The Leadership Journey: Creating and Developing Your Leadership

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Dates Location Tuition
May 18, 2008 - May 23, 2008 Philadelphia $10,000
Oct 19, 2008 - Oct 24, 2008 Philadelphia $10,250

When does leadership matter most? How can you use your personal leadership skills to tackle organizational challenges? How can you inspire employees to assume more responsibility for leading themselves?

With the simultaneous rise in mergers and acquisitions and the creation of startups and more autonomous divisions within established companies, the demand for exceptional leadership has never been greater. This course will enhance your ability to lead and build good leadership skills — not only in your current position but throughout your career. You will examine the role of the leader and your fit within it. As Co-Director Gregory Shea says, “Arguably the most important part of being a leader is deciding if you truly want to be one.”

The program is designed to develop your leadership skills both during the week at Wharton and the journey beyond, and we will do so with a combination of learning methods. They include team exercises, case discussions, computer simulations, physical challenges, Shakespearian drama, and a battlefield visit.

Faculty draw upon a variety of sources, including academic research, business cases, history, politics, and literature, to explore the role of the leader and the qualities of leadership. Though we draw many of our illustrations from the US, we seek to include other national experiences as well. In the words of academic co-director and leadership author Professor Michael Useem, “Everyone can improve their ability to lead through self-determination and self-discipline.”

Tuition for Philadelphia programs includes lodging and meals. Prices are subject to change. Program Consultants are available to provide more information on course specifics and discuss how this program might meet your needs for good leadership skills. Please contact them by telephone at +1 215.898.1776, or by e-mail.


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A strategic self-development exercise, this course will prepare you for current and increased leadership responsibilities by examining your definition of leadership and of yourself as a leader. You will participate in simulations, give and receive feedback, and study leadership moments — moments that challenged leadership, yours and others. You will identify your strengths and weaknesses as a leader, develop your leadership skills, and review your handling of key leadership moments.

The Leadership Journey Session Topics

  • Seizing Leadership Opportunities
  • Thinking, Depicting, and Enacting Leadership
  • Leadership in Practice
  • A Leadership Dialogue
  • Leadership and History

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Book LeadershipIn his book The Leadership Moment: Nine True Stories of Triumph and Disaster and Their Lessons for Us All, Michael Useem presents a series of poignant real-life examples of people facing their "moments of truth" — making the tough leadership decisions that change destinies — to show readers how best to perform under the pressures they face in the business world.


Book Upward BoundUpward Bound: Nine Original Accounts of How Business Leaders Reached Their Summits brings together a remarkable team of nine writers equally at home among the high peaks and in the corridors of corporate power. Whether it's up the career ladder or toward a creative peak, Upward Bound addresses the fundamental question of why we climb, while capturing the power of mountains to instruct as well as inspire.


Book Leading UpThrough vivid, compelling stories, Michael Useem reveals how upward leadership can transform incipient disaster into hard-won triumph. Leading Up: How To Lead Your Boss So You Both Win is a call to action. It asks us to get results by helping our superiors lead and by building on the best in everybody's nature, and it offers a pragmatic blueprint for doing so.

Anyone who wants to push his or her own leadership development in new directions or develop good leadership skills can benefit. Middle and senior managers from the private, public, and nonprofit sectors are welcome.

We encourage companies to send cross-functional teams of executives to leverage the application and value of the program. Additional cohort benefits are available when four or more participants attend a program.

Understand the leadership function — and its demands — in sessions such as Leadership in Practice and Seizing Leadership Opportunities. You will:

  • Strengthen your leadership skills as well as your effectiveness in building key leader/follower relations and outstanding teams.
  • Increase your ability to navigate through and learn from great leadership moments.
  • Build a network of fellow leaders for sharing challenges, insights, and perspectives.

Greg Shea GREGORY SHEA
Academic Director
Adjunct Professor of Management
Faculty Associate, Center for Leadership and Change Management
The Wharton School

Greg Shea consults, researches, writes, and teaches in the areas of group effectiveness, organizational and individual change, and conflict management. In addition to his affiliations at Wharton, he is a partner in the Coxe Group, an international consulting firm serving the design profession; adjunct senior fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics; and senior consultant at the Center for Applied Research. He is a contributing editor to the Journal of Applied Behavioral Science.
Mike Useem, PhD MIKE USEEM, PhD
Academic Director
The William and Jacalyn Egan Professor
Professor of Management
The Wharton School

Mike Useem offers courses on management, leadership, and corporate governance to MBA and senior executive audiences in the United States, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. He has worked extensively on leadership development and governance with many organizations in the private, public, and nonprofit sectors. He is the author of The Go Point: When It's Time to Decide; Leading Up: How to Lead Your Boss So You Both Win; The Leadership Moment: Nine True Stories of Triumph and Disaster and Their Lessons for Us All; Investor Capitalism: How Money Managers Are Changing the Face of Corporate America; and Executive Defense: Shareholder Power and Corporate Reorganization. From the slopes of Mount Everest to the battlefields of Gettysburg, Dr. Useem has gone to great lengths to present leadership lessons to executives.