Leadership Course Listings

Advanced Leadership Corps

Principles and practice of exemplary public leadership for elected municipal and county officials. This course will enable you to become an extraordinary and inspiring leader in your community, region, and the state.

Advanced Leadership Corps Ambassador Program

Each year those who have completed the Advanced Leadership Corps (ALC) are invited to an alumni program.

Advanced Supervisory Practices

Advanced Supervisory Practices helps public professionals who have on-the-ground supervisory experience take their skills to the next level. Through this course, participants will learn how to effectively energize and engage their teams and exert positive influence with peers, managers, and direct reports

Basics of County Human Services

In partnership with the School of Government Faculty Members Aimee Wall, Jill Moore, and Mark Botts, the NCACC is offering the Basics of County Human Services.The Basics of County Human Services offers new commissioners their first step in a four-part continuum of critical topics to know and understand at an introductory level as they begin leading and governing. Faculty Leads: Aimee N. Wall, JD and Jill D. Moore, JD.

Budgeting and Finance Basics for Local Elected Officials

This half-day course is designed to go beyond the strategic aspects and delve into the areas that are often confusing for elected officials, such as availability of fund balance, revenue-neutral tax rates, statutory limitations on available reserve funds and contingencies, the role of capital reserve funds, and the other important aspects of the overall budgetary process. Faculty Lead: Greg S. Allison.

Build an Equitable Organization: From Awareness to Action

This practical workshop will expand your equity consciousness as you move from increasing awareness to taking meaningful action in building a more equitable public sector organization.

Build Coaching Skills to Tap Potential

A successful supervisor is one who can effectively coach and develop staff to take initiative, resolve conflict, develop productive working relationships, and reach their highest potential. While most supervisors can master the technical aspects of their job, the harder part is knowing how to help others develop and flourish, solve their own problems and have the tough conversations when things are not going well.

Building Positive Leadership Strategies

One-day course offered at least once annually. Introduction to Appreciative Inquiry, how to notice and elicit a positive response in challenging or polarizing situations, includes practice and some one-on-one consultation, as requested. Target audience: Public Professionals. Check Course Calendar for dates and location. Faculty Leads: Lydian Altman; Margaret Henderson.

Building and Maintaining a Competitive Workforce 

One-day course offered at least once annually. Course description forthcoming. Check Course Calendar for dates and location. Target audience: Public Professionals.

Capital Budgeting & Infrastructure for Elected Officials

This workshop will help you understand your leadership role in the capital budgeting process, translate complex financial terms into plain language, and provide you with the right questions to ask your manager and finance staff. The course will also help you see the value in strategic planning, consensus-building, and goal setting. Faculty Leads: Renee Paschal.

Chief District Court Judges Leadership Training

Specialized training course offered each fall through the NC Judicial College. CJE credits awarded. Leadership topics vary each year, including communication, team building, case management, managing conflict, and others. Faculty Leads: Shea Denning, JD and Willow Jacobson, Ph.D.

CIVIC Fellows “Leading for Results”

Annual offering for local government professionals, two-week duration  Location: Chapel Hill. Faculty Lead: Ricardo S. Morse. Applications open April.

Crisis Communication Skills for Local Elected Officials

In this on-line program, elected officials will learn how to communicate complex information to troubled and fearful citizens. You will learn how to balance facts with empathy and understanding, to convey stability in times that are troubled, and to engender your citizens’ trust that their best interests are being protected.

Cultivate Engaging Workplace Culture 

Shaping organizational culture and aligning it to your organizations’ strategy is a huge leadership challenge and an important leadership skill. This workshop will help you get clear about what needs changing and offers some key tools to begin to shape the culture of your organization.

Economic Recovery and Resiliency Post COVID-19

In this webinar, participants will learn the most important guiding principles for stabilizing their community’s economy in the short term, and will consider what long-term economic recovery might look like in the coming years. The value of regional economic collaborations will be explored and successful examples from North Carolina and other states will be highlighted.

Effective Community Engagement: A Toolbox for Local Elected Officials

In this interactive webinar, you will learn that community engagement is a vital part of democracy. Your citizens judge the value of government based on what they see and experience; they learn how important government is when they have the opportunity to actually be a part of it.

Elevate Organizational Performance

Local governments that focus on the fundamentals of leadership, strategic planning, performance improvement, and genuine engagement can knit together a high-performance framework to deliver positive, consistent results to elevate organizational performance and, ultimately, enhance the quality of life for the communities they serve.

Energize and Engage Employees

Leaders are constantly searching for ways to improve employee engagement. There are studies that indicate that anywhere between 70 – 85% of the workforce is not engaged. If we are to believe those numbers, we need to know what employment engagement is and how we can get better at developing a culture of engagement with our teams. This interactive workshop will assist you in gaining that understanding and provide tools to assist you in that development.

Emotional Intelligence: Leadership’s Super Power

As part of this workshop, you will complete the Emotional Quotient Inventory 2.0, receive coaching about your results, and identify simple strategies you can begin using to increase your emotional intelligence.  You will understand what emotional intelligence is and how it affects your daily work behaviors.

