From Local Managers to Community Change Agents: Lessons from an Executive Leadership Program Experience

Since fall 2003, the Public Leadership faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) School of Government (SOG) has worked on the design and delivery of the Public Executive Leadership Academy (PELA), an advanced leadership program for local managers. PELA serves a diverse audience of twenty-five municipal and county managers, assistant managers, and department heads who aspire to leadership careers in local government and need to hone or develop their communication and collaboration skills. The program’s curriculum is unique in its focus on the manager’s role as community leader and change agent, and its emphasis on leading and managing in an intergovernmental and intersector context. Participants apply information and insights from class sessions to their “real world” change opportunity back home. To our knowledge, no other university-based public executive leadership program in the United States has this emphasis.