You want to forge ahead and make things happen, but transformational leaders know that pausing, reflecting, and sense-making are just as important as acting.
IMD’s Transformational Leader is a personalized transformation journey that teaches you how to unlock the full potential of your leadership in three stages: mindful, resilient, and adaptive. The program takes place over 12 weeks, which allows you to process, reflect on, and integrate your learning between sessions. Your coach accompanies you every step of the way.
The program takes a three-dimensional approach to transformation. You explore your personal and professional identities to understand your behaviors and reshape your future. You look at how you show up as a leader in different contexts, and discover levers and tools for self-transformation. You also understand the impact of your leadership context, and how you can exercise your agency and choices with confidence.
Your transformation journey continues beyond the program. You’ll have access to post-program coaching support – including individual and group sessions – along with practical tools to help you sustain your evolution as a leader. Explore the learning journey .
Lead in the moment
Free your leadership from limitations created by behavioral patterns, scripts, and routines, and become deeply self-aware of how you show up in each moment.
Lead in complex contexts
Exercise your leadership in the complex contexts shaped by your teams and your organization.
Transform your future
Build your adaptability and flexibility to successfully drive organizational change.
Challenge yourself in new ways
Tackle your biggest challenges through experiential and reflective exercises during the program’s face-to-face stage.
Practice continuous self-transformation
Discover and apply five essential practices that will enable you to continuously evolve over time.
This program is part of our broader portfolio ofleadership programs for executives, designed to strengthen how you lead people, teams, and yourself, and build the kind of leadership that makes organizations perform.
Programme Content
Stage 1 Mindful – Lead in the moment
LiVe virtual and self-reflection, 2 weeks
Every moment is unique. Becoming a more mindful leader means being aware and attentive in the moment so you can make smarter decisions and deliver highly impactful results. Until you become aware, your existing roles, scripts and routines can be like leadership prisons. They restrict your choices and limit your impact as a leader.
Discover how to build your “mindfulness muscle” and unlock powerful new approaches to your leadership potential.
Develop self-awareness, context awareness, and the dynamic between the two in your leadership practice.
Examine the complex balance of history, emotion, and reason that defines who you are and what you do.
Deeply explore your authority, personal boundaries, and role as foundations of your leadership.
Examine the roles, scripts, and routines that you rely on and consider effective alternatives.
Reflect on your purpose as a leader.
Stage 2 Resilient – Lead in complex contexts
On campus, 4 days
Your leadership context is shaped by your teams and organization, and is usually a complex collection of competing needs and goals. These collectives can make you feel anxious or excited, confused or focused, competitive or invisible, etc. How can you successfully exercise your leadership role in these complex contexts?
Understand the dynamics of groups, teams, and organizations and the challenges they pose for your leadership.
Make sense of the patterns and dynamics of groups or collectives to which you belong.
Learn when to intervene and when not to; when to hold the tension and when to release it.
Explore the resilience roles of activist, pragmatist, and container for leading in unpredictable, turbulent contexts.
Develop effective techniques to intervene through powerful dialogue and discussion.
Stage 3 Adaptive – Transform your future
LiVe virtual and self-reflection, 3 weeks
Discover how your organization can learn, adapt and change, and how you can learn and grow as a leader at the same time. Understand that transformation is bigger than your plan or purpose. It is about your identity as a leader and as an organization.
Understand why we get stuck in habits and routines that limit our adaptiveness.
Organize for adaptiveness: reorganize, re-energize, and engage people in new opportunities while being careful to preserve what needs to stay the same.
Embrace the elements of change: holding on, letting go, moving towards, and sitting with.
Discover the power of rewriting your narrative and take greater ownership of your leadership journey.
Experiment with different leadership tools and inspire others to transform through effective dialogue and action.
Post-program support (optional)
Self-reflection, LiVe virtual, 8 weeks
After the program, we will continue to offer you resources and support. Many participants have found these invaluable because, for everyone, change takes time.
Entirely optional, these resources include:
A further one-on-one session with your coach (1 hour)
A small group call with your coach (3 hours)
Videos and readings that provide practical tools for applying core concepts
Guidelines for specific activities and exercises to help build your “muscles” for change
A 30-minute individual call with the Program Director, following a short written reflection
Testimonials
"What makes this program in my view so unique is its deep focus on understanding oneself – and how this “self” interacts within our role and context. Surrounded by a powerful and trusting circle of other leaders, this experience might be a genuine catalyst for growth – not only as business leaders, but also well beyond."
Matthias Lange
VP Global FP&A, Mast-Jägermeister SE, Germany
"Transformational Leader wasn’t just a program – it was a mirror. It pushed me not to just absorb knowledge, but to"
Viktoriia Yashchenko
Former Director of Integrated Business Planning, MHP SE Group, Ukraine
"unlearn"
Ozan Çiçek
Managing Director, Knorr-Bremse CVS Türkiye and MENA, Turkey
"patterns, assumptions, and leadership reflexes that no longer serve. The cases and simulations went beyond business – they triggered deep inner reflection. The unexpected learning methods and safe, yet challenging environment brought me closer to self-awareness, my values, and how I show up for others. A truly mind-opening experience."
Giulia Van Waeyenberge
Executive Committee Member, Sofina, Belgium
"Transformational Leader was a game-changer for me as both a human and a leader. The program fostered an atmosphere of trust and learning, allowing me to further hone my skills in what I would call the ‘human’ side of leadership. I’m thrilled with the experience and grateful for the chance to grow personally and professionally."
"In Transformational Leader, I found an executive leadership program that helped me explore and unlock the different dimensions of my leadership potential. It really allows you to better understand your impact and to be in the moment. It was an extremely enriching experience."
Eric Benoist
Global Marketing and Commercial Director, Pernod Ricard, France
"Looking back and assessing the past to better understand where I am in my career today enabled me to imagine the way forward. The program transformed my apprehension into genuine curiosity and open-mindedness. I’m now in a position where I look at life with eyes wide open and a positive spirit."
