Faculty Chair(s):
Peter Zimmerman
OVERVIEW
In today's world, senior executives need to be leaders as well as managers. But being a leader often means acquiring a new skill set. Functional expertise is overshadowed by the need to build coalitions, drive results and performance, and guide organizational change.
The Senior Executive Fellows program provides you with practical, effective tools that can help you:
- identify and analyze the challenges and opportunities facing your organization, and master them politically, as well as technically
- develop strategic plans of action using communication, negotiation and coalition-building skills
- manage the tensions between long-term policy goals and short-term political pressures
- create an organizational environment that is responsive to change, but also true to its purpose and tradition
The program does not teach answers to specific problems -- it provides a strategic approach to problem-solving. From the start, you'll take on a leadership role, discovering ways to look at issues from new perspectives. You'll learn how to generate a more diverse array of possible interpretations, and therefore, a wider range of possible solutions. Through classwork, group work, and individual study, you'll practice strategic analysis daily, until it becomes a natural, ingrained response.
The program focuses on skills associated with the Office of Personnel Management's (OPM) executive core qualifications (ECQs) and is designed for federal government employees at the GS-14/GS-15 levels and their military counterparts. Many government agencies offer the SEF program as part of their Senior Executive Services (SES) Candidate Development Programs (CDPs).