Institute for Strategic Leadership

Learning Approach

Educational Processes Used By ISL

We create strategic leaders, not managers with leadership knowledge.

"We hear and we forget.
We see and we remember.
We do and we understand."

The Chinese philosopher's wisdom quoted above underpins the pedagogy of the Institute's programmes, which can be summarised as:

  1. We establish learning groups (classes) of talented people with diverse skills and experiences (ideally with a mix of gender, race, functional and sector background).
  2. We consider learning groups should be comprised of 12 to 20 participants and split into syndicates of four or five participants.
  3. Participants are provided with process methods and skills; and leading-edge thinking / concepts from reputable practitioner journals (such as HBR, Sloan Review, The McKinsey Quarterly).
  4. Highly trained and experienced strategy coaches, leadership coaches, and a lifestyle coach support each individual and his/her syndicate to develop personal strategic leadership styles and high performance teamwork skills.
  5. Participants learn by doing, through advanced problem-based and action-based learning processes developed by the Institute. Reflective learning is a key component of the Institute's pedagogy.
  6. We recognise that strategy and leadership knowledge and skills will be sub-optimal without the vital strategic communication skills. The Institute's programmes all involve participants being supported to enhance their skills and effectiveness in selling their ideas and their vision - key success factors for all strategic leaders.

These educational processes have proven to be very effective and many of our Strategic Leadership Programme participants have reported in their testimonials that they have gained a much greater level of personal and organisational benefit from our programme than that obtained from attending world-class business school programmes.