Newsroom David Eccles School of Business
at the University of Utah
Newsroom for the David Eccles School of Business

Professional development for Utah executives, only 1 day a month for 5 months

There are a lot of managers in the business world, but it takes something more to become a workplace leader.

The Eccles School can provide that missing piece with its professional development for Utah executives. The Executive Education office is inviting people in management positions to participate in the Executive Leadership Series, a five-day certificate program held once a month for five months that provides managers the skills and abilities they need to truly engage in a leadership role.

Jared Stephens“We’ve been hearing things like: ‘We’ve had higher sales revenue since we attended this program,’ ‘Employee morale has been so much better since we sent this manager to this program,’ ‘This manager has become someone who is not managing but is really leading,’” said Jared Stephens, manager of the Eccles School’s Executive Education program. “That feedback is so exciting to hear.”

The five classes, which focus on topics ranging from negotiations to strategic thought to turning around a struggling business, are spread out over as many months, allowing busy executives to fit the classes into their schedules more easily.

The classes take place on the following days:

  • Feb. 27
  • March 26
  • April 23
  • May 14
  • June 18

Visit UtahExecEd.com for more information, or email ExecEd@utah.edu or call (801) 335-4952.

Listen to the audio podcast below for more details.

Podcast Transcript

Eccles School: Welcome to the Eccles Extra Podcast, I’m your host Sheena McFarland. Today we’re joined by Jared Stephens who is manager of the Executive Education Program. His role at the David Eccles School of Business is to work with the University of Utah faculty to develop certificate and customized classes for companies and organizations. These classes are designed to make an immediate impact for these companies. He specifically worked to help develop the Executive Leadership’s Series to meet the needs of business leaders in Utah. Jared, thank you for joining us today. First why don’t we start with a basic question: what exactly is the Executive Education?

Jared Stephens: The Executive Education Program in the School of Business is the corporate and professional development side of the Business School. We work with organizations around the state of Utah and the United States to bring them on campus and develop customized classes for their organizations dealing with any sort of business topic that our executive MBA and professional MBA professors teach, whether it’s business leadership, negotiations, strategy or business turnarounds. We’ll deliver it for the company for a specific group of people. We also do certificate programs that are specifically targeted toward specific groups and organizations that help them develop the business acumen and become better leaders for their companies and organizations.

Eccles School: Great, so what is the Executive Leadership Series?

Jared Stephens: So the Executive Leadership Series is a certificate program that we developed specifically for senior managers in organizations. It’s a five-day program, spread out between February and June that covers topics that we feel like every leader in organizations should have exposure to help them become those better managers, better leaders to better tackle the problems that they’ll encounter. If they’re leading an entire organization, if they’re leading a department or if they’re just leading a small team of people, we feel this certificate program can be impactful for them.

Eccles School: Who from the University of Utah and the Eccles School of Business will lead the series’ courses?

Jared Stephens: So we’ve handpicked faculty that teach in our Executive MBA Program as well as our professional MBA program that we feel like have the best backgrounds to make an impact for this group. There are faculty members who are considered top researchers in their field who will teach in this as well as faculty members who were CEOs themselves for many, many years before coming to the Business School to teach. So we feel like we’ve really hand-selected some great faculty that are used to teaching executives in that EMBA program and that have been teaching companies for many, many years in executive education that have the backgrounds to make an impact.

Eccles School: That’s great. For people who participate in this program, what questions of theirs will the series answer?

Jared Stephens: We really want them to understand – and in one of the modules for example that is all about leadership – what is the difference between a manager and a leader. How can you better prepare yourself to not only manage the day-to-day activities of the company but lead the people that are a part of this fabulous organization you probably work for? How can you inspire and motivate them? How do you leverage human resources to be a sustainable competitive advantage?

We cover different things dealing with negotiation and conflict resolution, how can you identify if your company may be beginning to struggle and how do you turn around a company that’s struggling. And then also, what are some strategic or sustainable competitive advantages that your organization can take advantage of in your specific industry, which would be the strategy module. It really covers those topics that we feel are most relevant to these business leaders that can really help them go back to their companies and make an impact the following day when they leave class.

Eccles School: Why should an owner of a business or a leader of a business send some of their managers to the Executive Leadership Series?