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2025-2026 Leadership Development Program

Applications Now Open Through June 30, 2025: 

CLICK HERE to submit your application for ISHA's 2025-2026 Leadership Development Program! 

Are you interested in volunteering for leadership positions, but feel like you don’t have the right skills? Have you been in positions of leadership, but felt like you didn’t quite know how to be effective? Would you like to learn how to be a better leader in both professional and volunteer roles? If so, ISHA has a new program developed with you in mind!

ISHA’s Leadership Development Program (LDP) is a seven-month curriculum designed to teach speech-language pathologists and audiologists to apply acquired knowledge and skills in future professional and volunteer leadership roles, while building a strong pipeline of future leaders for ISHA volunteer positions. These skills are also valuable when applied in the professional work setting. By the end of the LDP, participants will be able to develop goals for applying leadership knowledge and skills to professional and volunteer roles. 

The program utilizes materials made available by ASHA for state associations through the Leadership Academy and Leadership Development Program Toolkit. Each month from September 2025 through February 2026, participants watch a one-hour webinar focused on a particular leadership topic on their own time. All members of the group meet in an online forum on the second Tuesday of each month at 7 p.m. (CT) to engage in a facilitated discussion on that month’s topic. Topics include Emotional Intelligence, Conflict Management, Influencing Others, and more. 

Program Details and Requirements

  • The program is provided at no cost.
  • Applicants must agree to watch all pre-recorded webinars and participate in all live online facilitated discussions.
  • Participants must be ISHA members.
  • Participants meeting all graduation requirements will receive a certificate of completion at the conclusion of the program.
  • Participants who wish to receive ASHA CEs must pay the applicable ASHA CE fees directly to ASHA for each webinar.

  • One of the requirements for participation and graduation of the Illinois Leadership Development Program is the selection and completion of a leadership project. These projects are meant to benefit the participant’s professional or volunteer community and serve as learning experiences for participants to apply leadership tools and techniques contained in the program. Project objectives should be reachable and achieved during the course of the LDP. Brief updates (1-2 mins) on project completion will be given at each meeting throughout the course of the year with mentoring support provided by the LDP team, if needed. The updates might consist of the following questions about the project:  What is your project?  What is one key insight or lesson learned so far? All projects must be completed by March 1. CLICK HERE to learn more about this new LDP requirement. 

Program Policies

  • Goal/Purpose: The purpose of ISHA’s LDP is to teach participants to apply acquired knowledge and skills in future professional and volunteer leadership roles while building a strong pipeline of future leaders for ISHA volunteer roles.
  • Outcome: By the end of the LDP, participants will be able to develop goals for applying leadership knowledge and skills to professional and volunteer roles.

Expectations: Participants are expected to complete all of the following expectations to receive a certificate of graduation:

  • View all pre-recorded webinars
  • Attend all facilitated discussions, kick-off, and graduation
  • Participate in facilitated discussions
  • Complete monthly evaluations of the program
  • Maintain a Leadership Reflection Journal throughout the program
  • Share how you will use the skills learned in the LDP to volunteer in ISHA.

*In the rare occasion that a participant is not able to attend a facilitated discussion, the participant will be allowed to make up the content for that topic within two weeks of the original date by submitting written responses to the discussion questions in the handout and participating in a 10-15 minute phone discussion with a facilitator regarding the material.

Program Agenda

  • September 2, 2025: Kickoff Meeting (First Tuesday)
  • September 9, 2025: Introduction to Leadership
  • October 14, 2025: Emotional Intelligence
  • November 11, 2025: Conflict Management
  • December 9, 2025: High-Performing Teams
  • January 13, 2026: Influencing Others
  • February 10, 2026: Managing Your Leadership Career
  • March 10, 2026: Graduation Ceremony

Practitioners in all stages of their career and from all settings are encouraged to apply. For more information, contact Kim Peppler at kimpeppler@hotmail.com.