Services

Our services are available to all students, faculty, academic departments and programs, and student affairs programs at Northwestern University.

Leadership Coaching
Leadership Consulting
Leadership Crucible
Leadership Space
Leadership Workshops

Leadership Coaching

Coaching provides you with the opportunity to significantly build on your leadership assets and to help you identify and close needed gaps. As you may know, many successful organizations offer leadership coaching to their high potential employees. It is a top tool for executive development because it focuses leaders, allowying them to achieve improved results while also allowing them to be more efficient in their work. At the Center, we invest in adapting the real world practices and approaches of executive leadership coaching to meet your needs while also preparing you for leadership positions once you graduate. We are particiulary interest in provideing leadership coaching to students undertaking new or more challenging leadership roles.

Students are selected on a competitive basis because spots are limited. We offer faculty and staff the opportunity to nominate students for our Leadership Coaching Program. Students may also self-nominate for this opportunity. To do so, please contact Paul Thelen.

Leadership Consulting

Is your team holding an important work session, facing a crisis or a critical decision, struggling to work well together, just plain stuck, or do you want to get to the next level of performance?  Are you facing a critical leadership moment, or are you just uncertain about how to handle a difficult situation?  Are you new to leadership or about to take on a new role?  If so, we’re available to give you confidential advice about how to navigate your leadership challenge.

Leadership Crucible

As a Northwestern student, one of the most important things you can do is to thoughtfully reflect upon your experiences to understand what you've learned about leadership during your time on campus.  Here, the goal is not to assemble a long list of organizations and clubs to which you've belonged or positions that you've held.  Instead, it's to identify those few transforming moments that have truly tested you as a leader.  Sometimes, these moments lead to a notable success.  Other moments end in failure, typically with even more powerful learnings about leadership and resilience.  In both cases, you can capitalize on those events by looking back and describing how your leadership has developed in response.  

Working with Career Services, we're designing the leadership theme on Leadership Crucible to help you reflect on these moments and the lessons you learned. There's a clear bottom line advantage for you: employers and graduate schools receive applications from many talented students with impressive resumes and good grades. The students who stand out are those who have been tested as leaders and who can communicate the simple and powerful ideas they've learned. You can begin to build your portfolio here.

Leadership Space

There are simply not enough places around campus that give students space to meet, relax, reflect, and wrestle openly with the deeper questions of leadership. The Center for Leadership at 1813 Hinman Avenue is designed to provide just that kind of space. We have a comfy couch area around a fireplace, meeting tables for groups from 4 to 30, desktop internet stations, a resource center, and a large front porch with tables and chairs. We even have hot water ready for tea or hot chocolate! The Center for Leadership is also home to the Center for Civic Engagement, Chicago Field Studies, Jumpstart, and the Public Interest Program, making the house a vibrant hub of student activity at Northwestern.

Leadership Workshops

We’re frequently asked to conduct skill-building workshops and welcome the opportunity to work with your team, group or committee. Currently, we offer workshops on:

• Leading Others
• Coaching for Leadership
• Group Facilitation

We can also work with you to design and conduct a custom workshop.

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We want to hear from you!

To learn more about our services, or to request a consultation, please contact The Center for Leadership.

Do you have a question?

Have a question about your leadership, or about how to work with another leader? 300 characters maximum

The Center for Leadership serves the Northwestern community. Its academic programs are offered through the McCormick School of Engineering & Applied Science.