Innovative Practices in Higher-Ed Leadership Development

Scene from an AI leadership workshop

The external search is engrained in the culture of higher education, but this is already beginning to change as an aging workforce forces institutional leaders to address issues of succession planning and leadership development. Across the country institutions are starting or increasing their investments in in-house leadership development programs.

This paper reviews 3 innovative practices that institutions can learn from to make their programs more effective in cultivating high-potential leaders:

  • Creating individual leadership development plans by identifying the “sweet spot” between leaders’ strengths, passions and interests, and your institution’s need
  • Involving senior leadership in the program, from inception to completion
  • Focusing on action learning, where participants develop leadership skills by tackling real projects that will have an impact on their institution

In this paper, you can review a national snapshot of investments in leadership development programming, and hear from select institutions that have launched effective in-house leadership development programs.