Courses, Lessons, and Workshops

Leader Development Course 

LDC is a CSAF initiative that connects to a broader continuum of learning and closes gaps discovered during the squadron vitality study to prepare officers, civilian and enlisted leaders to thrive in command. LDC offers a fast-paced, experiential 8-day seminar-based course instructed by graduated squadron commands partnered civilian academic experts. 

Innovator Development Course

There are many approaches and tools to innovation across the Air Force Enterprise. The new Innovator Development Course (IDC) exists to provide exposure to the entire spectrum of knowledge and opportunities of the innovation ecosystem so that participants are equipped to determine the most relevant components for their respective organizations. 

Leadership Coaching Program

Coaching is a shared process geared towards unlocking individual’s potential. Coaches act as guides aiding others to discover, clarify and align what individuals wants to achieve by fostering self-discovery and personally generated ideas/plans for deliberate development. Taught by credentialed professional coaches, this four-part program includes Introduction to Performance Management, Coaching Foundations, Advanced Leadership Coaching, and Coaching Groups/Teams.

Empathy 

Empathy has been called fundamental to meaningful human interactions. In a professional setting, empathy behaviors are related to improved feelings of belonging, engagement, care about work, and motivation. This course takes empathy to be the ability to understand the varied experiences of others, accomplished by emotional perspective-taking, to make decisions grounded in care and respect. In this two-day, virtual workshop, students will be introduced to the concept of empathy, the role it plays in the workplace, and help them identify and develop their competency in empathy.
 

Ethical Decision Making 

Ethics is central to individual and organizational success. Ethics is about action: that is, knowing what you believe in and developing your ability to act towards those beliefs when the situation arises. In this four-hour workshop Airmen will learn to become inspired to work towards their ethical development by discussing what ethical behavior means to them and practice thinking critically about everyday ethical dilemmas they may face. In doing so, students will explore differences between morals and ethics, identify moral sources in the context of the Air Force, and apply three broad ethical frameworks so that they can become more effective ethical leaders.

5 Gears

5 Gears - How to Be Present and Productive When There Is Never Enough Time teaches you to shift into the right gear at the right time so that you can grow in your relational intelligence and increase your influence. This revolutionary text introduces you to the five different gears, or mindsets, that carry you through various facets of your day. 

5 Voices

5 Voices - The code for unlocking your capacity to have honest conversations and build deeper, more authentic relationships with your teams, your families and your friends. In order to lead others effectively, we need a true understanding of ourselves, our natural tendencies and patterns of behavior. In learning what your leadership voice sounds like to others, you will discover what it feels like to be on the other side of your personality, as well as how to hear and value others' voices, namely the Pioneer, the Connector, the Creative, the Guardian, and the Nurturer. Once you understand your own leadership voice, you'll discover how best to communicate with each of the other voices, which will transform your communication at every level of relationship, both personal and professional. In mastering the 5 Voices of leadership, you will increase your emotional intelligence, allowing you to gain a competitive advantage as a leader. You will also be equipped with a simple, easy to remember vocabulary that, when shared, has a track record for decreasing the drama, misunderstanding and miscommunication in all spheres of influence.

Emotional Intelligence

Emotional Intelligence - Increasing awareness of and facility with Emotional Intelligence sets the stage for a better understanding of individual follower responses and reactions and for fine-tuning leadership approaches to the challenges of leading an educated, professional force in the situations leaders face today. For leaders, familiarity with Emotional Intelligence can improve the leader-follower relationship, increase understanding of what produces results in followers, and help address interpersonal issues in all aspects of personal and professional life. In this lecture, the four domains of self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management are discussed, along with practical strategies to activate these domains.

Design Thinking (Innovation)

Design thinking is a method for creative problem solving. It consists of a human-centered approach to innovation with steps focusing on empathizing, defining, ideating, prototyping and testing. Stanford d.School trained facilitators will give a brief overview of the process then help walk your group through a Design Thinking challenge. It’s a fast-paced, creative workshop designed to get your creative juices flowing. 

Personality

Personality assessment has proven vitally important for leaders in understanding their own strengths, weaknesses, and blind spots. Leadership Development research has shown personality assessments help leaders grow, become more aware of self and others, and ultimately provides you with a vocabulary for understanding and valuing individual differences. With practical insight that’s easy to understand and implement, personality assessment has helped thousands of organizations and millions of people around the world improve how they communicate, learn, and work.

Resiliency & Suicide Pre/Postvention

LII offers lessons on 1) Resiliency, 2) Suicide Intervention, and 3) Suicide Postvention. All three are designed to better equip Airmen with the skills to prevent tragedies from occurring while providing them the tools to handle them when they occur. 

The Resiliency lesson offers practical ways to grow resilience in followers when they experience success in their daily activities and when they don’t. Resilience, or core life skills, is demonstrated to boost morale, deter suicidal thinking, and help people develop stronger mechanisms to handle grief and loss, build life hope, and inspire others.

The Suicide Intervention lesson addresses how leaders should respond when a unit member or unit member’s family member indicates suicidality and provides essential information about the nature of suicide, the suicidal mind, factors that put people at risk, and effective ways to respond if prevention efforts fail.

The Suicide Postvention lesson helps commanders heal the unit after a suicide completion occurs. In doing so, students are provided with an understanding of the unusual grief process that can follow a suicide completion, a leader’s own emotional reactions to suicide, and how to get members back to mission-ready status.