Professional Certificate in Leadership and Management Syllabus

Professional Certificate in Leadership and Management Syllabus

60 hours; offered in fall/spring; various instructors ______

Summary and Goals

The Professional Certificate in Leadership and Management is designed to provide a management “toolkit” including the key concepts and vocabulary essential for effective management and strategic decision making.

Seminar 1: Understanding Your Competitive Advantage Length: 7.5 hours

Description: This session will include an introduction and facilitated discussion around competitive strategies. The class will then work in groups to discuss and analyze specific competitive issues the student’s organization is facing and create an action plan for implementation. The interactive format includes case study work, action planning and small group problem-solving.

Seminar2: The Strategic Leader Length: 7.5 hours

Description: To be successful, organizations need managers and decision makers who show flexibility, understanding and an entrepreneurial spirit, while remaining true to the core values of their organization. This highly interactive seminar focuses on essentials for leadership in all sectors: ongoing self-assessment; ability to teach and motivate by speaking and acting congruently; strategic decision-making and balancing assertion with collaboration. The seminar will include case study and discussion, leadership self-appraisal, small group problem-solving, and action planning, including post seminar follow up with Instructor.

Seminar3: Financial Analysis for Strategic Decision Making Length: 7.5 hours
Description: This seminar focuses on using financial analysis methods to recognize opportunities for business improvement and understand the relative significance of opportunities that come a student’s way. Through case study methodology and small group discussion, the Instructor will focus on helping participants gain financial savvy by looking at appropriate data analysis methodology; identifying what questions to ask and what data to gather; and then using data to develop effective approaches to organizational problem solving. This is an interactive working that will provide a combination of strategy and practical application. Participants will have an opportunity to work with various case studies and models and receive hands-on coaching through problem solving and decision making.

Seminar4: Marketing Strategies and Measuring Performance for Successful Outcomes Length: 7.5 hours

Description: Market performance proves that companies that understand and apply customer-centric marketing are more likely to achieve long-term success. Strategic Marketing Management is the process of developing and managing marketing strategies to create value for a firm’s customers. This interactive course will provide participants with an overview of the strategic marketing management process and its principal concepts. Participants are encouraged to bring actual marketing issues, challenges and ideas from their company for discussion and refinement. The course will include classroom presentations, discussions, and case study examples across a range of firms and industries.

Seminar5: Conflict and Negotiation: Creating Long-Term Success Length: 7.5 hours

Description: The objectives of this course are to develop negotiation skills experientially and to learn useful analytical frameworks for understanding negotiations. Emphasis is placed on realistic negotiation exercises and role playing. The exercises serve as catalysts for the evaluation and discussion of different types of negotiation situations.

Seminar 6: Emotional Intelligence Length: 7.5 hours

Description:This course focuses on both the art and science of emotional intelligence(EQ). Participants will learn the latest research and scientific advances in the area. Participants will also practice techniques used by actors to engage in active listening, connect to an audience, connect to their own emotions and de-stress before a big event.

Seminar7: Leading and Motivating Your Employees Length: 7.5 hours

Description: The purpose of this session is to provide practical tools that will help you lead and motivate the people with whom you work. You will learn to apply five distinct leadership styles, and to recognize the contexts in which each style is more or less effective. You will learn specific practices and tools for each leadership style, including those that will help you diagnose the underlying causes of performance problems, develop creative incentives without relying on monetary rewards, identify when you should and should not use different forms of employee involvement, “push” high achievers and star performers in ways that motivate them, manage people’s perceptions of fairness, demonstrate why you can be trusted, use a vision to inspire people and reduce their uncertainty, and shape the culture and norms of your group.

Seminar8: Developing Sales Strategies and Tactics for Growth Length: 7.5 hours

Description: In today’s highly competitive economy every business searches for an advantage. Yet most resort to selling on price - garnishing only a small share of their market sector. The key to success is developing an effective sales strategy and implementation plan based on a unique and compelling value proposition. This one day interactive course will look at what value is, how to create it and how to build a sales plan based on it. A sales plan framework (both strategy and tactics) is used as the course guide. Participants will learn about primary components and focus on key areas. Cases will support discussions and exercises. Participants are encouraged to bring actual plans, issues, challenges, and reports from their work environment to the course for discussion and refinement. The format of this seminar is interactive, where participants will set an individual goal during the course and create a plan for attaining it. A status update of that goal will be emailed for review and feedback to the instructor 30 days out from the seminar.

