Elevate your organization's leadership game with Kelley's Applied Leadership certificate
The Kelley Applied Leadership certificate is tailor-made for mid- to upper-level managers, blending Kelley School of Business expertise with hands-on application to help your leaders tackle real-world challenges, inspire their teams, and drive meaningful results.
From insight to influence: Certificate in Applied Leadership
The immersive program features four in-person modules spread over three months, creating a perfect balance of learning, application, and feedback. Participants will gain actionable strategies, personalized coaching, and the tools to lead with confidence, collaboration, and impact in today's dynamic business environment.
Discounts available for IU alumni.
The program fee includes:
All sessions and materials
Individual coaching with faculty
Onsite parking in the Kelley School of Business parking garage
Certificate of completion
Access to Community Engagement Platform
Continental breakfasts, lunches, coffee/snack breaks, and off-site graduation meal
Upcoming dates and certificate overview
2025 session: Module 1: April 22, 23 Module 2: May 13, 14 Module 3: June 3, 4 Module 4: June 24, 25
Price: 1–2 participants: $8,500/participant 3–6 participants: $7,500/participant (Lodging, travel, and some meals not included)
In addition to earning a professional certificate upon completion of this program, you will also earn a digital badge to showcase your skills on platforms like LinkedIn. These credentials show your network the concrete and in-demand skills you earned from taking this Kelley program.
“The content is very practical and can be directly applied to my team.”
Course participant
Format
In-residence program delivered in four modules on the Bloomington, Indiana, campus. Each module is two days in length and takes place over a three-month period. Participants receive coaching from faculty on their individual leadership development plans and are challenged between modules to apply the learning to their own leadership and organizational contexts.
April 22
Building Trust: The Leadership Imperative, Brenda Bailey-Hughes
This introductory session sets the stage for our eight-part leadership development journey by introducing trust as the foundation of effective leadership. Participants will learn ways to build credibility in new and long-term professional relationships. We'll also explore ways in which leadership development initiatives often fall short and co-create interventions to ensure a meaningful and lasting experience in this program, including how to use AI to enhance leadership development. Through reflective exercises, discussions, and concrete actionable planning, participants will build a strong start toward becoming effective leaders who inspire and engage others.
Learning outcomes:
Identify behaviors that enhance executive presence and credibility.
Design personalized strategies to maximize the program's impact on individual growth and unique organizational needs.
Apply AI tools to enhance coaching conversations.
April 23
Values-Driven Leadership, Natasha Hansen
Organizations require more from leaders than ever before, including the ability to lead yourself as you lead your team. Skillful self-leadership is built on a strong foundation of self-understanding. Effective leaders act with intention. Making intentional choices requires first understanding the factors that influence your behavior, including the values you would ideally like to use to guide and motivate each decision, shaping you into the kind of leader you envision yourself becoming. Participants in this workshop will learn to use values as a compass to guide the decisions they make as leaders and as individuals and then will develop the skills necessary to identify and overcome barriers to achieving their values-driven leadership goals.
Learning outcomes:
Explain the role of values in the context of organizational leadership.
Identify the core values that guide their behavior as an individual and as a leader.
Translate their core values into concrete and effective values-driven leadership goals.
May 13
Empowering Change: Practical Approaches for Leaders, Sheri Walter
In today's dynamic business context, the ability to execute timely change differentiates successful leaders. Whether the change your team faces involves markets and customers, business processes, technology, or organizational culture, this session is focused on how organizations change and how to become an effective change leader. We will use authentic case studies to understand the forces for and against change and to introduce a set of frameworks useful to the execution of successful change initiatives.
In this session, participants will dive into real case studies to understand the challenge of change, diagnose obstacles and resistance, and together explore a range of approaches for making more expedient and lasting organizational change. The ultimate goal is to apply the learning to your specific organization and context, so participants will be asked to consider an individual change initiative drawn from their own current position.
Learning outcomes:
Understand best practices in formulating and leading change initiatives.
