Open Programs for Individuals

Unlock your leadership potential: This immersive experience enables you to take advantage of cutting-edge theories and best practices to lead your own transformational change. Through hands-on exploration of networked leadership, transformational leadership, and the dynamics of power and influence, you will elevate your crucial leadership readiness.

During this intensive 3-day program for experienced professionals, you will gain profound insights into your leadership approach, investigating critical team dynamics to grasp the strategic impact of leadership at the organizational level.

Through 360-degree feedback, interactive exercises, role-playing, computer simulations, real-world case studies, peer coaching, and dynamic discussions, you will refine your core leadership strengths.

In an era of constant disruption, senior leaders must navigate complexity, drive transformation, and inspire their people to stay ahead. The WHU Advanced Management Program for Senior Leaders is designed for experienced executives with significant organizational responsibilities who seek to elevate their leadership impact by engaging systematically with complex strategic issues while effectively motivating their teams.

Through 2 intensive in-person modules and interactive online sessions, this program challenges you to rethink strategy, innovation, and leadership influence. You will learn from the latest scientific knowledge, hands-on case studies, and cross-industry discussion with your peers, allowing you to integrate new perspectives and apply them to critical business challenges.

Between the in-person modules, short online sessions, led by executive Coaches and C-Suite leaders, provide additional opportunities to refine your leadership approach and enhance strategic mindset. By the end of the program, you will understand what it takes to lead, know how to leverage technology and AI, develop a stronger strategic mindset, and gain the ability to drive meaningful transformation within your organization and the global business landscape.

In a world shaped by geopolitical and economic disruption, artificial Intelligence, and accelerated change cycles, effective and innovative leadership has become key competency for future success.

The Beyond Winning program equips experienced leaders with proven principles, frameworks, and practical tools drawn from the world of high-performance sports translated into the realities of business.

Over three interactive days at WHU Campus Düsseldorf, participants explore the core elements of sustainable success in both high-performance sports and business. They discover five actionable leadership mindsets, demonstrated through case studies of top athletes such as Dirk Nowitzki, Thomas Müller, and Xabi Alonso, and engage in peer feedback sessions as well as team exercises designed to turn insight into impact.

Digital transformation is the key challenge for executives today. WHU and Foundry (formerly IDG Communications) offer an advanced program for senior executives in IT and digitalization that enhances your capabilities to lead and transform your organization into a digital, disruptive, and globalized economy.

The five-day module hosted in Düsseldorf challenges your entrepreneurial mindset and inspirational leadership capabilities. Join an active network of more than 200 program alumni!

Crises are unexpected events that are characterized by high levels of ambiguity of cause, effect, and means of resolution. When faced with a crisis, leadership gains a special momentum. WHU’s Crisis Leadership Program prepares you to successfully navigate your organization through the storm of economic, political, climate, and societal crises.

This intense 3-day executive program designed specifically for experienced leaders enhances your crisis leadership skills as after all, crisis seems to be the new normal. This course offers you practical, hands-on learning and advice through exercises, role-plays, computer simulation, real-world case studies, and dynamic discussions.

Corporate boards play an increasingly vital role in today’s disruptive business landscape. As a board member, you can shape the entire future of your organization by providing guidance and oversight on crucial issues facing organizations today, ranging from risk management, business strategy, sustainability, and compliance.

Are you a senior-level executive currently serving on a corporate board, or aspiring to transition into this role? Or maybe you are a senior manager wanting to engage more effectively now with your board: This unique program was designed to give you pragmatic new insights and valuable tools to amplify your impact and secure your organization’s future.

In a dynamic learning forum, industry and academic experts from WHU and IESE Business School will accompany you to ensure you magnify your contribution in your particular role, create strategic value and ensure a sustainable competitive advantage for your organization.

This program is offered by Leadership Choices and WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management. You will learn how to add coaching to your leadership signature authentically.

You will primarily learn how coaching as a leader works from a practical perspective. Using the Leadership Choices coaching model, you will be given insights into powerful questions and levels of listening. Moreover, you will learn to apply coaching interventions that have proven successful in a leadership context. Plenty of practical coaching work will take place in the classroom. During the program, you will also be asked to work with real coachees, i.e., coaching clients.

This program is accredited as Continuing Coach Education (CCE) by the International Coaching Federation (ICF).

Our Negotiations Seminar equips you with the skills you need to manage business negotiations successfully, even in the most challenging situations. The 2-day program provides managers and executives with a rich set of negotiation strategies and negotiation techniques to lead successful business-to-business negotiations in any setting – be it day-to-day interactions with suppliers, customers, or colleagues. The international participant group allows you to network with peers from various cultural and industry backgrounds.

During hands-on exercises in the program, such as role-plays, you will be equipped with ready-to-use skills. On top of that, you will take home improved leadership and communication skills!

Our world is changing at lightning speed. And so are the challenges you and your organization are facing. At the same time, we strive to integrate purpose, values and meaning into our and others' professional lives. The ability to open up, embrace change and co-create tangible, impactful solutions are critical success factors today and even more so tomorrow.

The Capability Program transforms you with purpose so that you can transform your environment. The action learning program challenges you to step up and take real responsibility as a social entrepreneur in the field. As part of a diverse team, you co-create a tangible social enterprise to improve job and life chances of a deprived community in the project country. In this process, you will find unique opportunities to find and lead by purpose, think and act as an entrepreneur and collaborate as a diverse self-organized team. At the same time, you will be granted 9 ECTS points.

The Financial Literacy Program is all about how to read, derive, and apply relevant financial information to decision-making situations. Created for managers who are not financial specialists, this program provides a solid foundation in finance and accounting.

This financial literacy training will help you to read, understand, and interpret income statements, cash flow statements, and balance sheets. An overview of types of financing will be presented and you will develop an understanding of the characteristics of different financing instruments. You will be able to effectively apply financial analysis techniques and through that understand the strategic performance goals.

WHU’s Leadership Essentials Program explores the foundations of leadership by challenging you to (re-)consider who you are as a leader and why anybody should be led by you. Over the course of three highly interactive days, you will develop a deeper understanding of your leadership identity, and learn how to navigate different team dynamics, as well as how to activate your professional network to enhance your impact as an emerging leader.

We use exercises, group work, and case studies to illustrate the behaviors of high-performing leaders. The program concludes with reflections on what you have learned and a forward plan that will help you apply the insights for your further leadership development.

A leader has to keep many things in mind in order to make sustainable and strategically relevant decisions. WHU Management Essentials Program provide participants who are transitioning into a leadership position or have done so recently, with the fundamental skills of General Management.

You can choose 3 out of 4 of the following programs: Leadership Essentials, Strategy Essentials, Financial Literacy and Innovation & Corporate Entrepreneurship Essentials.

Each of these programs focuses on different skills that are essential for successful leadership. In combination with a personality profile, the programs can be scheduled flexibly. Optionally, you can earn 6 ECTS credits, if you decide to take the exams.