As a way to combine the academic leadership offerings and the co-curricular leadership experiences, you will have the opportunity to be awarded the Certificate of Advanced Leadership. In addition to completing the required academic courses and experiential activities, you will be required to take the capstone course in the spring semester of your final year.

The capstone course is a leadership seminar combining Professor Rick Gilkey’s research on cognitive leadership behaviors as well as teachings from Professors Karl Kuhnert and Peter Topping. Students will be required to write a capstone reflection paper that touches on one or more aspects of Goizueta’s leadership model:

• working across boundaries
• acting with integrity
• creating vision
• taking action
• demonstrating resilience

By completing all of the required items, you will be eligible to receive the certificate at the end of your final semester.

At Goizueta, we make sure you get the hands-on experience you need to succeed as a leader. The Leader's Reaction Course (LRC) is a unique experiential leadership opportunity that builds upon the programs and facilities of the U.S. Army at Fort Benning, Georgia that is used to train all the Army's Officer candidates. This course builds upon the programs of the U.S. Army for developing leadership. Throughout the day-long course, you will get an intense, hands-on experience that emphasizes learning through team-based problem solving, decision making, and effective communication skills.

We place participants in team-based leadership scenarios similar to those encountered by officer candidates for the U.S. Army and solving problems with guidance and feedback by leadership coaches. Formed into small teams, participants will overcome challenges, surmount physical barriers, establish plans of action, and execute their plan to solve a problem. After each event, the participants will execute an after action review to discuss what went right, wrong, and what needs to be improved. Through this feedback process and reflection, students can then apply their lessons in subsequent challenges.

Through the Leaders in Residence (LIR) program, we connect you to distinguished leaders with significant senior leadership experience. Our leaders provide guest lecturing in selected classes, conduct meetings with you on career or management related issues, and participate in panels on selected topics. Each year, Goizueta's dean invites a few selected leaders to be join the Leaders in Residence program.

Current Leaders in Residence include:

• Tom Beaty - President & CEO, Insight Sourcing Group and SpendHQ
• Dagmar Boggs - President, 7-Eleven Global Customer Team at The Coca-Cola Company
• Tony Charaf - Former Senior Vice President & Chief Cargo Officer, President Technical Operations/MRO at Delta Air Lines, Inc.
• Hervé Coyco - Program Director for International Companies such as Total and Air France KLM
• H. James Dallas - Former Senior Vice President, Quality and Operations at Medtronic, Inc.
• Donnie Hodge - CEO & Owner of Alta Gracia Apparel
• Thomas Kuntz - Former Corporate Executive Vice President, President and Chief Executive Officer at SunTrust Banks
• Michael E. Shapiro - Former Director of the High Museum of Art

Take your leadership to a higher level with the Goizueta Advanced Leadership Academy (GALA). This program explores leadership in every context—featuring an ambitious, innovative curriculum with a mix of seminars, guest speakers, and tailored coaching designed to develop you into a thoughtful leader. The curriculum is capped off with a capstone trip to the British Virgin Islands, where you can put your burgeoning leadership skills to the test by sailing open waters.

Want to maximize your leadership development during your pursuit of your MBA? Then the GALA program is for you.

Build on the leadership foundation established in the core curriculum by deepening your expertise through a focused set of leadership electives. The Leadership concentration allows you to customize your academic experience around topics such as leading teams, driving change, and making sound decisions in complex organizational environments.

Core Leadership Courses

Leadership Development: Team & Individual Performance

This foundational experience helps MBA students develop the self-awareness and interpersonal skills essential for success in business school and beyond. Led by Goizueta Business School faculty, the program combines interactive workshops, team challenges, and personal reflection to strengthen leadership effectiveness at both the individual and team levels. Participants will explore key principles of collaboration, communication, and adaptive leadership, gaining practical tools to enhance performance and contribute meaningfully to the Goizueta community from day one.

Leading Organizations & Strategy

Leading Organizations and Strategy focuses on the job, viewpoint, and skills of the general manager of a firm in diagnosing what is critical in business situations and in finding realistic solutions to strategic and organizational problems. We will examine issues central to the long- and short-term competitive position of the company. This class will introduce you to crucial strategic and organizational skills, all of which will have a substantial impact upon organizational profitability and your own successful career.

Principled Leadership

Students will conduct research and discussion on different styles of leadership while engaging with veterans who have successfully made the transition from leading in the military to being organizational leaders in the business world. They will do extensive reading about business leaders to examine successes, failures, and do a deep dive into examining their own leadership style; incorporating self-assessment data and develop an individualized personal development plan to carry them through their transition and into the next phase of their careers. The fundamental purpose of the course is to assist each veteran student in determining the path on how to become the business leader they aspire to be as.

Elective Leadership Courses

Coaching & Team Performance

This course is designed to enhance the understanding of how to be a more effective team member and peer leader; enhance the understanding of the characteristics of a high performing MBA team and how to identify dysfunctions of a team; provide emphasis on how to give and receive feedback; learn how to assess the performance of a team; and learn how to use feedback by being coached by a 2nd Year MBA Leadership Coaching Fellow on your team and the individual performance on your MBA team.

Leading & Managing Change

This course will address the forces that drive organizations to change; examines impediments to organizational change as well as those strategies for making organizational change more effective. The emphasis will be on planning, managing, evaluating, and surviving organizational change, with application to emerging business issues, including: knowledge management, "learning organizations," network management and organizational implications of new technologies and the internet.

Leadership Development Fellows

This elective course enhances leadership and coaching abilities in second-year, Full-Time, and one-year MBA students. The course aims to develop essential leadership skills through a structured program integrating coaching, team leadership, facilitative leadership, and strategic leadership principles. Students will engage in practical exercises such as coaching individuals and teams, conducting team observations, and taking leadership assessments. Students will receive individualized executive coaching, too.

The course encourages reflection on personal leadership growth while equipping students with the tools to inspire others, influence decision-making, and drive positive organizational impact. By participating in this course, students will deepen their understanding of and improve their leadership skills. This course is invaluable for students seeking to advance their careers by developing leadership styles that influence, empower, and engage others, driving long-term success in dynamic business settings.

Leadership Capstone

This course serves as the capstone component for the 'Certificate of Advanced Leadership' and is open to students who seek a deeper dive on the topic of leadership. Students will conduct field research; engage with current executive organizational leaders in various settings regarding their leadership challenges and lessons learned; do extensive reading about leaders and leadership, past and present; analyze the principal themes from their self-assessment data, and develop an individualized professional development plan to carry them into the next phase of their careers.