Essentials of Municipal Government (EMG)

Participants will gain a clear understanding of municipal government authority and explore the core functions of your municipality. Focus on the legal framework, operational structure, roles and responsibilities of municipal elected officials.

Essentials of County Government (ECG)

In this course, we will introduce newly-elected commissioners to the basic functions of county government and the role of the governing board. In short, we are here to help you successfully transition from campaigning to governing.

Ethics for Local Government Elected Officials

These webinars satisfy the 2 clock hours of local ethics training required by state law for elected and appointed members of city councils and county boards of commissioners. This training MUST be completed within 12 months of election day and is required every time they are elected, re-elected or appointed and reappointed to a local office.

Evaluating Manager and Board Performance

Participants who complete this program will learn how to develop a successful board self-assessment and manager evaluation process, customize an evaluation process that works for their jurisdiction, and how to avoid common pitfalls.

Facilitation Skills for Successful Meetings

This course will give you tools for planning and guiding meetings so that everyone contributes, and ideas are turned into clear agreements. Contribute to the success of your organization by creating a workplace environment that leverages the power of the group while driving toward a common goal.

Financial and Fiduciary Responsibilities of Local Elected Officials

This workshop will focus on understanding and responding to the annual audit, maintaining adequate oversight of fund balance including its limitations and flexibility, and knowing the significance of the various communications and reporting requirements of the Local Government Commission.

Fundamental Supervisory Practices (FSP)

Being a supervisor in local government today is more challenging than ever. The Fundamental Supervisory Practices course is designed to provide newly promoted or first-time supervisors with critical knowledge and skills needed to be an effective supervisor.

Judicial District Executive Seminar

Offered annually through the NC Judicial College. Understanding personal leadership style, demands and stresses on court system, future trends, and shared decision-making. Attendees: Judicial district teams to include minimum of Senior Resident Superior Court Judge, Chief District Court Judge, and Clerk of Court; others may include District Attorney, Trial Court Administrator, and key others. Lead Faculty: Jim Drennan, JD and Willow Jacobson, Ph.D.

Lead Across Boundaries

This workshop explores the core competencies of this boundary-crossing leadership, including the mindset necessary to successfully work through inevitable conflict in order to accomplish collective goals. Participants will have the opportunity to connect skills and concepts to a boundary-crossing issue they are dealing with in their communities.

Lead Change in Government Organizations

In this workshop, you will learn what gets in the way of change and practice skills that will enable and improve the chances that luck will make a helpful visit! Understand the context of change in the public sector; explore challenges of leading change and models of change management, integrate concepts into your specific change effort.

Leading the Way to Board Excellence

A comprehensive 4-part leadership program for county, municipal, and school board elected officials designed to increase the effectiveness of elected leaders at local, regional and state levels by focusing on personal and collaborative leadership and communication principles and practices.

Legal Competency for Local Elected Officials

A day long live, interactive course via zoom – Being effective as a local elected official means understanding your local authority, being fluent in meeting procedures, and knowing the scope of your transparency obligations. The laws are complex, and many situations raise questions that are unique to each set of circumstances.  These complexities are often heightened by the vast array of social media platforms, which call into question the boundaries of free speech and the public’s right to know.

LELA 101: Top 10 Primer on Employment Law for Local Elected Officials

In this class, you will gain a basic understanding of the employment laws that apply to local governments. You will become more conversant with the employment issues that affect our local government workforce and explore the role of the elected body in assuring that the laws are being followed.

LELA 101: Top 10 Primer on Managing Conflict: Tips and Practices Round Table

This is a highly interactive and quick-moving on-line class. John Stephens will present brief tips and practical tools for dealing with conflicts in the moment.

LELA 201: From Pandemic to Protests: Crisis Communications Skills for Local Elected Officials

In this on-line program, elected officials will learn how to communicate complex information to troubled and fearful citizens. You will learn how to balance facts with empathy and understanding, to convey stability in times that are troubled, and to engender your citizens’ trust that their best interests are being protected. The class features a combination of interactive lecture and simulations that relate to how public officials should deal with the media and communicate with the public, especially in times of crisis.

LELA 201: Heritage or Hate: Reframing the Issues

This class provides a framework for hearing claims from diverse political perspectives and creating productive conversations about the critical policy issues that matter to North Carolina’s communities. You will learn how to think about the points of difference and shared values between North Carolinians on opposing sides of the divisive issues around our shared history.

LELA 201: Tools for Persuasive Speaking

In this workshop, you will learn tips and tools to help you convince others to follow where you lead. You will learn how to match your message to your audience and craft persuasive arguments that support your views. The class includes small group practice sessions with communications coaches to help you evaluate and refine your presentation skills.

LELA 201: Top 10 Primer on Land Use, Planning, and Zoning for Elected Officials

In this short interactive class you will learn the ten most important things to know about your role as an elected official in land use planning and zoning.

LELA 201: Top 10 Primer: Seeking Diversity: How Do We Do It Today?

In this short course local elected officials map their daily interactions with others and learn how to broaden their nets of input into public issues.     