Frame and communicate a change mission.
Devise effective strategies and tactics for gaining commitment and buy-in.
Diagnose and manage predictable resistance.
Generate a plan for transferring lessons to your own change context.
May 14
Managing Conflict and Fostering Collaboration in Intergenerational Teams, Carolyn Goerner
The ability to manage conflict and foster collaboration within teams, across an organization, and with external stakeholders is a necessary skill set for effective leadership. All leaders spend time negotiating, and successful conflict management or negotiation requires preparation, practice, and confidence. In this interactive session, participants will learn to manage conflict like a pro with proven efficient and effective tactics not only to manage the conflict, but also to enhance collaborative relationships in the workplace.
Learning outcomes:
Learn to build productive working relationships and mutually beneficial working agreements within and across organizational boundaries.
Influence the activities and outputs of others without resorting to authority or mandate.
Productively manage differences and agreements in the workplace.
Define conflict management and communication styles, and assess the effects of those styles on achieving productive outcomes.
Employ multiple tools, including creative problem-solving techniques, to advance the negotiating process and promote better outcomes.
June 3 and 4
Building and Leading High-Performing Teams, Ray Luther
Whether you're looking to achieve more efficient task completion, collaboration, or satisfying team interactions, it is possible to achieve these goals and lead your team to success. Your ability to build, guide, and motivate teams helps define you as a leader in your organization. With the right mix of proven strategies and skills, you can increase your own leadership effectiveness while leveraging the potential of others to work together to meet organizational goals.
This session takes the mystery out of effective teamwork and team leadership by identifying skills and strategies used to motivate team members to optimal performance in pursuit of organizational goals.
Learning outcomes:
Build teams that are aligned with organizational goals and objectives.
Maximize team meeting effectiveness.
Apply best practices for team decision making and conflict management.
Establish a culture that supports team commitment and productivity.
Avoid common traps and myths of teamwork.
Increase your effectiveness as a team leader.
June 24
Leading with Emotional and Cultural Intelligence, Charlotte Westerhaus-Renfrow
Emotional intelligence is the ability to understand and manage emotions—both your own and those of others. Without it, workplace conflicts and misunderstandings arise. Leaders must also navigate intercultural dynamics, recognizing how cultural norms shape behaviors, from time management to communication styles. This workshop explores why employees may perceive authority, feedback, or personal space differently and how leaders can build stronger, more effective relationships.
Using evidence-based insights, best practices, and practical tools, this workshop equips you to bridge cultural gaps, make merit-based decisions, and drive excellence and innovation in leadership.
June 25
Leader as Effective Communicator, Trent Deckard
Participants will enhance their ability to communicate with influence, connection, and authenticity while designing audience-centered messages. Participants will learn to organize their thoughts and communicate with clarity, incorporate nonverbal cues and verbal cues to communicate effectively, communicate with inspiration and influence, and confidently respond to audience questions.
Learning outcomes:
Organize ideas clearly and directly using the Minto Pyramid Principle.
Create audience-centered presentations.
Craft visually appealing slides and materials.
Recognize the key components of strong delivery including nonverbal communication.
Identify stakeholders and develop strategies for managing them.
Key outcomes
Identify your core values, translate them into effective values-driven leadership goals, and learn to apply science-based strategies for overcoming the barriers to achieving these goals.
Demonstrate the key components of emotional intelligence in leadership practices.
Build effective teams that are aligned with organizational goals and objectives.
Gain a comprehensive understanding of how the quality of a leader's conduct affects employees' self-confidence, quality of effort, achievement, motivation, and job performance.
Develop specific strategies to increase your leadership competencies.
Build mutually beneficial working agreements by influencing without resorting to authority or mandate.
Frame and communicate a change mission and use best practices in leading change.
Design personalized strategies to maximize the program's impact on your individual growth and your organizational needs.
Program benefits
A learning environment conducive to experimentation with new leadership concepts, skills, and tools.
A balanced exposure to the full range of topics and skill-building exercises needed to prepare participants for leadership.
