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First and foremost, the Global Leadership Fellows (GLF) programme is one of learning by doing. Highly experiential – and supported by classroom and self study – it exposes you to a variety of leadership opportunities.
Main GLF Programme Themes
Three main themes run throughout the three-year GLF programme, each of them constituting the main theme of one of the academic years. Together and interwoven, these three main strands, pursued both through your work assignments and through classroom debates and self study, will give you an unparalleled opportunity to develop as a global leader.
1) Personal Leadership
As a Global Leadership Fellow, you will attend a large variety of courses designed to develop soft skills (e.g. negotiation, coaching, decision-making, voice training, etc.) as well as to improve your knowledge in areas such as strategy, international relations, organizational renewal, etc. In addition, several workshops, as well as language classes, will be offered.
2) Team Leadership
The very essence of leadership lies in being able to impart one’s vision and sense of direction to others, and to work in a group setting to develop a sense of direction. A set of leadership-oriented courses will improve your capability as a productive group member, group (and project) leader, coach and public speaker.
3) Global Leadership
Through your assignments within the Forum, you will get intensive exposure to learning about, and managing, certain “agendas”. These include the:
• Global Agenda: forces that shape and influence every endeavour, e.g. global health, global warming
• Regional Agenda: political, societal and business forces at work in the major regions of the world
• Industry Agenda: forces within each of the major business sectors at the global, regional and local levels.
In your third year, you will take on a project which fits in with your work assignment at the Forum. This project work will provide you with the opportunity to apply your knowledge and experience to a specific field of interest, to prove your leadership skills, and to produce a beneficial and practical solution that adds value to the activities of the Forum.
How will the GLF programme play out?
The basis of the GLF programme is your work assignment, supplemented by an active study programme supported by coaching and effective mentorship. Fellows are employees of the Forum and, in addition, are part of a separate and unique group within the Forum.
Work assignment. Depending on your interests, academic and professional background, and on your competences, you will have a specific work assignment within the Forum. This assignment will take up most of your time as a Fellow. For some of you, it may change over the course of the three years of the programme.
You can apply for a specific position posted in the career section of our website (www.weforum.org/careers) and mention at the same time that you would like to become a GLF. Alternatively, you can fill out the general application form for the GLF programme, which is available at the same address. In the latter case, job possibilities will be presented to you upon your acceptance in the programme.
Study programme. The content of the study programme is developed in cooperation with individually contracted leading thinkers from institutions such as the London Business School, INSEAD, Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, and others. It will provide an intellectually stimulating learning agenda along the three themes outlined above.
During each academic year, there are five weeks of teaching and personal development retreats, as well as several shorter seminars and courses.
Course themes may include the following topics:
• Project management
• Personal presence, moderation and voice training
• Change management in a global world
• Leading across cultures
• Role of a leader (e.g. identifying and cultivating talent)
• Competitive strategy
• “Self-development”/coaching and mentoring
In addition to the courses, we organize face-to-face meetings with global leaders and internal specialists, and arrange regular get-togethers and workshops to debate current affairs. On these occasions, each one of you will at some point be asked to take the lead in debating the particular issues and organizations you deal with, as well as sharing your experience in interacting with these organizations.
In order to be able to award certificates at course completion and a Master’s degree at the end of the GLF programme, we have created a curriculum based on 90 credits (ECTS), which must be obtained through classroom and group study, as well as through participation in (and leading of) ad hoc sessions and seminars.
Active mentorship, evaluation and development. Throughout the three year programme, you will be “embedded” in a system of active coaching and mentorship. In addition to the GLF Dean and the Programme Manager, who will advise you on the study programme, you will join a small coaching team of approximately five people. After initially receiving training from a professional coach, you will coach each other during your first two years. You will be assigned an executive coach and a mentor to guide you through your project work in the third year.
Also, like all World Economic Forum colleagues, your work contribution will periodically be evaluated and you will be given development feedback.
Overall, you will be part of a “cohort” of like-minded colleagues, where each person is a giver and a taker: You will be a student as well as a teacher, a leader as well as a follower. We look forward to sharing with you this innovative and challenging journey towards becoming a global leader.
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