High-Potential Leadership Development Program

This program is specifically designed for leaders and those who aspire to be in a leadership role some day. If you hope to lead others in the future you will learn valuable tips and techniques to assist you in successfully transitioning to a leadership role. If you are currently leading people but feel as if the skills you have learned in your career did not adequately prepare you for the numerous challenges of leading others or if you would like to sharpen your skills, you will also benefit from this program.

The program tackles the trickiest “people” parts of leadership.  Each module is described below:

Module 1: Leading with Character and Confidence (July 27 & 28, 2023)  Are you fully leveraging your strengths as a leader? Leadership begins with self-awareness and emotional intelligence. Understand your strengths and talents while recognizing problematic behaviors that may hinder success as a leader.

Module 2: Thinking and Acting Like a Leader (October 12 & 13, 2023)  What does it mean to lead from a strategic perspective? Learn the elements of a leadership mindset and understand how to establish boundaries, delegate effectively, make strategic decisions, set priorities, and optimize time management.

Module 3: Intentional Communication (January 11 & 12, 2024) How comfortable are you with difficult conversations? Learn to effectively communicate, give powerful feedback, and build strong performance through timely and meaningful conversation.

Module 4: Building Trust and Connection (March 21 & 22, 2024) How confident are you at building buy-in and getting everyone on board? Leaders must influence others while managing increasing pressures including changing workforce dynamics, employee expectations, and an increasing number of mental health issues. Gain a better understanding and learn tools and strategies to productively address these and related issues.

Module 5: Building a Positive Culture (June 6 & 7, 2024)  What kind of culture do you want to create as a leader? Culture can make or break your success as a leader. Learn to build a culture that is infused throughout the employee lifecycle. Create a culture that generates results, supports your superstars and future leaders, and addresses poor performance and turnover.

This program is fully in person. It will take place on Southeastern Louisiana University's beautiful campus in Hammond. The campus offers the perfect space for classroom and breakout activities.

This Leadership Program is designed to be completed in one year.  It is divided into 5 easily-digestible modules. Participants will have an action plan at the end of each module to help them implement that module’s lessons.  The time between each module allows participants to practice skills and return to each consecutive module with new experiences, thoughts, and questions. As such, the value of the program and the richness of the participant’s experience grows with each subsequent module. Each module will require some pre-work and homework, but the bulk of the work required for each module will take place over two consecutive in-person workshop days.  Each workshop module will take place on a Thursday and a Friday.  
The course schedule is as follows, all workshops are 8:30am - 5:00pm: 

Module 1: Thursday August 3 and Friday August 4
Module 2: Thursday Oct 12 and Friday October 13
Module 3: Thursday Jan 11 and Friday Jan 12 
Module 4: Thursday March 21 and Friday March 22 
Module 5:  Thursday June 6 and Friday June 7 

The program will be led by Dr. Tonya Crombie.  Dr. Crombie began her career as a Human Resources consultant, first with several small boutique consulting firms and later with a large international consulting firm.  In these roles, Tonya consulted and served as an executive coach in various Fortune 500 companies.  Sample clients include IBM and Pepsico, among others.  

Dr. Crombie later accepted an in-house HR position with one of the world’s largest hotel companies, where she progressed to various leadership roles. In these roles, Tonya was responsible for global organizational development, executive coaching, recruitment and retention, leadership and management development and succession planning.  Tonya regularly worked with HR staff in the Americas as well as the Europe, Middle East and Africa and Asia offices.  She also worked closely with staff of the London-based parent company.

After becoming a parent, Tonya left her corporate career behind to focus on more flexible  project-based work and on one of her first loves, teaching.  Tonya authored several courses for distance MBA and Organizational Research degree programs while devoting the majority of her time to being at home with her two young children.  In 2012, Tonya founded her coaching and consulting practice and has spent the last decade delivering leadership workshops and coaching busy executives, parents, and teachers. She is the award-winning author of Stop Worrying About Your Anxious Child and Stop Worrying About Your Anxious Teenager.   In 2021, Tonya began teaching Human Resources Management and Leadership at Southeastern Louisiana University.  

Tonya has a Ph.D. in Industrial and Organizational Psychology and an MBA and is a certified life coach through the Martha Beck Institute, a certified Positive Intelligence Coach, and a certified Community Resiliency Trainer. She is also trained/certified in the use of various assessment tools such as CliftonStrengths, Birkman, and Hogan Personality Inventory.  She is a requested speaker on the topics of leadership, managing mental health concerns in the workplace, and navigating the way forward when it isn’t clear.  She lives in Mandeville with her awesome husband, two college-aged kids, two extremely barky dogs, and two mischievous cats.