Leadership Consulting Programs

Your organization might be considering creating an in-house leadership development program, or you may already have one. Sometimes these programs can make sense for large corporations willing to make the investment. While this can be a successful approach, we have found two key issues with in-house developed programs, including:

The high-cost of hiring full-time staff to develop and deliver the programs; and,
The level of effectiveness of the programs themselves.

An in-house program requires hiring full-time staff. While this may indeed be the right approach for many corporations, the Minnesota Leadership Institute offers a cost-effective alternative by developing and delivering tailored programs only when you need them. Once the programs are developed, the only costs moving forward are for delivering the programs and completing periodic updates. The bottom-line is that the overhead to the corporation is lower.

Also, researchers have found that in-house corporate leadership programs are not always developed in alignment with overall corporate strategic objectives (Coheno, 2004). Our programs are designed to be customize for your organization's needs using the best practices available in the marketplace.

Even if you decide that an in-house program is right for you, the Minnesota Leadership Institute can help. Whether you are developing a new program or hope to get more out of the program you already have, our consulting services can provide the expertise to help your internal team develop programs that work for you.

Comparing leadership Programs

Compare cost, time and usability

Choosing a Program

The best leadership skills are those you can apply now

Excellence in Leadership and Strategic Project Management

First, some background. We define coaching as a process that can help professionals view their objectives in a new light, helping them set their own direction. Mentoring, on the other hand, is a process of drawing upon the professional experience of others to guide professionals in their work.

There are many qualified coaches and mentors available today who can help individual leaders improve their performance. And, in fact, part of our programs at the Minnesota Leadership Institute involve coaching and mentoring. But that is just a small part of what we do. Our focus is on providing our members with tailored leadership programs to meet their specific needs.

Know Your Alternatives

Coaching & Mentoring Programs

University Leadership Programs

We all know there are many leadership program options available for you in the marketplace. At the Minnesota Leadership Institute, we have evaluated those options and have designed our programs to fill the gaps that we have found. We hope our programs are right for you, but we recognize that your decision will be made based on a comparison to other programs available. Our analysis below is created to help you make that decision We compared Minnesota Leadership Institute programs to:

University programs;
In-house programs;
Consulting programs; and,
Coaching & Mentoring programs.

Corporate In-house Leadership Programs

developing leadership skills

We started the Minnesota Leadership Institute because we saw first-hand the leadership issues faced by organizations, and we saw the gaps left open by traditional programs intended to address leadership issues. In response, wanted to create an organization that:

Provides more directly usable skills to leaders within a shorter timeframe than university programs;
Delivers a more results-focused model at a lower cost than traditional in-house leadership programs;
Elevates the organizations' leadership performance in a more sustainable way than outside consulting firms; and,
Helps individuals gain a broader base of best-practice skills than executive coaching and mentoring programs.

Delivering results to fill gaps in traditional leadership programs

At the Minnesota Leadership Institute we offer programs that cost less, consume less of your time, and are specifically tailored to have a positive impact on your organization or circumstances..

If you seek the academic accomplishments that university programs provide, we encourage you to pursue that path. In fact, we can help you choose a university program that is right for you. But, even if you do you'll still find value in the Minnesota Leadership Institute because we offer leadership skills you can use now, not just years from now.

Leadership will always be an important topic but it is particularly popular today with a wide-array of consulting firms, both large and small, who offer a variety of leadership-related services. There certainly are many consulting firms who can provide effective solutions to meet specific needs within your organization.

As you look through our programs, you will find some similarities to services offered by leadership and strategy consulting firms, such as our Organizational Assessment program. The key distinction is that our focus is on providing leadership education programs tailored to your organization.

Using our Organizational Assessment program as an example, a consulting firm might conduct a similar assessment with the objective of identifying problems in your organization. In contrast, the goal of our Organizational Assessment program is to use the findings to develop leadership programs that meet your specific needs. Basically, the distinction is that we are not directly solving your organization's problems for you; we are helping your leaders to better lead your organization.

Dr. William P. Bengtson

President and Leadership Consultant

Minnesota Leadership Institute

There is no question that there are many outstanding university-based leadership programs available. In fact, our President has completed university programs at both the Master's and Doctorate candidate level, and is glad he did. But, there are three key issues with university programs including cost, time and content. Specifically, university programs:

Take years of hard work to complete;
Can cost tens of thousands of dollars; and,
Contain a great deal of content that, while often useful, is not directly applicable to your specific organization.

Minnesota Leadership Institute

Minnesota Leadership Institute President, Dr. Bengtson, shown here conducting a case study on the impact of leadership vision at the Crazy Horse Memorial in Rapid City, South Dakota, 2009.