly effective by bringing together different perspec-
tives across organizations and industries. The program is designed
to maximize ROI for executives and busy professionals by offering a
mixture of online assessments, classroom lectures, experiential learn-
ing and roundtable discussions.
Upon arrival, participants are expected to engage in full-day ses-
sions that cover pre-session assignments, personal experiences, and
faculty expertise. Participant interaction is a hallmark of each day’s
sessions, including group work and individual presentations. Work-
books with relevant materials as well as books and articles for further
reading and continuous development are provided to participants.
Whom do you target for the Executive Leadership Program?
Our participants come from a broad spectrum of industries and
levels. Our typical clients are senior managers, directors, vice presi-
#Globalleadership14 Global Leadership Excellence 2014

4. #Globalleadership14 Global Leadership Excellence 2014
dents, C-level executives and board members, or any executive with
extensive responsibilities and whose decisions have substantive im-
plications on their organizations. Industry representation includes
multinational corporations, local enterprises, non-profit organiza-
tions, educational institutions, and government administrators.
The center also partners with our home institution, Florida In-
ternational University (FIU), to provide leadership training for our
managers and directors through custom in-house ELP.
How do you measure success and ROI of your program?
Each program offered by the center is rigorously evaluated by par-
ticipants, facilitators, and staff using a comprehensive accountability
and measurement system that evaluates the quality of the products
and services provided. Evaluations are designed by trained organi-
zational psychologists in order to provide an accurate assessment of
the center’s performance. Each instructor is evaluated on delivery,
knowledge, and ability to engage the audience as well as the rigor
and applicability of the session. Program content is evaluated on
the utility and value of information, quality of materials used, and
amount of new knowledge gained.
Prior to each program, participants are asked to complete a ques-
tionnaire to assess their expectations from the program and to better
address the group’s unique leadership development needs. During
multi-day programs, participants are asked to complete daily evalua-
tions including reporting on each session and instructor.
In addition, an overall program evaluation is distributed on the
final day of the program that adds questions on venue, staffing, and
logistics. Participant feedback through the evaluation process is used
to introduce new material, refine existing curriculum, and make
adjustments to the delivery process. Since the launch of our first
program, we have consistently averaged 4.8 on a 5 point scale.
What is your area of expertise with regards to leadership train-
ing, such as teamwork, execution and frontline managers?
Our research shows that decisions are a key measure of effective
leadership and as such our work revolves around how to help leaders
and enhance their decision making abilities. For this reason, our
program is built on creating a strong sense of self and developing key
leadership capabilities that influence the decision making process.
We teach skills that help leaders build infrastructure for developing
and actioning effective decisions.
What are the key takeaways from this program and how does it
help your customer, client, or participant to improve their, as
well as that of their team members’, performance?
Since we focus on bettering the process of leadership decision
making, self-insight and practical leadership behaviors are impor-
tant takeaways.
Prior to arriving at the program, participants are asked to come
prepared with a challenge they want to work on during the program.
Throughout their time with us and by using the knowledge and
skills acquired during the program, each prepares an action plan to
address the challenge/issue. We have a systematic way of identifying
your core values, assessments geared towards understanding the role
personality plays in decision making as well as life traps and schemas
at work that we may not be aware of. On the behavioral side, you
walk away knowing how to build high impact networks, connect
meaningfully with others, and developing and enlisting others to a
strategic vision.
They also get to meet an executive coach who helps them develop
the plan and ensures it has actionable steps. The action plan is
presented to the rest of the cohort on the last day of the program,
helping to create accountability. This document, prepared by par-
ticipants, vetted by their coach, and committed to in front of their
peers, results in a valuable blueprint they take home. It prepares
them to face pertinent challenges.
What impact does your program have on users?
The Executive Leadership Program provides exceptional ROI to
organizations and individuals. Many have termed it ‘life-changing’.
But, perhaps more tangible are the promotions that often occur after
finishing the program and the referral of their colleagues to future
programs, or having CEOs who complete the program ask to have
custom workshops for their internal leadership team. When you
consider that many of our graduates are decision makers in Fortune
500 companies, both locally and internationally, leading large teams
within their organizations, the impact is wide reaching. When we
hear from our graduates on returning to work that we have dramati-
cally changed the way they lead, this is perhaps our best endorse-
ment.
What’s in store for future?
We are currently preparing to launch an executive leadership
program for physicians and hospital administrators. The program
was developed based on our competency model, and while it will
focus on developing self-insight and leadership skills, it is also de-
signed to help the physician-leader begin to understand and effec-
tively navigate the changing landscape of healthcare leadership. We
are very excited about this program which should launch soon with
registration dates in January 2015.

5. The High
Potential Leader
Program
Great Leaders
Never Stop Learning
October 21-24, 2014
APPLY NOW
lead.fiu.edu/HighPotentials or call 305-348-LEAD
Center for
Leadership
Executive Leadership Development