FIU Center for Leadership ranked number one in the state

~Camila Saenz/Contributing Writer

 

On Florida International University’s Modesto A. Maidique campus, beside the Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum, lies the Management and Advanced Research Center.

Earlier in April at the annual HR conference, the FIU Center for Leadership received number one ranking in the state of Florida and number two ranking in the country.

Garth Headley, associate director for the Center of Leadership, has been a part of the Center of Leadership team since 2007.

“We have been ranked for three years now. Last year we were number one in the country, this year we are ranked number two in the country and number one in the state of Florida,” said Headley.

As stated on the website of the Center for Leadership, their mission is, “The Center for Leadership at Florida International University is committed to becoming an internationally recognized center for leadership research, development, and training by providing leaders with the competencies that will equip them to positively and effectively transform their organizations and their societies.”

The Center for Leadership hosts four different programs all promoting leadership in different fields. The four programs: the Senior Executive Leadership Program, the High Potential Leader, the Women Leaders Program, and the Physicians Leadership Program.

“ The leadership research is graduate students and professors from many different disciplines doing some aspects of research with relation to leadership”, Headley explains, “With that research we create executive training programs and leadership programs.”

The Senior Executive Leadership Program is a small program geared for presidents and C-Suite executives to improve and optimize decision making. To ensure efficient faculty/ participant interaction the program is capped at 20 participants.

The High Potential Leader program is designed for executives, senior managers, directors and vice presidents. Unlike the Senior Executive Leadership program this program constructed to accommodate the professional leadership needs of today’s unstable economy. The program helps expand the leadership capabilities of of the realities of future roles and responsibilities.

The Women Leaders Program is exclusively for women who are executives, over 200 women from around the world have graduated from this program. The uniqueness of this program is that it is tailored especially to high powered women with an executive mindset. Various companies that have been represented in this program include VISA, Baptist Health South Florida, and FedEx.

Lastly the Physicians Leadership Program is offered through a partnership of the Center for Leadership and the Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine at Florida International University to current physicians who take on more of an administrative role or a senior staff member, in order to prepare them for the ever-changing environment that is healthcare. This program specializes in providing the tools to these physicians to become leaders in their healthcare fields.

Headley continues, “We are excited about it because the way the ranking is done HR.comreaches out to our clients, anyone who has been to any of our leadership programs, and ask how beneficial the program was for them and if it has impact their careers. The feedback from our participants largely affects the rankings.”

The Center for Leadership is proud to have its former program attendees provide such positive feedback, not only to HR.com during the process of the ranking for the List of Excellence 500; but also on different social media forums.

“Thats good for us but on the other hand it is a huge accolade for the university to have the number one center for leadership development right here on campus. The resources that are here not just the students who attend FIU but the staff as well,” added Headley.

The Center for Leadership at FIU is still relatively new, having only begun its programs in 2007.