Emerging Leaders Cohort 15

Emotional Intelligence

When: Wednesday, March 5, 2025

Emotional Intelligence (EI) is the capacity to be aware of, control, and express one's emotions, and to handle interpersonal relationships judiciously and empathetically. It is the key to both personal and professional success and has had a significant impact in the areas of leadership and employee development. Participants in this session will:

• Understand the concept of Emotional Intelligence.
• Learn what emotions are, why they are important, and where they come from.
• Learn to recognize, understand and manage their emotions and influence the emotions of others.
• See how necessary Emotional Intelligence is in their success.
• Learn why it is important in a leadership role.
• Complete a self-assessment of their Emotional Intelligence and look at strategies for improvement.

Trainer: Tony Wilson

Tony Wilson has 30 years experience as an educator. He held positions as teacher, assistant principal, educational coordinator, and coordinator of afterschool programs.

Tony served as Coordinator of the Reentry program at Des Moines Area Community College, and Coordinator of Outreach at Neighborhood Health Initiative through Iowa Health (now Unity Point). He has been a consultant to the Iowa Department of Corrections, Iowa Department of Human Services, Iowa Department of Education, and Iowa Workforce Development.

Intro to Management

When: Friday, April 11, 2025

To be effective as a leader, it is crucial to have the right tools, resources and training. By attending this session, you can expect to learn the following:

• The difference between managing & leading and why both are appropriate depending on the circumstances.
• Ways to more effectively communicate with your team!
• How to engage your team to get the highest return on your investment of time, energy & effort.

Trainer: Don McKee

Don McKee, Performance Consultant, has been in education and training for the past 20 years. This includes 5 years as Training Director for Iowa Select Farms, Iowa Falls’ Iowa and Training Consultant for Iowa Central Community College, Fort Dodge, Iowa. Don is currently a certified Zenger Miller Leadership trainer, Life Orientations Behavioral Trainer and LEAN 101 Facilitator.

Don has facilitated leadership training for over 100 manufacturers, hospitals, banks and municipalities throughout Iowa and Illinois including Winnebago Industries, Fort Dodge Animal Health, Pella Windows and Monsanto. Don’s approach to training is exemplified in his motto “Making Common Sense, Common Practice”. Don utilizes tools and strategies designed to pick up where traditional “theory” training drops off. Don currently resides in Webster City, Iowa with his wife and four daughters.

Three T’s of Confidence

When: Thursday, May 15, 2025

If the last few years have taught us anything, it's that unexpected change is the new norm, and the pressure to navigate it falls on leaders. We've seen increased anxiety, burnout, turnover, and poor decision-making as a result.

But what if we don't have to? What if, we could train leaders to lead well in any situation simply by improving confidence?

Erik uses the Three T's of Confidence to equip new and seasoned leaders with tools to help them build authentic confidence, navigate change, and find balance in an unbalanced world.

Participants will leave more confident and better equipped to lead at new levels…immediately!

Participants will:

• Learn and apply the Three T's to create immediate confidence
• Reframe resilience to overcome any obstacle
• Establish a new mindset that energizes teams and avoids burnout

Trainer: Erik Dominquez

As an immigrant who grew up between two cultures and mixed messages, the familiarity Erik has with speaking fears fueled him to learn and share the tools to overcome those obstacles. For nearly 25 years, his team-oriented speaking and teaching style has centered around shared experiences, a philosophy that everyone has a unique story, and a belief that everyone can share their minds and hearts through powerful presentations.

Building and Leading Effective Work Teams

When: Wednesday, June 18, 2025

Teams collaborate in a variety of modes; virtually, in-person, or a hybrid method. How we connect/communicate is just one element of building and maintaining an effective team. Effective teams should be a balance of diverse individuals who bring different skill sets and perspectives. When developing your team, make sure these essential skills exist or they can be developed; communication and listening skills, organizational and time management, problem solving, resolving conflict, and having an awareness of each teammate's uniqueness. (Behavior styles and working preferences) In this course, we will discuss all these concepts and more to help you create and maintain a high-functioning and successful team.

Course objectives:

• Explain the keys to establishing a virtual team and how to manage them during projects
• Manage effective meetings and group discussions
• Describe effective ways to communicate with team members to build trust and confidence among each employee
• Discuss how to handle poor performing employees
• Create common goals, clear direction, and build/develop accountability
• Define roles, cross-functions, and openness to change and adjust

Trainer: Stacie Lightner

Founder of Courageous Innovations, LLC, Stacie is known for her enlightening perspectives surrounding the human side of individuals and their uniqueness. She has built a business focusing on communication, empathy, employee and team development.

For more than 20 years, Stacie has facilitated/coached a range of individuals including women in business, financial institution leaders, middle and high school students, and volunteers. She has worked with for-profit and not-for-profit organizations tying strategy to growth and talent development initiatives. She designs, speaks, and facilitates a wide variety of areas including; customer relations, coaching/mentoring individuals, diversity and inclusion, Emotional Intelligence, and time and organization management.

Stacie earned a bachelor's degree in Education from Iowa State University and is certified in several people building programs. She has volunteered and worked for the Urbandale School District, been a PTO board member, mock trial judge and coach, church council member, director of Vacation Bible School, assisting minister, and board member for ATD (Association for Talent Development).

Unconscious Bias, Diversity, and Inclusion

When: Wednesday, July 16, 2025

This session will take participants go through the process of identifying one’s personal lens and how their view of the world can influence on those they serve. Microaggressions and implicit bias, let’s talk about it and develop strategies to identifying and correcting thinking.

