Developed by Integris Performance Advisors, The Certificate in Organizational Leadership is a high impact, self-paced program designed for leaders throughout the animal welfare industry. By learning and applying the skills and techniques of this program, you will:

• Be equipped to drive your organization to higher levels of team performance, operational excellence, and employee engagement
• Become more emotionally intelligent while gaining deep insights into what drives you and those you work with to do the things you do
• Understand how to make your teams as productive and cohesive as possible
• Learn how to improve processes and streamline how work gets done
• Gain insights about the behaviors you must exhibit more frequently to be the most effective leader you can be

Leaders in any animal welfare organization, including senior executives, middle managers, and front line supervisors will benefit from this course, as will people who strive to become leaders someday.

This 8-12 hour course (each module will take 2-3 hours) is approved for:

• 8 CAWA CEs
• 8 points by the Certified Fund Raising Executives (CFRE)
• 9 CEs by the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) for Texas Animal Control Officers

Fees: $250 for Professional & Student Members, $375 for Industry Partners, Learning Members; $400 for Industry Partner Non-Members.

• Non-members will need to either become an Animal Welfare Professional Member ($250 annual fee) or create a free “Learning Member” account in order to register.  
• The course fee includes DiSC (a $73 value), a behavior assessment tool based on the DiSC theory of psychologist William Moulton Marston, which centers on four different personality traits.  If you have already taken the DiSC assessment and don't need to take a new version, contact us for a discount code for the course without the assessment.

BULK REGISTRATION: Enroll 5 or more of your staff/volunteers for the program at once & save $50 per person (members) or $125 (non-members). Not valid with other discounts. Contact us for instructions. Learn about how to make the program a team experience.

NEW! Learn about a LIVE 4-month Course Option in 2024

Curious? View this free introductory webinar to get a taste of the program: How Healthy is Your Organization?

Review the syllabus.

Note: After registering for this course you will be emailed an access code to take the Everything DiSC Workplace Assessment which is part of the first course module - expect the access code within 48 hours (M-F). Check your spam / junk inbox for the email from @wiley. If you don't receive it, email learning@theaawa.org.

Introductory Module

A healthy organization is one that exhibits high levels of:

• Employee engagement
• Trust and respect
• Collaboration and teamwork
• Quality
• Customer satisfaction

And low levels of:
• Turnover and absenteeism
• Safety incidents
• Internal politics
• Departmental and functional silos
• Gossip

Serving as the launching point for your leadership development journey, the program introduction will provide you with a clear understanding of why you must focus your attention on four key areas:

1. Emotional Intelligence 
2. Team Behaviors
3. Operational Excellence
4. Leadership Practices

Interactive Module 1: Emotional Intelligence

Central to any organization’s culture is how people communicate and interact. Emotional Intelligence (EQ) refers to the ability to understand, recognize and manage the emotions that underlie communication and interpersonal interaction, both in yourself and in others. By completing this module, you will:

• Become more self-aware of your own mindset and behavioral tendencies, gaining a deeper recognition of why you do what you do
• Be able to more easily recognize the behavioral tendencies of others, giving you the ability to adjust your communication style as the situation demands
• Understand a powerful framework called DiSC, that will enable you to help your peers, colleagues and direct reports become more emotionally intelligent too

Interactive Module 2: Team Behaviors

Research shows that highly cohesive teams consistently outperform other groups of people. Why? Because cohesive teams:

• Make better, faster decisions
• Tap into the skills and opinions of all members
• Avoid wasting time and energy on politics, confusion, and destructive conflict
• Have more fun while being more productive

In this module you will learn how to influence your team to embrace the five behaviors that are central to creating the highest levels of cohesion and engagement:

1. Building vulnerability-based trust
2. Engaging in productive conflict
3. Committing to team decisions
4. Holding one another accountable
5. Focusing on collective results

Interactive Module 3: Operational Excellence

Everything that happens inside an organization is a process; a series of steps, actions, and/or decisions that ultimately result in getting something done. But all processes are not created equal. Many processes are fraught with waste and non-value adding activities, such as:

• Mistakes and rework
• Waiting and back-and-forth handoffs between people and/or departments
• Extra movement and transportation

These inefficient processes lead to employee frustration and customer dissatisfaction. Through this module, you will learn the basics of a proven methodology called Lean Six Sigma, giving you the tools and skills, you need to:

• Define where problems exist
• Measure the impact of process inefficiency 
• Analyze and improve how work gets done
• Put in place new procedures that will control process efficiency and drive change forward in your organization

Interactive Module 4: Leadership Practices

As a leader in your organization, your behaviors have tremendous influence on those around you. Peers, colleagues, and direct reports look to you for guidance. They watch what you do and learn from your example. 

During this module, you will learn to more frequently exhibit the five leadership practices proven to drive higher levels of organizational performance and positive workplace attitudes:

• Model the way
• Inspire a shared vision 
• Challenge the process
• Enable others to act
• Encourage the heart

Conclusion Module

By completing the four interactive modules, you’ve dedicated yourself to self-reflection and personal development. You’ve learned new tools and techniques for being the best leader you can be. In this final segment we will focus on the future, giving you a final set of tips and advice for how you can apply what you’ve learned for the benefit of your team, your organization and all those you serve. While this may be the end of the certificate program, we hope it’s just the start of your journey toward creating a healthier organization and a great place to work

Here are ideas on how you can make the certificate program into a team learning experience.