The Leadership Academy graduates its 19th class in mid-May 2009.

Academy Curriculum | Participating Organizations | Program Eligibility | Forms & Schedules

We are currently accepting applications for LA XIX, which begins in November, 2009 and progresses through May 2010. Please call 216/687-2206 for information on applying for the Academy, or visit our Forms & Schedules via the top link on this page.

Since 1993, the Leadership Academy has brought together policy makers, elected officials, senior administrators, and community executives from the region in an executive development program. Its purpose is to enable leaders to do their jobs better. The Leadership Academy is leadership education that works. This customized learning opportunity spans 11 days over six months. Its practical curriculum produces immediate results.

Whether you are a neighborhood leader who wants to motivate and mobilize community residents or a newly elected official who wants to develop effective governing skills, the Levin College has a leadership programs that will help you be a more effective, responsible, and educated leader.

As a busy leader, you make difficult choices on behalf of your community. Are your policies yielding the desired results? Are you prepared for the new challenges and changing responsibilities of a leader in the 21st century?

The Leadership Academy, sponsored by the Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs can assist you in making good choices -- the ones that are best for your community, and you.

As a Fellow of the Leadership Academy, you will have the opportunity to assess your own leadership practices in a comfortable setting. You will have the opportunity to meet and work with your counterparts from other areas in the region while focusing on local issues in a broader context and learning tested practical solutions that can be put into place quickly. You will also:

• Learn a new way of thinking and communicating while expanding your leadership skills
• Earn continuing education and academic credits
• Share responsibility for learning
• Be recognized for your accomplishments as a leader.

Graduates say that the Academy helped renew their confidence and gave them the insight more effective approaches to leadership.

Past graduates have found numerous opportunities to apply what they learned in the Leadership Academy:

• A mayor used the four "leadership languages" he had learned to build consensus on a municipal budget.
• A councilperson found common ground between her law department and a developer who planned to sue the city.
• An administrator restructured his operations to save $100,000 without any adverse effects on operations.
• A mayor designed a labor-management problem-solving process.
• A councilperson formed a tri-city taskforce on school funding.
• An administrator facilitated a board-staff process for keeping an agency's actions in line with changes in its financial and technical environment.
• Two council members facilitated the creation of a youth policy that blends the resources of two cities, a library board, and a school district.
• Administrators developed agreements to allow a cross-functional team to act independently.
• A councilperson got community stakeholders involved on downtown architectural renovation.