Lead with confidence. Inspire with purpose. Advance with intention.
Every promotion brings new complexities. The challenges get bigger, the stakes higher. Your team looks to you for support and vision—and you want to be prepared.
Yale’s Elevated Leadership Program primes you for these pivotal moments.
Blending world-class insights with practical application, this program equips you to motivate teams, navigate uncertainty, and drive sustainable success. Gain strategies to sharpen your decision-making, expand your influence, and cultivate high performance.
Build a powerful foundation for impact by aligning your leadership with your core strengths and values. Step forward with the skills that set exceptional leaders apart.
Whether you are soon to be or currently leading in your respective role, this program introduces, invigorates, and amplifies new leadership skills as well as existing strengths to facilitate an ideal environment for growth.
About This Program
What to Expect
- Drive effective change: Develop skills in decision-making, influence, and change management to overcome resistance and create lasting impact.
- Produce sustainable results: Implement accountability practices and motivation strategies that foster long-term team success and organizational growth.
- Cultivate purpose-driven leadership: Transform your unique strengths and values into clear direction that energizes your team.
- Build a culture of positivity: Apply research-backed strategies for enhancing team engagement through positive leadership.
- Apply reflection and learning to leadership: Use reflection techniques to refine leadership practices and continuously translate insights into workplace success.
- Create a valuable network: Exchange insights, advice, and guidance with peers who support your growth—both during the program and beyond.
Key Features
- Leadership Development Plan: Bridge the gap between learning and action with a personalized development plan. Guided by group executive coaching, you’ll translate insights into a clear strategy for continued professional growth and impact.
- Applied Project: Apply your learnings to solve a pressing challenge in your organization. Through peer feedback, you’ll refine your approach and develop a strategic solution ready for real-world implementation.
- Learning Circles: Engage in deep peer learning through small-group discussions that foster collaboration, accountability, and insight. Throughout the program, your learning circle will provide actionable feedback to strengthen your applied project.
- Group Executive Coaching: Enhance self-awareness and strategic thinking through two group coaching sessions. These will ensure you leave the program with a clear path forward, ready to lead confidently.
Who Should Attend
This program is designed for mid-level professionals with 10 to 15 years of experience who are entering a new leadership role, aspiring to higher levels of leadership, or seeking to expand their leadership impact.
If you believe that continuous learning and growth are critical to leadership success, we’d love to hear from you.
Blended Learning Experience
The flexible, blended format of Yale’s Elevated Leadership Program enables you to partake in a highly engaging learning experience without sacrificing too much time away from your home and your workplace.
The program begins with three days of live online learning in which you’ll engage with faculty and peers in a dynamic virtual setting. One week later, you’ll come to the Yale School of Management campus for four days of immersive, in-person learning.
Agenda
Below is a sample of the topics explored in the Elevated Leadership Program. Content and schedule are subject to change.
- Everyday Leadership
- Listening to Learn
- Positively Energizing Leaders
- Understanding Your Leadership Impact and Debriefing Your Assessment: Reflected Best Self Exercise
- Connected Leadership
- Conscious Accountability
- Decision Making for Leaders
- Employee Engagement and Motivation
- From Workshop to Workplace: Transitioning to the Real World
- Influence and Persuasion
- Leading Organizational Change
Faculty Director
James Baron
William S. Beinecke Professor of Management
Areas of Expertise: Careers, Entrepreneurship, Human Resources, Labor Issues, Leadership, Nonprofit Management, Organizational Behavior, Organizational Design, Social Enterprise, Social Networks, Startups, Strategy, Women in Leadership, Workplace Issues
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Professor Baron’s research interests include human resources; organizational design and behavior; social stratification and inequality; work, labor markets, and careers; economic sociology; and entrepreneurial companies. Before coming to SOM in 2006, he taught at Stanford's Graduate School of Business from 1982-2006. At Stanford, he taught the MBA core course, Human Resource Management. He was co-director of the Stanford Project on Emerging Companies (SPEC), a large-scale longitudinal study of the organizational design, human resource management practices, and financial and non-financial performance measures of entrepreneurial firms in Silicon Valley. Papers based on the project appeared in leading disciplinary journals, and an overview of the project in California Management Review won the 2003 Accenture Award for making “the most important contribution to improving the practice of management.”
