The IT Leadership Academy will consist of an orientation and seven monthly day-long sessions.

Session 1 - Authentic Leadership
Learn how to be transparent, open and engaged. Learn to lead instead of manage by understanding emerging trends, by providing vision and by honing your interpersonal skills of compassion, encouragement, engagement and trust. You will have the opportunity to take Gallup's Clifton StrengthsFinder™ 2.0 assessment to gain a comprehensive understanding of your individual strengths. Each subsequent session will offer you insights on how to leverage your strengths to lead more effectively.

Session 2 - Creativity & Innovation
As more businesses recognize the essential role of creativity in the workplace, learn how to create an environment that encourages creativity to increase innovation and promote intrapreneurship. Learn how to change your organization’s culture and foster your employees’ creativity, all while balancing risk and stability.

Session 3 - Communication Skills
Communication can be found fundamentally in all aspects of leadership. Through this session, learn and walk away with tools and techniques for a variety of communication skills around leadership styles, conflict resolution, facilitation, improving team performance, and more... Also, hear and engage a panel of top local executives about their real world experiences around these and other core leadership fundamentals.

Session 4 - Strategic Planning
Learn about creating a clear vision for IT, marketing IT, measuring success within IT, and prioritizing the highest value IT projects. This will be a customer-focused session, teaching IT managers practical applications of how to align business and organization strategies.

Session 5 - Leading Through Diversity and Organizational Change
Today's companies must increasingly accommodate a diverse, global workforce. As a result, employees have unique needs and cultural differences to which managers need to be sensitive. How do you all work together to achieve that common goal? Managers are challenged to maintain performance under what at times are chaotic conditions. The workforce can be resistant and disheartened in maintaining a motivated and productive team under these difficult conditions. One the other hand, Louis Pasteur said it best: "Change favors the prepared mind." This session is designed to help you prepare to serve your staff as an effective Change Leader.

Session 6 - Talent Management
Explore the life cycle of talent management. By providing a comprehensive and genuine interest in your employee's growth and success, you will build their affinity and commitment to your company. Focused learning areas include selection, on boarding, performance expectations, coaching, performance management and legal aspects of the cycle to manage and grow talent effectively. Focus also includes motivating and inspiring teamwork and building high performance teams.

Session 7 - Self-Management
This final session of self-reflection explores qualities of risk-taking, flexibility, self-motivation and placement of team before self. You will learn to say no, manage conflicting priorities, macro-manage instead of micro-manage, and balance management versus technical skills. These valuable relationship-building skills will serve as an asset in the office as well as in your personal life.