Outstanding Instruction

Margaret Cooley, M.A.

Margaret Cooley is the Director of the Leadership Development Institute (LDI) and has been a senior faculty member since 1986.  She oversees the open-enrollment programs including the Leadership Development Program (LDP)^®, Maximizing Your Leadership Potential (MLP), Mastering Conflict Dynamics (MCD) and Lasting Leadership (LLP).  With extensive experience in organizational consulting and seminar design, Margaret has special interests in conflict resolution, leadership and gender, emotional intelligence and the assessment of factors associated with executive success.  She has coached hundreds of mid-level to C-suite executives from prestigious organizations and has conducted countless high-impact, interactive training events aimed at improving leadership effectiveness, enhancing self-awareness and building high-performance teams.  Margaret received her degrees from Rhodes College and the University of Chicago.

Peter Hammerschmidt, Ph.D.

Peter is a Professor of Economics and has been a member of the Eckerd College faculty since 1977. He has served as a lead instructor at LDI since 1984. He makes frequent public presentations on economics, leadership, decision-making and creative problem-solving styles. His research interests and publications include Male/Female Management Diversity, Leadership traits and Creative Problem Solving styles and team effectiveness. In 1984, he was the recipient of the Robert A. Staub Distinguished Professor of the Year Award.  He is a graduate of Colorado State University.

Joseph D. Carella, Psy.D.

Joe is the Customized Solutions Consultant and a Lead Instructor at the Eckerd College Leadership Development Institute (LDI) as well as a licensed clinical psychologist with over 20 years of experience in the practice of psychotherapy. He has extensive experience as a psychotherapist, executive coach, instructor and group facilitator, and is currently an independent practitioner in St. Petersburg. Joe was the Director of Eckerd College’s Counseling & Health Services as well as an adjunct member of the psychology faculty from 1995 to 2005. Additionally, Joe works with professional, collegiate and amateur athletes and has served as a facilitator for the NFL Rookie Symposium since 2004. Joe earned his B.A. from Fairfield University, his Psy.D. from Nova University and completed his post doctoral fellowship at the University of Rochester.

Julia Welch, Ph.D.

Julia Welch is a senior faculty member and executive coach at Eckerd College’s Leadership Development Institute. She has also worked as a moderator for Harvard Business Publishing’s corporate training programs. Before her work in leadership development, she taught management at Suffolk University, the University of Houston, and Eckerd College. She has presented at numerous conferences and published research in such areas as employee motivation, compensation, challenges faced by fast-growth companies, multicultural diversity, and work-life balance. Julia holds a Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior from the University of Michigan and a bachelor’s degree in Economics from Eckerd College. She is a Board Certified Coach through the Center for Credentialing and Education.

Maggie W. Dunn, DBA

Maggie Dunn is the Coaching Talent Lead and Executive Coach at Eckerd College’s Leadership Development Institute. Maggie has over 20 years of Human Resource leadership experience in Fortune 500 companies. Prior to establishing her consulting practice, HR Leadership Solutions, she was on Motorola’s HR leadership team with overall talent management responsibility for international business units at every stage of the business life-cycle. She has worked extensively with business leaders across the U.S., Latin America, Asia and Europe.  Before joining Motorola, Maggie was with McDonnell Douglas Corporation (now part of Boeing) where she established the company’s first Career Resource Center and provided strategic acquisition integration support.  Maggie is a member of the Management Faculty for Nova Southeastern University’s Wayne Huizenga College of Business and Entrepreneurship. She teaches leadership and HR courses in the MBA program. Dr. Dunn earned her Doctorate in Business Administration from Nova Southeastern University.  Her dissertation is titled “The Impact of Leadership on Employees’ Commitment to the Organization: An International Perspective.”  She earned her Masters degree in Education with a concentration in Human Resource Development and her Bachelors in Psychology from the American University in Washington, D.C.

Rebecca Armacost

Rebecca Armacost is the Executive Director of the Mediation Training Institute (MTI) at Eckerd College. Rebecca has held various leadership and executive positions in Human Resources and Organizational Development. Most recently, Rebecca served as the Senior Director of People & Culture for World Vision International, the largest multi-national charity in the world. In this position, Rebecca was responsible for creating and restructuring various Human Resource functions and departments around the world, coaching and advising senior executives on all people issues, and leading global teams of senior professionals in various departments including HR Business Partnering and Professional Development. Rebecca holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology from Furman University and a Master’s Degree in Organizational Development and Design from Fielding Graduate University. She is certified as an Executive Coach through New Ventures West, an International Coaching Federation accredited program. Rebecca is certified as a Master Change Agent through GE’s Six Sigma process and holds various certifications to conduct and facilitate training and assessments including, Myers Briggs, FIRO-B, Birkman, Benchmarks 360, and the Thomas Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument. Rebecca has held numerous leadership positions on non-profit boards where she has champions the causes of women and children as well as promoted education for both. She currently serves as the President of the Furman University Alumni Board of Directors, Chair of the YWCA of Tampa Bay Board of Directors, and as a member of the Leadership St. Pete Class Class of 2012 and Planning Committee.

For the fourth year in a row, the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL®) ranked No. 4 overall in the 2017 Financial Times worldwide survey of executive education. CCL has earned a Top 10 ranking for 16 consecutive years and remains the only institution among 85 in the survey focused exclusively on leadership development.

12 Challenges Facing New Managers

White Paper
by Center for Creative Leadership

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