Faculty
Faculty and lecturers are subject to change.
Heidi Brooks
Senior Lecturer in Organizational Behavior
Areas of Expertise: Leadership, Organizational Behavior, Workplace Issues
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Heidi Brooks teaches and advises on the subject of everyday leadership: the everyday micro-moments of impact that shape our lived experiences. Creating more courageous communities—especially within organizations—is a particular passion of hers. Dr. Brooks specializes in large-scale culture change projects focused on individual and collective leadership effectiveness in organizations. Interpersonal Dynamics, the MBA elective she has taught for 15 years, is one of the courses most in demand at the Yale School of Management (SOM). Recently, Dr. Brooks pioneered the Everyday Leadership course at Yale SOM, where she first taught the Principles of Everyday Leadership. She has also taught Emotional Intelligence, Power & Politics, Managing Teams and Groups, and Coaching Skills for Managers. Dr. Brooks received her doctorate in psychology from the University of California at Berkeley and a bachelor’s degree from Brown University. A life-long experiential learner, you can find her as a student in classrooms as far-ranging as improvisational theater and immersion language lessons.
Zoe Chance
Senior Lecturer in Management
Areas of Expertise: Influence and Persuasion, Marketing
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Zoe Chance is our resident expert on interpersonal influence. She's a member of the marketing faculty at Yale SOM, teaching the school's most popular elective, "Mastering Influence and Persuasion," as well as workshops for executives around the world. Her recent book, Influence Is Your Superpower, is an international bestseller being published in 28 languages. Zoe earned her MBA from USC and her doctorate from Harvard. Her framework for behavior change is the foundation for Google’s global food policy. Before joining academia, Zoe managed a $200 million segment of the Barbie brand. Now, she uses her influence to help out with the climate crisis and donates half her book profits to that cause. She wants to help you make great things happen too.
Emma Seppälä
Lecturer in Management
Areas of Expertise: Positive Leadership, Emotional Intelligence, Well-being, Social Connection
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Emma Seppälä, Ph.D., is a best-selling author, Yale lecturer, and international keynote speaker. She teaches executives at the Yale School of Management and is faculty director of the Yale School of Management’s Women’s Leadership Program. A psychologist and research scientist by training, her expertise is the science of happiness, emotional intelligence, and social connection. Her best-selling book, The Happiness Track (HarperOne, 2016), has been translated into dozens of languages. Seppälä is also the Science Director of Stanford University’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education.
David Tate
Assistant Clinical Professor in Psychiatry, Yale School of Medicine
Lecturer, Yale School of Management
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David C. Tate is a licensed clinical psychologist, professionally certified coach, and organizational consultant. He is Principal at Tate Consulting Group, a boutique consultancy that focuses on executive coaching and leadership advising, team design and development, family-owned and closely held enterprises, and promoting healthy organizational development. David has worked with leaders and senior managers in healthcare, financial services, manufacturing, distribution, publishing, media/design, education, technology, and construction.
David is an Assistant Clinical Professor in Psychiatry at Yale University, where he received the 2013 Distinguished Faculty Award. He is a Lecturer at the Yale School of Management, where he teaches within both the graduate and executive education programs. He also coaches global leaders within the Yale Greenberg World Fellows Program. He is an author of Sink or Swim: How Lessons from the Titanic Can Save Your Family Business and the forthcoming book, Conscious Accountability: Deepen Connections, Elevate Results.
David received his BS at Cornell University and his PhD in clinical psychology at the University of Virginia. He completed pre- and post-doctoral fellowships at Yale University before joining the faculty. He earned a Certificate in Family Business Advising from the Family Firm Institute, where he is a Fellow. He is a graduate of the Executive Coaching Academy and has completed additional coaching certification through the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching. He earned the designation of Professionally Certified Coach from the International Coach Federation.
Application Information
Program Details
Application Deadline: August 1, 2025
Program dates:
Virtual Orientation: September 25, 2025
Module 1: October 28–30, 2025 (live online)
Module 2: November 4–7, 2025 (on campus)
Location: Live online and on campus
Program Fee: $9,300 – Fee includes lodging and most meals.
