ELTC is a new program for senior leaders who have established institutional influence and are ready to leverage it in new and more transformative ways. While most leadership programs develop the person, ELTC develops the capacity to transform institutions, organizations and industries. It is built for leaders who are seeking personal growth, creating frameworks to redesign systems, shaping enterprise strategy and leading change that endures.

ELAM and ELH develop individual leaders and focus on how individuals lead and advance within an institution. ELTC develops the capacity of the system that leader operates within and focuses on how institutions can be more adaptive, innovative and future-ready. ELTC is an additional leadership tier. ELAM and ELH alumni are well positioned to benefit from this experience. The programs are complementary and are not redundant. The Allyship Track at ELAM has been incorporated into the ELTC program.

ELTC is designed for leaders who are already operating at scale, who hold positional authority and are inspired to drive organizational and cultural change across their institutions, including but not limited to dean, vice dean, executive vice dean, provost, CEO, CMO and COO (c-suite level roles). The right candidate has moved beyond the question of how to advance within their institution and is ready to ask how to transform it. We strongly encourage ELUMs in high-level leadership roles to apply.

ELTC is organized around six competency domains, each grounded in the program's framework designed to build practical capacity for institutional transformation:

Allyship and Inclusive Leadership: How to leverage positional authority to foster an environment that values identity and its impact as a contributing factor to organizational decision-making and problem-solving.

Systems Thinking: How to develop a systems leadership mindset that enables navigation of complexity, cross-functional collaboration and downstream impact.

Crisis Management: How to differentiate adaptive challenges from technical problems, calibrate urgency and response, and lead through disruption without destabilizing the system.

Organizational Dynamics: How to analyze formal and informal power structures, assess change-readiness and create conditions that move people from individualism to collective purpose.

Resource Mobilization: How to build the human, financial and political coalitions required to move a change initiative from diagnosis to durable implementation.

Digital and AI Literacy: How to evaluate emerging digital tools and AI systems for their implications for leadership practice, data-driven decision-making and organizational inclusive excellence.

ELTC is delivered across three multi-day in-person convenings in Philadelphia, with work continuing between sessions through Learning Communities (LCs) and the Transformational Action Project (TAP). The TAP is an applied institutional project that each fellow develops and refines across the full program year, culminating in a capstone presentation to peers and distinguished faculty at the final convening.
Convening 1 — Self and Systems (Fall 2027): Foundations in systems thinking and inclusive leadership; diagnosing organizational structures and dynamics.
Convening 2 — Power and Disruption (Winter 2028): Strategic disruption, crisis management and organizational dynamics under pressure.
Convening 3 — Action and Outcomes (Spring 2028): Digital and AI literacy; sustaining change through resource mobilization; TAP capstone presentations.

ELTC draws on three complementary frameworks:

1. Adaptive Leadership Theory (Heifetz, Grashow and Linsky) explains why change is harder than it looks.
2. Transformational Leadership Theory (Burns; Bass and Avolio) defines the leader behaviors that move people from self-interest to collective purpose through the four I's: idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration.
3. Kotter's change management infrastructure names the organizational conditions and eight-step model through which transformation takes hold, including the dual operating system that allows institutions to execute today while redesigning for tomorrow.