The Florida Leadership Academy
The Florida Leadership Academy was developed in 2004 to provide Warrington's best sophomores with a series of professional development career and leadership programs opportunities and guest speakers as an added component of the business curriculum. The mission of the Florida Leadership Academy is to develop undergraduate students for leadership positions in society's most important institutions; education, corporate, not-for-profit, and governmental. Selection for the academy is highly competitive, with 100 slots available each year to students who have completed Warrington Welcome.
The Foundation and Three Pillars of Leadership Excellence
Principled Leadership is the foundation of the academy's pillars. Supporting this foundation are the following pillars of leadership excellence:
- Communication, Negotiation, and Mediation
- Ethical Decision Making
- Civic Engagement and Global Citizenship
Program Overview
The Florida Leadership Academy's program is organized in four modules. Exposure to topics in each module gradually lays the theoretical foundation for the academy member's participation in the next module's training.
The first module is Leadership. The academy reinforces the three pillars of leadership excellence through the study of writings and actions of leaders, scholarly presentations by leadership researchers, and historical and cross-cultural analyses of leadership. Through these and other activities, academy members further develop their ability to think critically, make decisions, communicate effectively, understand organizational dynamics, and resolve conflicts.
The Ethics module is unique in its approach in that we address ethics from the perspective of leadership studies. Academy members study ethics through a series of readings, guest speakers, lectures, interaction with peers, and service learning in the community.
Career Development is a lifelong process of knowledge and skills acquisition reflecting a continuum of learning and mastery. The career development module is focused on providing our members a holistic understanding of the past and current workplace, as well as increasing their awareness, development, and use of career-related skills.
Professional Communication is the final component of the four modules. In this module, we apply the theory of the first three modules through effective communication.
