Leadership Accelerator Academy 2025-2026

Instructor: Jason Parks

Being a leader inherently implies having a lot of responsibility. What that responsibility is can vary among leadership roles, but there are some universal ways to be a leader. Enthusiasm, having a vision, problem-solving, promoting teamwork, and delegating tasks are all forms of leadership, but may not come naturally to every leader. When a leader is not in shape, it reflects on the organization or team as a whole.

This course will give you the tools you need to hone your skills as a new manager, from earning trust and respect to leading through crisis and creating a vision to share. As a result, you will have more confidence in your ability to lead, will inspire a more collaborative work environment, and will be able to lead through any situation.

What you will learn:

• Identify key characteristics of leaders
• Using DiSC, understand your communication style as well as those of others
• Build trust and confidence with employees
• Avoid behaviors that undermine leadership
• Promote teamwork and esprit de corps
• Act decisively
• Demonstrate leadership in a crisis
• Conflict resolution
• Team Learning/Team Performance

Instructor: Jason Parks

Conflict is inevitable in life and in leadership, and difficult conversations are sometimes necessary and unavoidable. It is natural to be uncomfortable but putting off addressing these situations can be harmful in the long run. By listening empathetically, asking the right questions, learning the different personalities and work styles involved, and ascertaining the appropriate methods of intervention, a well-managed conflict can have a positive effect on your team and your organization.

In this course, learn to listen effectively and to focus on specific issues without becoming emotional, generalizing, or escalating the situation. Gain the skills needed to identify specific points of disagreement. Understand how to express your own needs clearly. Discover how to view conflict as an opportunity for growth. With practice, you will learn new conflict-resolution skills that improve your ability to negotiate and resolve issues with others.

What you will learn:

• Identify common approaches to conflict (Competing, Avoiding, Compromising, Integrating, Smoothing)
• Discover the seven sources of conflict (Values, Interpersonal Conflict, Goals, Performance, Power Struggle, Limited Resources, Organizational Based)
• Learn best practices for conflict prevention (Model Right Behaviors, Expectations, Healthy Organizational Culture, Manage Toxicity)

Instructor: Karockas (Doc Rock) Watkins, Ph.D., Th.D.

Develop group cohesion and learn how to build successful teams. Understand the difference between team building and team bonding and what activities support each. Examine organizational and interpersonal strategies for developing teams and fostering a team-based culture. This course includes using your DiSC assessment and a Discovery Wheel assessment to guide strategies for enhancing your team collaboration and methods for using adaptive leadership to lead stronger teams.

What you will learn:

• How to identify high-functioning teams
• How to employ team building and team bonding activities to strengthen your team and its productivity
• How to better manage a variety of personality types and conflicts that may arise within a team
• How to utilize adaptive leadership tenets regardless of your position within the organization

Instructor: Kristina Hendrix

Communication skills are vital to a supervisor's success. It's not just the ability to handle the technical aspects of a job nor the willingness to work hard that counts, but the ability to transmit information, ideas, and enthusiasm to others.

In this course, you will learn about the major communication disciplines and how to write a ten-step Public Relations plan. You will delve into identifying target audiences and how to speak their language. You will also learn valuable information about protocol and techniques to help you improve how to engage with executives. A variety of experiential activities provide hands-on skill-building to help you become a proficient communicator right away.

What you will learn:

• What is PR and Strategic Communications
• The four-step PR process and ten-step PR plan
• Major communications disciplines
• Protocol points
• Executive leadership skills
• Personal positioning

Instructor: Christopher Smith, MS-HRM

Creating an appropriate hiring strategy is important for your company to save time and resources. Hiring the right person for the right job the first time should be an essential part of your recruitment and hiring strategy. This course helps you to understand the various selection processes, how to build a hiring strategy, and how to attract the right candidates.

What you will learn:

• Recognize the costs incurred by wrong hiring decisions.
• Develop a fair and consistent interviewing process.
• Prepare better job advertisements.
• Devise a job analysis and position profile.
• Create traditional, behavioral, achievement-oriented, holistic, and situational interview questions.
• Enhance communication skills that are essential for a skilled recruiter.
• Effectively interview difficult applicants.
• Understand the basic employment and human rights laws that can affect the hiring process.

