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Lead the Future

The St. Thomas Executive Program

Lead with new energy toward critical thinking, creativity and building a strong culture within a complex, growing business landscape. The St. Thomas Executive Program (STEP) is a 9-day, 3-module program that increases your leadership capability to include the top 10 leadership skills you’ll need for the year 2020, and beyond.
The Future of Jobs, a World Economic Forum report, outlines the top 10 skills leaders will need to succeed in 2020. The St. Thomas Executive Program (STEP) is designed around these key skills, to help you become a more effective, influential leader. In this program, you will:
  • Prepare to lead in 2020 and beyond. From the ability to solve complex problems to leading others, emotional intelligence to critical thinking, you’ll leave this program with practical leadership tactics.
  • Develop your coaching ability. You’ll practice coaching techniques with your cohort of peers, so you’re more prepared to use them in your organization.
  • Complete a leadership assessment. Gain a better understanding of where your current skillsets lie. This gives you insight into your strengths and growth opportunities.

STEP uses a cohort learning model, which means you’ll complete classes with a small group of fellow professionals. The cohort’s wealth of experience enriches class discussions and exercises as different perspectives emerge. In your STEP cohort, you’ll also gain a professional network that you can turn to long after the program ends.

Sessions are held on the downtown Minneapolis campus, and parking is available within one block. There are no prerequisites for this program.

After the first module, you’ll have the option to register for individual coaching sessions. 

Have Questions?

Contact Devin Smith, program manager. He can help you determine if this program is the right fit for you, and answer any questions you have.

Contact

Devin Smith

Program Manager
Devin Smith headshot
Email
devin.smith@stthomas.edu
Phone Number
651-962-4154
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Is This Program Right for You?

STEP is designed for high-potential, mid-career leaders in business with broad level business responsibilities. It is for leaders who want the cutting-edge skills that will prepare them for their next level or challenge of leadership responsibility. The ideal STEP candidate:

  • Participates in developing individuals as part of their team or a cross functional team.
  • Is responsible for setting and measuring business objectives that link to a larger strategy in the company
  • Identifies as high-performing, and as having high potential
  • May have the title of Director or Manager
  • Has experience in overseeing company initiatives or key products or services

Application Process

Learning with the right mix of peers is an important part of STEP. There is a brief application process, so we can ensure that you and this program are a great fit.

The application deadline for the Fall 2019 STEP cohort is August 31, 2019. You can apply at any time before that date. Applications are reviewed on a monthly basis.

Program Highlights

Leadership Circle Profile™

In this professional assessment, you’ll gain valuable insight into different aspects of your leadership. Measure your competencies, internal drivers, and behaviors that impact your level of success. This comprehensive profile incorporates your feedback and the input of supervisors, peers, and direct reports as part of a holistic assessment.

ExperienceChange™ Simulation

Organizations that thrive in today’s shifting climate are those able to adopt a new way of problem-solving, act with agility and involve stakeholders in solutions. Our ExperienceChange™ simulation, touted as “a year of experience in one session,” gives you and your cohort the chance to practice the concepts and tools you’ve learned in class.

Peer-to-Peer Coaching

This program incorporates peer workgroups to take a deeper dive into class topics. Practice your coaching skills in a low-stakes environment, so you’re ready to coach in your workplace when it really counts.
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Executive Education: St. Thomas Executive Education Program

The St. Thomas Executive Program (STEP) is designed for high-potential, mid-career leaders in business with broad level business responsibilities including setting departmental strategy, leading people and budget or revenue responsibility. Our curriculum addresses all ten of these top leadership skills during this nine-day program.

Curriculum

Develop 2020 Leadership Skills: people management, coordinating with others, and emotional intelligence.

Collective Ambition is a model summarizing how leaders and employees think about their organization’s purpose, vision, targets and milestones, strategic and operational priorities, brand promise, core values and leader behaviors. By clearly outlining these areas, leaders can help their teams to shape a collective ambition, rather than each individual pursuing their own ambition.

Module I covers how collective ambition can help you in:

  • Leading yourself
  • Developing and coaching others
  • Organizational development and change

Use the ExperienceChange™ simulation to:

  • Quickly turn powerful ideas and solutions into reality
  • Speak and act with a common language
  • Align stakeholders around new ways of doing things
  • Build a highly engaged culture of execution

Focus on 2020 Leadership Skills: complex problem solving, critical thinking, creativity and cognitive flexibility.

What happens in your organization when chaos hits? To be an effective leader in an ever-changing, complex environment, it’s critical to be able to troubleshoot while considering the enterprise as a whole. Module II gives you tools to solve problems with creativity, critical thinking and business acumen. When an issue arises, you will be better able to:

  • Use human-centered design as a process to guide and strengthen your creative thinking and problem-solving ability
  • Determine if a solution is good for your business

Focus on 2020 Leadership Skills: negotiation & influence, judgment and decision-making, service orientation.

By this point, you’ve explored the ins and outs of strategic thinking and creativity. You’ve become a stronger leader. Now, learn how to approach making a decision and executing it. There are always multiple angles to a solution depending on the viewpoint of each stakeholder. In Module III you will:

  • Identify the different perspectives of a problem
  • Learn to lead strategic conversations
  • Practice making better, faster decisions, and involving the right people at the right time
  • Learn to prioritize what really matters, and how to focus more of your time on these key issues

Pricing and Schedule

We encourage organizations to build this program into their talent development strategy and welcome the opportunity for conversation with your organization leaders about the advantage of doing so. The individual price for this program is $9,995. There are group discounts available based on your organizational needs. 

Our next cohort begins September 2019.

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St. Thomas Executive Education programs give you cutting-edge, practical knowledge and real-world skills you can apply at work the very next day. Gain the tools and techniques to be a more effective, strategic leader.
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