Make decisions with conviction
Work through executive scenarios involving competing priorities, risk, and incomplete information. Practice stating what you know, why you chose a direction, and what would cause you to reconsider.
See where execution breaks down
Examine the distance between what leaders announce and what teams actually do. Learn to distinguish an unclear expectation, a lack of resources, and a missed commitment so you can respond to the right problem.
Transform your leadership today
Use the discovery call to identify a priority. Bring a current challenge to two leadership consultations, and use the community board to ask questions as you put the lessons into practice.
About the Pathway
You approve a new strategy. Your managers agree with the direction. A month later, teams are still measured against the old priorities, and routine decisions keep coming back to you. Another announcement might not help. The more useful questions are: What have I actually delegated? What are we still rewarding? What do people need from me to move forward? The Executive Leadership Pathway is designed for experienced leaders whose decisions shape priorities, people, and culture beyond their immediate team. Across five courses, you examine how your own habits affect what people tell you, how managers handle responsibility, and whether a strategic decision changes daily work. Through executive scenarios, leadership assessments, reflections, and workplace challenges, you apply those questions to situations you know. You might examine a recurring escalation, prepare for a conversation about performance, or identify an old incentive that works against a new strategy. The aim is to leave each exercise with a decision to make, a conversation to have, or a behavior to change.
John “Trey” Kailunas III, MS (Doctoral Candidate)
In sales leadership and coaching, I’ve learned to pay attention to what happens after a leader gives direction. Can someone make the next decision on their own? Will they bring bad news forward while there is still time to act? What do they see the leader do when a commitment is missed? I founded the American Institute of Leadership on the belief that Leadership is for Everyone. My graduate work in management, strategy, and leadership at Michigan State University helped shape this pathway. I designed it to give experienced leaders room to examine their own decisions and the conditions they create for others to lead.
Explore the Curriculum
1. Foundations of Personal Leadership Examine how your values, habits, and responses under pressure shape what others can count on you to do. 2. Communication and Relationships Practice listening for concerns that are easy to miss, setting clear expectations, and handling difficult conversations while preserving trust. 3. Team Leadership Build a team that can make sound decisions without bringing every issue back to you. Explore how culture, encouragement, and delegation shape performance. 4. Organizational Leadership Connect mission and vision to the work people do each day. Learn to set priorities, guide change, and recognize when a strategy needs adjustment. 5. Leadership That Last Explore how service, ethical judgment, and mentorship shape your legacy. Consider what the people you develop will be ready to do when you are no longer in the room.
What Your Enrollment Includes
Five courses you can apply at work Thirty lessons combine readings with executive scenarios, reflection, and practical application. Use a current responsibility as your point of reference so the work stays connected to decisions you actually face. A discovery call and four leadership consultations The discovery call gives you space to name the leadership issue that matters most to you. The four consultations give you dedicated time to examine that issue in context, consider your options, and revisit what happens when you act. A community board for leadership questions Bring forward questions as you work through the pathway. A question such as “What should my managers be able to decide without escalating to me?” gives you a concrete starting point for discussion and practice. Bring one leadership decision into focus. Choose a challenge that keeps returning to your desk: a decision you need to delegate, a change that has stalled, or an expectation your team interprets differently. Use the pathway and consultations to examine your part in it, choose your next action, and decide what evidence will tell you whether it helped.
Executive Leadership Pathway
Enroll today to sharpen your judgment, build trust across teams, and turn strategic priorities into decisions people can act on.