Instructor: Mike Fabianac

Every day is filled with new tasks, challenges, and distractions. Learn to take a step back to audit how to use time effectively based on organizational priorities. Strategic planning allows leaders to effectively manage their own time, projects, and priorities and those of their employees.

What you will learn:

• Determine the needed frequency of project audits.
• Create and conduct evaluations of yourself, your teams, and the organization.
• Understand how to examine priorities, projects, and tasks.
• Evaluate your work situation and work-life balance, all with the goal and tools to become more efficient and effective.

Instructor: Dr. Nicholas Loyd

Discover the importance of customer voice and partnership in identifying value-added operational activities, and learn how to utilize best practices to assess, monitor, and drive operational performance. In this course, you will learn the fundamentals of process improvement. Learn how to identify process issues, conduct data analysis to determine countermeasures, implement process improvement projects efficiently with expected deliverables, and develop metrics to gauge the success and sustainability of process changes.

Instructor: Ramona Burroughs, SPHR, SHRM-SCP

It is said that “employees are our best asset”. This course will help you to identify ways to value, encourage, and guide people to their top performance, aligning their motivation and engagement with business success. Learn how to set clear and reasonable goals for employees and coach for professional and personal success. Discover ways to help employee course correct when performance falls below expectations, and how to productively and thoughtfully address employee disciplinary matters when they arise.

Instructor: Tammara Buckey, MBA, EMPA, CFE, CDFM-A, LSSBB, PMP

In this course, you will explore key financial documents and learn the fundamentals of departmental budget forecasting, monitoring, and reconciliation. Learn the basics of how to develop financial analysis and proposals for leadership review.

Instructor: Demitrius Barksdale

Embark on a transformative journey to enhance your Emotional Intelligence (EQ) with our self-paced online course. This course is designed to encourage holistic growth and development for the betterment of personal and professional development that is practical to every aspect of your life.

In a world fixated on IQ, EQ often goes unnoticed, yet it is paramount for navigating modern challenges. Over 30 days, this course, based on the acclaimed book by Drs. Bradberry and Greaves will equip you with the essential tools to cultivate self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management skills through reflective and engaging assignments, discussions, and opportunities.

Additionally, through compelling anecdotes and practical strategies endorsed by luminaries like the Dalai Lama and Stephen R. Covey, you'll learn to harness emotions creatively, amplifying your intelligence in profound ways. With access to the world's bestselling Emotional Intelligence Appraisal©, you'll receive personalized insights and actionable steps to elevate your EQ immediately. Take the first step towards unlocking your full potential and redefining success.

Upon completion:

• Identify and implement EQ strategies to increase self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management
• Identify and implement EQ theoretical principles and apply them to enhance your quality of life.
• Acquire knowledge and skills to effectively engage with others in your community and workplace.

Instructor: Sinceree Gunn

This course will provide you with practical workplace writing strategies to assist you in developing documents that are clear, concise, complete, and correct. Topics will include the professional writing process, audience awareness, document organization and design, and visuals. Learn to review key grammar, style, and sentence structure concepts essential to enhancing the readability of a document and understand how to adapt messages to meet the needs of various audiences.

INSTRUCTOR: Steven Tyler Davis

Presentation skills are most critical to your individual and organization's image. Leaders must be able to speak, present and communicate with poise, power, and persuasion. Begin by establishing the objectives of your message and narrowing it down to the key points you want to leave with your audience. Learn to organize your presentation and perfect your delivery style by opening with impact, creating a positive first impression, and closing with power for a lasting image. Apply concepts and techniques to improve your interpersonal communication skills with managers, employees, coworkers, and customers. Also, discover how to overcome anxiety, choose dynamic presentation aides, and respond professionally to your audience. Various experiential activities provide hands-on skill-building to help participants become proficient communicators and presenters. Both initial and refined course presentations will be provided to participants on Google Drive for continued reference.

What You Will Learn:

• Plan your presentations, turning thoughts and ideas into compelling presentations.
• Learn and practice techniques to engage, motivate, persuade, teach, and entertain.
• Understand communicative practices, such as listening and language use, to understand messages from others in the workplace better and perfect your communication skills.
• Practice public speaking to improve delivery and respond to questions and interruptions.
• Gain public speaking confidence, cut prep time, reduce stress, and perfect delivery style.
• Understand the power of body language/movement and visual appearance.