Learning Objectives

• Improve your leadership, business strategy, negotiations, sales and marketing, finance, and emotional intelligence skills
• Develop skills for a position of influence
• Take on higher-level job responsibilities and prepare for advancement
• Understand business principles, trends, and best practices
• Take the KLSI 4.0 assessment for insight into problem solving, decision making, conflict resolution, teamwork, and communication
• Take the EQ-I 2.0 assessment to understand emotions and adopt behaviors to connect with others and become a stronger leader
• Understand a big-picture view of management to communicate more effectively
• Lead cross-functional teams
• Build a professional network beyond your organization

Required Texts and Materials(provided by CLI via DropBox)

Attendance Policy

Participants are allowed to miss up to 2 seminars and still successfully complete the certificate.

In the event of an emergency or prolonged unplanned absence, please contact Continuing Education at 1-800-639-3210 to discuss your options.

Participants that successfully meet the attendance requirements will receive a Certificate of Achievement upon completion.

Classroom Environment Expectations

The seminars are highly interactive and require the participation of all attending.

Typical seminars include presentations, discussing case studies, small-group problem solving, role-play, action planning, assessment of your leadership style, and more. Confidentiality is requested to foster greater group discussions.

Instructors

Bob Anderson

Bob Anderson is a Senior Instructor, Certified Assessor and Keynote Speaker for Leading Challenges, a leadership development training company concentrated on Emotional Intelligence, a life-discipline that leads to improved personal and professional successes. Bob is a dynamic facilitator, performance coach and public speaker who is driven by the desire to create individuals and organizations that are emotionally intelligent.

Joe Candido

Joe Candido has over 26 years of experience in sales, marketing, consulting, technology, and advanced training methods. Joe is a consultant who works with his clients to develop competitive differentiation in their market place, and then build both strategic and tactical sales and marketing plans which leverage that differentiation.

Rocki-Lee DeWitt, Ph.D.

Rocki-Lee DeWitt is the former Dean and Professor of Management in the School of Business at the University of Vermont. She earned her Ph.D. at Columbia University in strategic management, her M.S. at The Ohio State University in Agricultural Economics and her B.S. in Marketing and Management at New York University. Prior to her arrival in 2002, Dr. DeWitt was the Associate Dean for Professional Masters Programs at the Pennsylvania State University.

Karen FlemingHeidelmeier

Karen has over 25 years of strategy, marketing, product development and research experience with leading traditional and non-traditional organizations. Karen is the University of Vermont, Vermont Business School Instructor teaching Strategic Marketing Management. Her career includes such notable companies as Procter & Gamble, Ocean Spray and Application, Inc., Stonyfield Farm, and Seventh Generation. She has also worked as a growth strategy consultant at CDI (now part of Mercer Consulting). Karen also was co-founder and CEO of Coates Walker, Inc., a manufacturer of “green” cabinetry that served residential and commercial markets.

David Jones, Ph.D.

David Jones is an Associate Professor in Management at the School of Business Administration, University of Vermont. David completed his Ph.D. in Industrial and Organizational Psychology at the University of Calgary in Canada. In his research he focuses on employees’ perceptions of fairness in the workplace. David studies the processes through which employees judge fairness and unfairness, and through which they respond through cooperative behavior, turnover, revenge, and counterproductive behavior (e.g., wasting time, theft). He also conducts research on employee recruitment and selection.

Merryn Rutledge, Ed. D

Merryn works with clients throughout the country and in all sectors, advising on management challenges and change projects, guiding strategic planning, creating employee development programs, and working with Boards of Directors. Merryn does this work as Principal of ReVisions LLC, an organizational development firm in Burlington, Vermont.

Glenn Walberg, LL.M.

Glenn Walberg obtained his Master of Laws (LL.M.) in Taxation from the Georgetown University Law Center after obtaining his JD from the College of William and Mary School of Law. Before joining the University of Vermont Grossman School of Business, he taught courses about federal tax accounting for individuals and business entities at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. He previously worked as a senior manager in the national tax department of a Big Four accounting firm. He has published in the Florida Tax Review, Tax Notes, Tax Adviser, The Tax Lawyer, and others. His research interests include accounting method and capitalization issues.

This syllabus is a sample of what the Certificate has to offer and is subject to change. Participants may contact UVM staff with any questions or comments by emailing: or calling 802-656-2085.