Executive Influence: Increasing Your Impact with Persuasion and Power

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Program Experience

Highlights and Key Outcomes

In Executive Influence: Increasing Your Impact with Persuasion and Power, you will:

Leverage an extensive toolkit to build persuasion skills, networks, and coalitions
Receive multiple personal assessments to discover your areas for improvement
Recognize and gain confidence with the influence tools you already possess
Enhance your executive presence
Learn how to sway others to your point of view regardless of the reporting structure
Enter business negotiations better equipped to achieve your goals
Recognize the situational and environmental factors that impact persuasion
Explore the potential of new technologies to boost professional influence
Better understand the ethics behind deploying power

Experience and Impact

Academic Director Cade Massey grounds this powerful, highly interactive program in more than 15 years of teaching award-winning MBA and executive MBA courses on negotiation, influence, and organizational behavior. You will benefit from the insights of a multidisciplinary faculty from management; health care management; marketing; and operations, information, and decision making.

To maximize potential participants’ growth, this program is designed as an in-person workshop, with several experiential exercises built in to complement the learning and provide runway to explore and experiment with new techniques. Assessments will be expertly administered in conjunction with Wharton People Analytics, which advances the science of individual development through data-driven insights.

Executive Influence: Increasing Your Impact with Persuasion and Power concludes with a capstone exercise in which you will lead and utilize coalitions, deploying your full toolbox of influence skills. Finally, the closing “Make It Your Own” action-planning exercise helps you immediately apply what you have learned during the week to your workplace and personal life.

Session topics include:

Increasing Your Impact
Influence and Power
Good Politics: Ethics and Influence
Power for the Underrepresented
Persuasion, Presence, Technology
Networks
Influence Tactics: Leverage Inventory Assessment

Convince Your Supervisor

Here’s a justification letter you can edit and send to your supervisor to help you make the case for attending this Wharton program.

Due to our application review period, applications submitted after 12:00 p.m. ET on Friday for programs beginning the following Monday may not be processed in time to grant admission. Applicants will be contacted by a member of our Client Relations Team to discuss options for future programs and dates.

Who Should Attend

Executive Influence: Increasing Your Impact with Persuasion and Power is designed for mid- to senior-career executives, particularly:

Executives taking on increased responsibilities, possibly outside of their areas of expertise and experience
Executives transitioning from individual contributor to a broader role such as manager
Mid-tier executives, such as product managers, who have more responsibility than they do official authority
Executives from underrepresented groups who may face special challenges around persuasion and influence
Individuals who run business groups, such as physicians in charge of group practices
Managers in government, health care, international agencies, and nonprofit groups
Other individuals needing to exercise influence without the benefit of an organizational hierarchy

Fluency in English, written and spoken, is required for participation in Wharton Executive Education programs unless otherwise indicated.

Plan Your Stay

This program is held at the Steinberg Conference Center located on the University of Pennsylvania campus in Philadelphia. Meals and accommodations are included in the program fees. Learn more about planning your stay at Wharton’s Philadelphia campus.

Group Enrollment

To further leverage the value and impact of this program, we encourage companies to send cross-functional teams of executives to Wharton. We offer group-enrollment benefits to companies sending four or more participants.

Faculty

Cade Massey, PhDSee Faculty Bio

Academic Director

Practice Professor, Operations, Information and Decisions, The Wharton School

Research Interests: People analytics, judgment under uncertainty, organizational behavior

Marissa King, PhDSee Faculty Bio

Alice Y. Hung President’s Distinguished Professor; Professor of Health Care Management; Professor of Management, The Wharton School

Samir Nurmohamed, PhDSee Faculty Bio

Associate Professor of Management, The Wharton School

Research Interests: Adversity, motivation, behavioral ethics, resilience, storytelling, punishment, whistleblowing, cover-ups, socialization, onboarding, injustice, stereotypes, stigma

Stefano Puntoni, PhDSee Faculty Bio

Sebastian S. Kresge Professor of Marketing; Professor of Marketing; Co-Director, Wharton Human-Centered Technology Initiative, The Wharton School

Research Interests: New technologies in marketing, technology adoption, brand management, consumer decision making

Amy Wrzesniewski, PhDSee Faculty Bio

William and Jacalyn Egan Professor; Professor of Management, The Wharton School

Research Interests: The experience and meaning of work, creation of meaning in challenging organizational and occupational contexts, the valuing and devaluing of work

Testimonials

Denitsa Balunis SVP Corporate Strategy and Corporate Development, Edelman Financial Engines

This program was truly transformative for me. As someone who predominantly relied on logical reasoning, I appreciated the opportunity to explore the value of emotions and vulnerability. Even in the corporate world, humility and openness matter. The program equipped me with a broader toolkit, instilling confidence to tackle any challenge while maintaining honesty and ethical standards.

What surprised me most about the experience was the highly-engaging and interactive setting. Unlike traditional lecture-driven programs, this one encouraged open discussions, practical application of new concepts, and active participation. The unique ‘teamwork feeling’ among all participants made it truly memorable.

I wholeheartedly endorse this program for anyone poised to embark on a journey of personal and professional growth. Undoubtedly, it offers valuable self-awareness and equips you with tools to confront any challenge that requires a full expression of your human capabilities. In an era where AI increasingly handles repetitive tasks, our unwavering commitment to evolving as integral leaders should be our ultimate aspiration.”

Santiago Londono VP, B2B LATAM, Millicom International Services

I was searching for a program to enhance my leadership, focusing on influence and power. This program ticked all the boxes in terms of areas of interest and practical assessment of my own skills. Its engaging nature of delivery and the new relationships and networks created with other members of the group were invaluable.

I particularly enjoyed the pitch competition and the capstone exercise. The experience of working in that environment helped to challenge us and our own thinking and to reflect on how we interacted. It was a truly memorable way to learn.

Post-program, I was able to immediately identify where I could enhance my leadership, professional, and personal practices using the discussions and activities during the course. The program provides time to produce an action plan, which I now revisit regularly. I've returned more focused on building relationships and using power in the right places, and with greater confidence and self-awareness of myself as a leader.

I'd highly recommend this program to anyone, especially women in executive roles."

Madelaine Sandall General Manager, College Operations, RMIT University, College of Business & Law, Melbourne, Australia

Executive Influence: Increasing Your Impact with Persuasion and Power

Program Overview

Date, Location, & Fees