Earlier this month I attended a 1-credit course that was a collaboration between the University of San Diego Leadership Studies Department and the Center for Creative Leadership (one of the locations is here in San Diego). The class focused on “Assessment, Challenge, and Support”. As someone who has been exposed to many leadership training programs and someone who can sometimes can frustrated with “business models” of leadership, I was a tad critical going into the experience-but energized when I left! The two most valuable experiences woven into this two-day intensive course were the 360 Degree Feedback Assessment and the coaching activities. The 360 degree tool we used was Benchmarks and it was neat to see how superiors, bosses, direct reports, and peers view you and interesting trends across the groups. What accompanied this assessment was a book called FYI-For your Improvement that identified different competencies associated with the instrument that are areas one can work on. It provides more information about each competency and ways in which someone can work on developing the competency. The coaching activity brought me back to my counseling practicum days of grad school- in a very good way but with a twist on really focusing on my behaviors. One of my classmates served as a coachee for a case that I developed about a past supervisee, and we played out a possible coaching session. The video taping aspect of this was fantastic as well as getting feedback on how to better approach the situation. Overall, I am very impressed with the Center for Creative Leadership – I recommend checking it out 
– Paige Haber