Opportunities to exchange ideas and learn best practices from fellow participants.
Earn a three-credit waiver toward a Kelley online graduate certificate or degree. Upon successful completion of the program and an assurance of learning assessment, participants have the option to earn a three-credit waiver toward a Kelley Executive Education Programs graduate certificate or degree.
Meet your instructor
Brenda Bailey-Hughes
Brenda Bailey-Hughes is a LinkedIn Learning instructor where her courses have over 6 million viewers. She is the host of Learn Plus+, a monthly live show focused on leadership and communication with special tips for learning and development professionals. She specializes in communication training and has coached many executives from Fortune 500 companies. Prior to her recent retirement from traditional academia, Brenda was an award-winning teaching professor with the Kelley School of Business. For more than 20 years, she taught in the Undergraduate and MBA programs and in the Kelley–Sungkyunkwan Global School of Business Executive MBA program in Seoul, South Korea. She continues to be a frequent faculty partner with Kelley Executive Education Programs.
Dr. Carolyn Goerner
Dr. Carolyn Goerner is a clinical professor in the Department of Management and Entrepreneurship in the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University Bloomington. She also serves as the faculty director of Kelley Executive Education Programs and is the John D. Long Distinguished Fellow for KEEP Leadership. She joined the Kelley faculty in 2000 after receiving her PhD in Management and Human Resources at The Ohio State University. Carolyn was a human resource management consultant for 10 years prior to graduate school.
Carolyn designed the new Leading Diverse and Inclusive Organizations co-major within the Kelley School of Business Undergraduate Program. She created the Strategic Human Resources course within the co-major focused on organizational-level practices that enhance Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB). In addition to Influence and Negotiation courses, Carolyn teaches Inclusive Leadership and Leadership, Teams, and Inclusion in the Kelley Direct MBA Program. Carolyn co-founded the Kelley Women’s Initiative and serves on the Kelley School of Business DEIB Task Force.
Carolyn is passionate about live theatre, IU Football, IU Women’s Basketball, Indy Car Racing, and the Green Bay Packers. She lives in Greenwood, Indiana, with her husband Peter and their dogs, Charlotte and Etta.
Sheri Walter
Dr. Sheryl (Sheri) Walter is a clinical assistant professor in the Department of Management and Entrepreneurship in the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University Bloomington. She joined the Kelley faculty in 2017 after receiving her PhD in Organizational Behavior at the University of Iowa. Her undergraduate degree is in mechanical engineering. Sheri worked in technical sales and sales management for 15 years prior to graduate school. She has won numerous teaching and service awards during her time at Kelley and IU, including the Trustees’ Teaching Award, the Panschar Undergraduate Teaching Award, the Innovative Teaching Award, and the Inclusive Excellence Award.
Sheri co-designed the Leading Diverse and Inclusive Organizations co-major within the Kelley School of Business Undergraduate Program. She teaches in multiple programs within Kelley including the Undergraduate Program, the Physician’s MBA Program, and the Kelley Direct Program. Her teaching focuses primarily on leadership and change management. Her research on work identification, extra-role behavior, and counterproductive work behaviors has been published in leading academic journals.
Natasha Hansen
Natasha Hansen, PhD, HSPP, is a licensed psychologist and a clinical assistant professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at IU Bloomington, a top 10, APA-accredited clinical psychology PhD program. She also serves as the co-director for the—first of its kind in the country—Bachelor of Science in Clinical Psychological Science Program.
She is an award-winning teacher, experienced clinician and trainer, and a published author of numerous scientific papers and book chapters. From veterans severely impacted by PTSD to high-performing varsity athletes and surgeons, Natasha has worked with a wide range of clients throughout her career. For 17 years, she has specialized in training that uses practical strategies to help her clients clarify their core values, enhance a sense of purpose, overcome internal barriers, improve emotion regulation, and optimize performance.