LELA 201: Top 10 Primer on Transportation Planning in North Carolina

Participants will learn about the Department of Transportation structure, funding, and planning processes. This quick-moving interactive free virtual workshop will provide our audience a basic understanding of the policies that affect statewide transportation priorities and the avenues for making your voices heard.

LELA 201 Top 10 Primer: What Local Elected Officials Should Know About Enterprise Funding

Experts from the Environmental Finance Center at the School of Government, Erin Riggs and Elsemarie Mullins, will provide a concise overview of 10 key factors relating to enterprise budgeting and funding that local elected officials need to know.

LELA 301: Strategic Planning: Linking Strategies to Results

In this class you will learn the principles and processes involved in strategic planning. You will learn how to use your local government budget as a planning tool to execute your vision over a multi-year period, and you will explore the leadership behaviors that are important elements of success.

Make the Right Hire

The cost of hiring and training new employees impacts local government budgets and services, and the wrong hire or promotion can lower the morale and productivity of an entire workgroup or organization. This course is designed to help you make the right hire the first time around. You will learn how to navigate the various legal issues around recruitment and selection and the keys to designing a defensible selection process that measures the key competencies required for the job.

Making Change: How Personal Preference Show Up at Work

No matter how you or your work group typically manages change, you have probably been challenged by navigating these uncertain times. The intent of this session is to identify your natural tendencies, consider how that serves you during “normal” times, share your successful strategies, then assess what you might need to adapt successfully through the next phase of the pandemic and its economic impact. Includes Change Style Indicator Assessment.

Manage Your Teams

Participants will learn the specific challenges of managing remotely in the current environment as well as specific tips and tools to better enhance group cohesion and gain insights on how to maintain organizational culture.

Managing Conflict: Strategies for Elected Officials

This course focuses on two parts of negotiation and problem solving: how personality types affect conflict development and resolution and understanding and applying principles of interest-based negotiation to create win-win solutions. Faculty Lead: John B. Stephens, Ph.D. Location: Chapel Hill.

Navigate Difficult Conversations

Navigating difficult conversations is a core leadership skill. This one-day course will help you find the opportunities for personal and professional growth presented by conflict.

Public Executive Leadership Academy (PELA)

PELA provides city and county managers, their assistants, and key department heads the opportunity to learn more about themselves as leaders and to gain skills to lead and manage change in their communities.

Race Matters: Courageous Conversations for Leaders  

In this workshop, we will define diversity and related terminology such as inclusion, equity, and belonging. We will discuss how having a diverse team leads to increased effectiveness and performance and the factors or conditions that lead to an increase in effectiveness and performance on diverse teams, which requires trust.

Shift from Buddy to Boss  

This interactive course is designed to get your journey into supervision on the right path and will include case studies and skill practice scenarios around the challenges that new supervisors often face.

Social Media for Social Good

Understand the elements of effective social media policies; develop strategies for organizational use of social media; increase reach and engagement through the use of social media.

Social Media Strategies and Best Practices

This on-line class will familiarize you with the variety of different social media platforms and users.  You will learn how to use various strategic tools to create an engaging social media presence. And you’ll discover some surprisingly positive uses of social media that can help you go beyond campaigning to governing!

Strategic Planning for Elected Officials

Top 10 Primer: Financial Responsibilities of Local Elected Officials

In this workshop, elected officials will learn about the Local Government Fiscal Control Act, which establishes in law the budget development timeline. You will learn the basic outlines of Fund Balance and Financial Reporting and those additional critical elements of local government budgeting that make up the top ten most important factors to know and understand as you enter the fiscal year budget development season.

Top 10 Primer on Capital Budgeting for Local Elected Officials

This seminar introduces elected officials to the rationale, scope, policy, and process of capital budgeting in local government, including the role of the capital improvement program. It then provides an overview of how local governments pay for capital assets through pay-as-you-go and debt financing before concluding with the relationship between capital budgeting and economic development.

Top 10 Primer: What Local Elected Officials Need to Know About Public Mental Health, Developmental Disabilities, and Substance Abuse Services in North Carolina

An important role for local elected officials is to simply know enough about how the publicly funded system is structured to be able to respond when someone asks you for help.  You want to know how your town or county agencies can and do often affect outcomes for people with mental health needs.

Top 10 Primer: What Local Elected Officials Need to Know about Public Health and Social Services

Being an effective local elected official requires a basic understanding of what your local government agencies do.  The public health and social services agencies are two public agencies that are touch points for many of the people in your communities.

Top 10 Primer: Use of Social Media for Local Elected Officials 

Do Facebook and Twitter have appropriate places in the world of local elected officials? The rules and practicalities of social media use for local elected officials can be confusing and confounding.  In this 75-minute class you’ll learn about some good and bad practices we can help you manage, and improve your awareness of some of the murky areas around free speech and consequences that we are monitoring.

Working Better Together: Governing Guidance

An effective Council or Board is one that intentionally cultivates it. All the best laid plans and community expectations can be destroyed by a dysfunctional governing Board. In this course local elected officials will learn how being a leader also entails being a team member.

Work with Citizen Boards and Committees 

Explores promising practices for using citizen advisory boards and committees: clarifying roles and expectations, recruitment, appointment, and training; evaluating effectiveness.