Our leadership programming helps organizations build leadership capacity at every level through facilitated learning, coaching, cohort experiences, applied projects, and customized development pathways. Whether supporting emerging leaders, strengthening supervisors, or preparing executives to guide organizational change, we help leaders guide their teams and advance organizational goals with clarity.

Leadership Challenges Require More Than Training

Organizations depend on leaders to create clarity, support staff, navigate change, and strengthen workplace culture. Yet many leaders are promoted because of their technical expertise without receiving the development needed to successfully lead people and teams. When leadership development is inconsistent or absent, organizations often experience increased turnover, reduced engagement, lower employee confidence, and greater difficulty sustaining quality services. Building leadership capacity requires intentional investment in the people responsible for guiding teams, shaping culture, and driving organizational success.

Learning + Coaching + Reflection + Practice + Application + Organizational Impact

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Development that helps leaders turn awareness into action, at every level of your organization. Academy for Professional Excellence.

Common Topics

Examples of the workforce practice topics frequently featured in our programs.

  • Leading Through Uncertain and Challenging Times

  • Social and Emotional Intelligence for Leaders

  • Culturally Responsive Leadership

  • Let The Spirit Lead: Working with Native American Families and Tribes

  • Leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI) to Enhance APS

  • Coaching and Developing Others

  • Communication and Presentation Skills

  • Fiscal Management Essentials

  • Quality Improvement and Performance Measurement

  • Building Effective Multi-Disciplinary Teams (MDTs)

Featured Leadership Development Grounded in Practice

Leaders in Action

Programs like our Leaders in Action series combine roughly 15 days of executive training delivered by current and past agency directors, university faculty, and program alumni with a 360 assessment, a leadership temperament survey, and an Individual Development Plan that sets concrete, measurable career goals. One-on-one coaching runs throughout the program, and participants join an online learning community and cross-county network that continues to support them long after graduation.

Learn more about Leaders in Action →

Cultural Responsiveness Services

Programs like our Culturally Responsive Leadership Advanced Series combine four days of facilitated learning with experiential activities, community-led learning, and individualized coaching to help leaders recognize and address systemic practices that impact both workforce experience and service delivery. Designed and led by a diverse team of workforce development experts, many with lived experience, the series guides participants through a transformative process of building self-awareness, strengthening culturally responsive practice behaviors, and developing practical strategies for advancing racial equity within their organizations. 

Learn more about Cultural Responsiveness Services →

Leadership Programming Built for Every Career Stage

No two leadership challenges are exactly alike. That’s why we offer multiple approaches to leadership development that can stand alone or be combined into a comprehensive leadership strategy. Choose the leadership series that matches where your leaders are today.

Emerging Leader Programs

Prepare future leaders with the foundational skills, confidence, and mindset needed to effectively influence others, navigate challenges, and step into new leadership responsibilities.

Supervisor and Manager Development

Strengthen day-to-day leadership practice through development focused on communication, accountability, team culture, workforce engagement, and performance management.

Executive Leadership Development

Support experienced leaders in navigating organizational complexity, leading change, and building cultures that promote effective strategic planning, innovation, collaboration, and workforce well-being.

Leadership Institutes and Cohort Experiences

Create deeper learning through structured leadership journeys that combine facilitated learning, culturally responsive practice, peer networking, reflection, coaching, and workplace application.

Applied Leadership Projects

Move beyond learning into action through real-world projects that allow leaders to address organizational challenges while strengthening leadership capability.

Extend Leadership Development With Coaching and Consultation

Leadership programs often continue well beyond the series itself. Many partners pair leadership programming with individual coaching to sustain new habits, and with organizational health and strategic planning consultation to help leaders apply what they’ve learned at the system level.

Coaching

Skills support that sticks

Organizational Health & Planning

Clarify priorities, strengthen practice

Why Agencies Invest in Leadership Programming

Agencies invest in leadership development when they need a pipeline of capable, confident leaders ready to step into critical roles. Our programs grow leaders in heart, mind and practice: emotional awareness, sound judgment, and the applied skills to lead through pressure.

They’re also built to create a lasting network of leaders who continue to support one another and their organizations long after the program concludes.