Natasha trained at Harvard Medical School and Stanford University, and she earned a dual PhD in Clinical Psychology and Behavioral Neuroscience from the University of Colorado Boulder, also a top 10, APA-accredited clinical psychology PhD program. Her expertise is highly sought after as she has presented at numerous national and international research conferences.
Trent Deckard
Trent Deckard is a lecturer at Indiana University's Kelley School of Business and is a recipient of the Trustees’ Teaching Award and the Mumford Excellence in Extraordinary Teaching Award. He teaches business communication classes to undergraduate students and participants of the Kelley Executive Education Programs and MS in Information Systems. In the spring, Trent also teaches a class on leadership lessons taken from the comic book industry.
Beyond his work at the Kelley School, Trent is also a doctoral student at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College and was selected to be a member of the 182-year-old institution's inaugural cohort of the PhD in Global Leadership program with a focus on organizational change and behavior. His research interests are global business and leadership storytelling as well as imposter syndrome within organizations. After working in his family’s small business, he received his BS in Political Science and Criminology from Ball State University and his MA in Applied Communication from IU. A former communication lecturer on the IU Indianapolis campus, Trent also worked as a district director for a member of Congress, led an agency at the State of Indiana, served as chief of staff for a legislative caucus in the Indiana House of Representatives, and currently serves as an at-large member and president pro-tempore of his community’s county council. His private sector experience includes time in leadership with the Kroger Corporation and his families’ franchise for Pepperidge Farms.
Ray Luther
Ray Luther, PCC, is the executive director of the Partnership for Coaching Excellence and Personal Leadership at the Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. Previously, he was the executive director of the Full-Time MBA Program at Kelley. Ray is also the co-director of the Kelley Consumer Marketing Academy, and is a founder and co-director of the Kelley MBA Leadership Academy.
Ray’s work experience spans a 20+ year career with executive team leadership, strategy, branding, market research, innovation, change management, and operations. Prior to his time at Kelley, Ray worked at Procter & Gamble as a director in the Health Care Business Unit across the pharmaceutical and OTC medicine categories. Ray served as a US Army Officer in the 3rd Infantry Division where he was in line roles as a platoon leader and company executive officer in the Medical Service Corps.
Ray was a lead designer and founding member of the Kelley MBA Me, Inc. career management course and has personally coached hundreds of students while at Kelley. He coaches MBA students on the practice of leadership, strategic visioning, and coaching others for high performance. Ray teaches leadership coaching through Executive Education Programs to a number of corporate clients. He has also developed and taught leadership courses along with leadership coaching to a number of corporate clients, including Cummins, OneAmerica, and the NFL Players Association, among others.
Ray holds a BS and MBA from Indiana University, was a distinguished military graduate, and is also a certified Hudson Institute coach.
Charlotte Westerhaus-Renfrow
Charlotte Westerhaus-Renfrow, MEd, JD, is an assistant clinical professor in the Department of Management and Business Law, a Dean's Faculty Fellow, and the faculty chair of the Undergraduate Program at the Kelley School of Business Indianapolis where she teaches business law, negotiations, team dynamics, leadership, diversity in organizations, and cultural intelligence.
Charlotte is an Indiana University Bicentennial Professor, a title earned by only 24 other faculty in the Indiana University system. In addition, Charlotte was a co-recipient of the Charles R. Bantz Chancellor’s Community Scholar Award and is the recipient of the Evening MBA Teaching Excellence Award, Shuyler F. Otteson Teaching Award, IUPUI Athletics Favorite Professor Award (two times), and the Indiana Bicentennial Medal for the extraordinary service and impact she had at Indiana University and its community.
Charlotte has dedicated much of her career speaking and providing meaningful counsel to businesses, non-for-profits, and educational institutions on how to create innovative and inclusive cultures. Charlotte has her JD from the Maurer School of Law in Bloomington and earned her BS in Journalism and MEd from Ohio University.
Questions? We're here to help.
Email us at kelleypd@iu.edu with any questions you may have, and a member of our team will be happy to assist you.
