Take your career to the highest levels with ICMA University Leadership Development Programs
If you're ready for personal change...if you're ready to assume senior leadership and take the lead, if you are senior leadership and looking to recharge your career, ICMA University invites you to discover a range of leadership development programs for every level of your career.
These programs offer participants interactive learning, superlative instructors, networking with colleagues, and engaging discussions of key management and leadership issues. Participants will enhance their leadership and management skills while forming a collegial learning community with their peers. Enrollment in these programs is limited to foster small group learning communities of future leaders.
Leadership Institute on Race, Equity, and Inclusion
As a thought leader, ICMA is committed to creating and supporting thriving communities. As part of this commitment, ICMA has created, in partnership with the Kettering Foundation and the National Civic League, the Leadership Institute on Race, Equity, and Inclusion. The institute supports the ICMA Executive Board’s statement regarding systemic racism, and more specifically the commitment to: “Engage our members and partners in a process of listening to understand what our profession needs in order to deliver on the work of our mission and vision through the lens of equity and inclusion.” The institute will offer local government participants interactive learning, superlative instructors, networking with colleagues, and engaging discussions of the key leadership issues surrounding racial equity. Participants will embark on a 12-18-month journey to transform themselves, their community, and the local government profession into something greater than it was when they started.
Local Government Management Fellowship
A highly competitive career-development opportunity, the LGMF program is for recent MPA/MPP graduates looking for their first job in local government management. Fellows are selected through a competitive process and placed in one- and two-year full-time management-track local government positions, shaped by direct mentorship under senior government leaders and rotational assignments. Positions are limited annually based on the number of host governments available to fund positions. This is an annual fellowship program with a fall application process for spring/summer placement.
Live Onsite and Online Certificate and Micro-Certificate Programs
Gain in-demand skills and knowledge providing you and your staff with a competitive edge. ICMA’s Certificate programs provide highly targeted, meaningful professional upskilling designed to ensure local government professionals have the adaptive advantage to perform the work that must be done—right now.
Leadership ICMA
Leadership ICMA is an intensive, one-year program designed to cultivate essential competencies for individuals dedicated to a professional future in local government management. Aspiring credentialed managers) who have at least three years of senior management experience in local government or a related field. This program is designed to cultivate key leadership competencies needed for success at all levels of local government management. Year two culminates in the completion of a peer assistance project designed to apply what has been learned.
Local Government 101 Online Certificate Program
LG 101 is a five-course (15-session) online certificate program, featuring completion of the ICMA Professional Certificate in Local Government Management. This interactive program goes back to the basics—grounding local government professionals in those key skills and practices that are the foundation of becoming an effective local government manager. Taught by experienced managers and local government experts, this certificate program is designed to impart real-life experience, best practices, and sound advice in the areas most important to a manager’s day-to-day role.
Local Government 201 Online Certificate Program
LG 201 is a five-course (15-session) online certificate program, designed to help new and mid-career managers, assistant managers, and even career-changers new to local government, go beyond the basics and gain a deeper understanding of key focus areas in local government management. This interactive certificate program is taught by a team of seasoned local government managers and experts, and moves beyond theory and focuses on sharing experiences of how the job actually gets done. Topics include effective communication, public safety, building community, organizational development, and leadership.
Voluntary Credentialing Program
The ICMA Voluntary Credentialing Program is a means of defining and recognizing an individual ICMA member who is a professional local government manager qualified by a combination of education and experience, adherence to high standards of integrity, and an assessed commitment to lifelong learning and professional development. Managers are recognized by ICMA through a peer review credentialing process, and this self-directed program offers an opportunity for interested ICMA members to quantify the unique expertise they bring to their communities.
Legacy Leaders
The Legacy Leaders program honors credentialed managers who coach the next generation and support their professional development and membership in ICMA. Become a Legacy Leader by sponsoring a member of MCMI, Leadership ICMA, ELDP, or by bringing a new member to ICMA.
ICMA Gettysburg Leadership Institute
Each spring or summer, the highly rated ICMA Gettysburg Leadership Institute is held in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, starting with dinner on Wednesday night and ending on Friday evening. Participants stay at the historic Gettysburg Hotel. The program is limited to 30 local government executives—with special consideration given to ICMA Credentialed Managers and Candidates—who meet to study the leadership lessons of Gettysburg and join colleagues in an exploration of personal leadership, organizational effectiveness, disaster management, and the lessons of history. Much of the program takes place on the battlefield itself.
