Leadership at Gettysburg

Challenge

If you could design a week-long leadership development program that used the Civil War battle at Gettysburg as your backdrop, what would it look like? That was the challenge presented by the Administrative Office of the United States Courts. They wanted to place leadership in historical perspective, allowing senior leaders to view leadership in a strategic context.

Context

Working with our partner, the George Washington University Center for Excellence in Public Leadership, and a number of leading historians, we developed a learning experience the included an offsite residency at Gettysburg, tours of the battlefield, and interactive leadership simulations.

The program was called “Studying the Past to Illuminate the Future: Three Days at the Epicenter of Leadership.” The program was so successful that it was later extended to include other AOS staff and it was held at Lincoln’s Cottage in the District.

Results

Through our work with this client, we demonstrated a number of our core business capabilities. The engagement included: (1) in-depth interviews with leaders of the agency’s training department; (2) strategic planning sessions to identify and to map workforce needs and learning objectives; (3) development of an instructional design plan; (4) creation of learning materials, including course materials and participant workbooks; (5) delivery of course material to senior leaders of the organization.