Wharton@Work

July 2025 | 

Learn to Lead: People Management for Emerging Leaders

Learning to Lead—Up, Down, and Across: Inside Wharton’s People Management for Emerging Leaders Program

For professionals poised to step into greater leadership responsibilities — or already navigating the complexities of managing diverse teams — Wharton Executive Education’s People Management for Emerging Leaders (PMEL) offers more than just theory. It delivers a rigorous, immersive experience designed to sharpen people-management skills, broaden perspective, and cultivate the self-awareness needed to lead across functions and up the chain of command.

The program attracts a wide range of participants, from seasoned leaders seeking to refresh their skills to recently promoted managers ready to formalize what they’ve learned on the job. What they share is a common need: to manage people more effectively in real-world settings where nuance, culture, feedback, and emotional intelligence matter just as much as strategy or output.

We spoke with two recent participants — Kelly Ryan, a Wharton alum and media and technology startup executive who is launching a women’s health-focused startup, and Martha Reisner, director of affiliate markets at a mission-driven organization — about why they enrolled, what they learned, and how the program is shaping their approach to leadership today.

Why Now? Building Skills for What's Next

Ryan, who holds both an MBA and MA from the Wharton-Lauder program (Class of 1996), is no stranger to leadership. Over the course of her career, she’s managed complex teams, launched new ventures, and developed business strategies across sectors. But when she began building a new company from the ground up, she wanted to do it differently. “I’ve managed a lot of people, but I never really had any formal training,” she says. “This time, I wanted to get the fundamentals right from the start.”

For Ryan, PMEL was a strategic investment in setting the cultural tone of her business. “I didn’t want to have to wing it or retrofit a management strategy later,” she says. “I wanted to be armed with the right tools to scale thoughtfully.”

Reisner, who joined the program with decades of management experience, had a different motivation: staying current. “I’ve had management roles across different organizations, but I think it’s always helpful to review what you’ve learned — and to hear about the most current practices,” she says. A colleague in her organization — also a director — enrolled alongside her, and together they participated in live sessions from hotel rooms across the country while traveling for work.

The ability to access the program virtually was essential for both participants. “It worked really well,” Reisner says. “The technology was smooth overall, the session formats were engaging, and we appreciated being able to learn in a structured way while still keeping up with our jobs.”

Learning to Pause — and Lead with Purpose

One of the most impactful takeaways for Ryan was surprisingly simple: don’t rush in. “I tend to dive in quickly when there’s a problem,” she says. “But one huge aha moment for me was realizing that sometimes the best move is to pause, to reflect. You don’t always have to intervene — especially when it’s an interpersonal issue that might resolve itself.”

The structured frameworks and role plays helped reinforce that message. “It instilled a thoughtfulness that I hadn’t really had before,” she says. “And it applies to everything — from the workplace to life in New York City, where people-management situations arise all the time.”

Reisner had a similar revelation around the power of mindset. “The way you enter a conversation or relationship — with a peer, a direct report, a client — really affects how that interaction unfolds,” she says. “That might sound obvious, but it helped me put language and structure around things I’ve seen go wrong before.”

She recalls one session that emphasized the importance of timely, direct feedback — another area where many managers, even experienced ones, fall short. “It’s easy to fall into being vague, too nice, or too general,” she admits. “But that’s not helpful for anyone. I’ve definitely been guilty of that in the past, and this course gave me tools to get better.”

Managing Up, Down, and Across

While many leadership programs focus primarily on managing direct reports, PMEL takes a more holistic view. “One of the things I loved about the program is how much attention was given to managing relationships in every direction — down, laterally, and up — especially as I prepare to launch and scale a business with advisors and a board,” Ryan says.

For Reisner, who collaborates constantly across teams and levels, this multidirectional approach was critical. “So much of my work is about relationships,” she says. “Peers, superiors, clients — it’s all about communication, collaboration, and understanding people.”

This inclusive approach to management resonates deeply in today’s hybrid, cross-generational workplace. “The program offered a great umbrella framework that works across the five generations now present in many companies,” Ryan notes. “It’s incredibly valuable to have that perspective.”

Blending Insight with Application

What sets PMEL apart, both participants agreed, is the blend of academic rigor and applied learning. “The balance was excellent,” Ryan says. “We learned frameworks, legal insights, and project management tools — and then we actually used them in real time.”

Reisner echoes that view. “The legal and project-management components were especially helpful,” she says. “Some of it I was already familiar with, but the context, the structure, and the case examples made it more memorable — and more useful.”

She also appreciated the safe environment created by the faculty. “The role plays, case discussions, and breakout groups were very well run. Even people who were hesitant at first felt comfortable participating.”

Both note the challenges of packing so much content into six sessions. “It was sometimes hard to finish a conversation before being pulled back into the main session,” Martha says. But the tradeoff was worth it. “We covered a lot of ground, and the facilitators struck a good balance between instruction and interaction.”

Leading by Learning

Ryan, who has taken several other Wharton Executive Education programs — including Data Analytics, Entrepreneurship Acceleration Program, and Leading an AI-Powered Future — feels that the live, discussion-based format of PMEL stands out. “The case study method, the cold calls, the peer feedback — it forces you to think on your feet,” she says.

As a founder returning to the classroom, she’s also keenly aware of how fast management practices evolve. “Even with a Wharton MBA, you need a refresher,” she says. “Just look at how we used to do regression analysis by hand. Now it’s plug-and-play in Excel. The world is changing fast, and your skills have to keep up.”

For Reisner, the program was a thoughtful re-grounding in the fundamentals. “It wasn’t about overhauling my style,” she says. “It was about refinement. Tweaks. Staying open to better ways of doing things.” And her organization — committed to continuous improvement and already investing in systems upgrades and leadership development — gave her the support to make those changes.

“I feel empowered to apply what I learned,” she says. “Not because I have to change everything, but because I now have even better tools to do what I already value: supporting people and building strong relationships.”