Experiential Learning

At Wharton, we focus our leadership development programs on three pillars. It is in the combination of these pillars that every Wharton student, alumni, and executive can develop as a leader and understand the process and significance of lifelong leadership development.

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Be a Student of Leadership

Take courses, review current research, read books, and attend lectures and conferences. Through required courses in leadership, communications, and ethics, and faculty workshops and seminars on current research topics, students stay connected to current, cutting-edge research in leadership. Books, lectures, and conferences provide access to new models and frameworks. Taken together and collectively, being a student of leadership means engaging with the concepts and defining your leadership vocabulary in a way that allows you to explore and acquire new skills.

Surround Yourself with a Learning Community

Wharton prides itself on its sense of community. Your personal leadership journey must include a network of peers, coaches, and mentors who are willing to give you specific feedback, hold you accountable to your learning goals, and actively participate in reflection and sense-making with you. We provide the foundations and structure for optimal engagement through the Learning Team experience, the interaction with TAs and Leadership Fellows, and the relationships created within the many Workshops, Ventures, and Fellowship programs available to students.

Seek and Accept Stretch Experiences

We develop as leaders and teammates by testing our knowledge, skills, and abilities through new experiences, and we learn best when we place ourselves in unique and ambiguous situations. Our programs provide many different roles and contexts in which students can learn from personal experience. The Wharton Leadership Program provides memorable opportunities in which students lead in dynamic environments, build the capacity of their teammates, and learn the failures and successes that are embedded in any stretch experience. By coupling stretch experiences with structured reflection and specific exercises designed to transfer and propel learning forward, the Wharton Leadership Program focuses its energies – and the energies of its students – on knowledge born of experience.