Contact: Joanne Legler, Senior Director of Learning Partnerships
How do I explain the benefits of the certificate program to my supervisor?
Download the sample justification letter.
How to Apply
Interested applicants will need to submit:
- A current résumé
- A letter of intent (500 words maximum) which includes:
- Your total years of professional work experience
- Your role within your organization, including your leadership responsibilities
- How your experience has prepared you to participate in this program
- Why you are applying to this program, including a description of your short-term professional goals
- How the program will prepare you to achieve these goals
- The unique contributions you will offer to the other members of your cohort
Both documents can be uploaded as either a PDF or word document to the application form.
Professional achievement and organizational responsibility are the main criteria for admission. There are no previous formal education requirements for admission. Acceptance is subject to the approval of the Yale School of Management Executive Education Admissions committee.
Applications are reviewed in the order they are received, and you can expect to be notified within two weeks from submitting a completed application.
If you have any questions about applying, please contact Joanne Legler, Senior Director of Learning Partnerships.
Program Fee Assistance
Download our justification letter to guide conversations with an employer about fee assistance.
Yale SOM Executive Education offers a 15% reduction in program fee for:
- Those who work in the nonprofit sector. (Apply NONPROFIT code at time of registration.)
- Those who work in government. (Apply GOV code at time of registration.)
- Yale University alumni. (Apply YALEGRAD code at time of registration.)
- Groups of 3-6 participants. Groups can be from an organization or be self-formed.
- Those who have previously participated in a Yale Executive Education program with Yale SOM or 2U/GetSmarter.
Discounts cannot be combined.
Refund & Cancellation
Refunds are allowed for live online and in-person programs if requested in writing to the Yale Executive Education Registrar. The Yale Executive Education Cancellation Terms are as follows:
| Request for change in registration/cancellation | Refund provided |
|---|---|
| 30 days, or more, prior to Program start date | 100% Program Fee Refund Provided |
| 15-29 days prior to Program start date | 50% Program Fee Refund Provided |
| 14 days, or less, prior to Program start date | No Refund Provided |
Yale reserves the right to cancel or reschedule programs if enrollment is deemed insufficient or health and safety would otherwise be jeopardized. Yale School of Management is not responsible for any travel or incidental costs incurred by a registrant if a program becomes canceled. If a program is canceled by Yale, a full refund of fees paid will be processed within 30 days.
While it is our goal to deliver our programs as scheduled, we may postpone programs, deliver them online, or cancel them. If one of our programs has a scheduling change, we will notify those affected as soon as possible.
Webinars
Testimonials
“My experience in the Elevated Leadership Program has been transformational. So often as a mid-senior level leader, I felt stuck at the 'middle management' level, without a clear pathway to strategic upper level leadership. The content, research, case studies, and tools delivered by unparalleled Yale SOM faculty through this program have given me concrete methods through which to leverage my personal leadership strengths successfully in my organization—and beyond.” – Amy McDermott
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“My experience in this program was truly transformative. The focus on experiential learning allowed me to apply valuable insights directly to my business challenges, and the supportive environment fostered meaningful connections with my peers. I thoroughly enjoyed the networking aspect and loved connecting with others who share similar goals. The coaching was an especially nice touch, showing that the team genuinely cares about our growth. This experience was something I didn’t realize I needed at this moment in my life, and it will be forever cherished. The program resonated with me on a deep level, and I find myself still evaluating the materials and reflecting on my learnings. I left feeling more confident and equipped to tackle leadership roles. I highly recommend this program to anyone looking to enhance their skills and make a real impact in their organization.” – Christin McKerchie
“As a lifelong fervent learner and leader, I found Yale's Elevated Leadership Program to offer the perfect blend of applied frameworks, theories, and tools necessary for any professional to improve their effectiveness as a leader within their organization. Whether you are soon to be or currently leading in your respective role, this program introduces, invigorates, and amplifies new leadership skills as well as existing strengths to facilitate an ideal environment for growth.” – Vincent Diaz
“It's hard to pick one best aspects of this program, but expanding my network was unexpected. I expected stellar instruction, professional content and delivery, and a lot of self-reflection. However, I'm also coming away with a network of peers experiencing similar challenges across diverse industries. I loved learning from them and getting their input in return.” – Jared Liu