Trainer: Ilima Young-Dunn

Ilima Young-Dunn, LMSW has been the Program Chair and Professor of Human Services at DMACC since 2005. In her first year at DMACC she developed the course Discrimination and Diversity to help students take an inward look at their culture, biases, and unearned benefits. She has spoken at various conferences and given trainings related to DEI topics as well as advocated in different spaces for voices that are present. Ilima serves on a variety of advisory committees, boards, and volunteers her time in the community. Her style of training is laid back, humorous and allows for participants to have uncomfortable conversations in a safe space. Participants will comment that during her trainings they felt “heard" and “valued".

Communicating to Fit the Situation

When: Wednesday, August 20, 2025

Personality styles and other situational factors often require leaders to understand the moment before reacting. Leadership is an art; not every approach works for every person, or for every situation. In this session, explore two major factors that can impact individual situations:

• Whether the people involved are self-orientated or others-centered.
• The personality styles at play.

Then, learn ways to read, adapt, and connect in those situations.

Take-aways include a quick way to read and match the styles of others, identifying self-orientated behaviors, and using the right language to bring team members around to a productive, others-centered approach in various situations. Visual aids, leave-behinds, and practical patience during the session can be expected.

Trainer: Alan Feier

Alan Feirer is a leadership trainer, Everything DiSC® Authorized Partner, Five BehaviorsTM Authorized Partner, Franklin Covey Certified Facilitator, and organizational development consultant. Alan is the author of The Group Dynamic Field Guide: 51 Ideas You Can Use Today and co-host of the Music Ed Insights podcast. For 22 years, he has done business as Group Dynamic, helping people embrace challenging work with less stress while getting more done. Alan works with managers, directors, leadership teams, staffs, and team members through leadership training, team building, and communication training.

Alan lives in Des Moines, Iowa, with his wife Julie. They have an adult daughter Mara in college. He holds membership in many professional organizations, including the Greater Des Moines Partnership, the Association for Talent Development (previous Central Iowa chapter President), the Downtown Des Moines Chamber, and FuseDSM. Feirer's other interests include competitive Scrabble, exercise, travel, dining, and anything Disney.

Change Leadership

When: Wednesday, September 3, 2025

Details coming soon.

Difficult Conversations

When: Wednesday, October 8, 2025

What is your organization not discussing?

• Are you consistently and fully being told what you need to hear? By your leader? By your direct reports? By your peers?
• What are "Undiscussables" on your team - topics, problems, decisions and questions buried in silence?
• What might your organization be doing poorly or overlooking - meetings, projects, decisions, feedback, results - that no one is talking about?
• What are others waiting for you to figure out on your own? To see what you don't see? To learn what you don't know?
• What would people in your organization say if they weren't afraid to speak up?

This session helps leaders create an environment where people speak up more candidly, fully, and purposefully to achieve their goals. The program provides simple, high-impact, sustainable practices to create safe and collaborative environments.

Leaders emerge from the workshop with skills and tools that enable other to bring up better ideas, challenge the status quo, raise critical questions, resolve problems early, break through organizational silence and talk about undiscussables. This session includes:

• Tools to assess your team's current "State of Candor" and to measure progress.
• Practices to create the environment where your organization speaks up and talk about what matters.
• A safe process to learn and honor individual, team and organizational Undiscussables - and address them.
• Fast-paced delivery with active participation.
• Skills and resources to strengthen your organization's capability to continually, candidly and optimally talk about what matters.

Trainer: Tom Greene

Tom Green is dedicated to helping leaders and teams talk more candidly, fully, and purposefully to resolve conflict and talk about difficult matters. Though his workshops, he provides assessments, tools, and easy-to-implement practices to help leaders and teams address conflict, reach agreements, hold others accountable, and strengthen relationships to achieve their goals.

Known for his thoughtful, research-based, and insightful approach, Tom Green is a coach and accomplished human resources professional with expertise in performance consulting, learning and development, performance management, and leadership development. Tom is trained in conflict resolution, mediation, and instructional design for curriculum, classroom, and web-based instruction. His workshops use key data, energizing and interactive exercises, case studies, and effective check-in practices to assure learning.

Coaching and Developing Employees

When: Wednesday, November 19, 2025

Moving from the basics of supervising to having a broader and deeper impact requires some essential personal progression and expansion. There is some fundamental growth in perspective and practice required to have the sustainable impact the organization needs. Yet most leaders operate the same as when they first were given some leadership responsibilities.

In this course, we’ll explore how to evolve from doing the basics to creating a whole new level of impact for the leader focused on developing those around them. Each area of study will include a clear framework and useful tactics. Key learning concepts include:

• Creating clarity around expectations for each person on the leader’s team
• Building a new level of ownership and commitment in team members to fuel their growth
• Understanding how to share authority to spur development and advancement
• Exploring the fundamentals of coaching and recognizing the difference between strategic
• coaching and tactical coaching
• Establishing a coaching practice to enable the growth and development of team members
• Reframing development opportunities for team members to improve engagement

Trainer: Mike Kleis

A Facilitator, Simplifier and Connector with more than 35 years of broad business and leadership experience, Mike provides training, coaching and consulting to individual leaders, teams and businesses across the United States and Canada. He has worked with such diverse audiences as: research scientists, medical doctors, construction crew leaders, business executives, IT managers, sales professionals and entrepreneurs. He is also a speaker, guest lecturer and leads executive peer groups in Iowa. His expertise includes direct management and strategic leadership experience in the following fields: product development, marketing, sales, operations, field service and administration. Mike holds a B.A. in Business Management from Central College and has extensive advanced training in leadership development.