Center for Leadership
Studies

As founder of Generative Leadership Group, Mel Toomey has helped to usher organizations through cultural and business changes and coached senior leaders of Fortune 500 companies. He is committed to establishing leadership as a profession and to elevating the study of leadership as a legitimate academic pursuit.

“Organizational-scale leadership is not just good management with some style and charisma,” Toomey asserts. “In my view, leading has little to do with individual characteristics like style, charisma and presence. Such notions diminish leadership by suggesting that it is cosmetic, and I believe it is much more than that. We need leaders who develop their people with the same acuity with which they develop the business of their organization.”

Historically, acquiring the capability to lead an organization has not come quickly: it requires experience, changing roles in jobs, and having people available to mentor and teach over what might be a ten or fifteen-year time span. In his years of coaching and consulting, Toomey identified a need to find ways to accelerate the development of leaders without compromising the quality of the outcome. In answer, he designed the MAOL.

“This program is a way to take what occurs over ten or fifteen years in an organization and bring it to bear in 18 months, and to demonstrate that in terms of real business outcomes,” Toomey explains. “It’s a way to meet the demand and need for leaders in organization and to do so in such a way that the business outcomes are consistent with the needs of the business.”

Through the MAOL, Toomey intends to lay bare the distinctions between management sciences and leadership arts. He holds that leadership, while not devoid of scientific management aspects, is an art form that entails bringing into existence something new in order to produce groundbreaking results. He believes that leaders must be able to distinguish clearly what they see for their organizations, be effective in causing results across business systems, and be avid learners and master educators capable of generating new leaders within their organizations.

As crucial as they are, these activities are beyond the scope of today’s traditional MBA programs. Toomey has purposely designed the MAOL to fill the gaps left by higher education and guide candidates into authentic, creative leadership that is an expression of self in service to a higher cause.

“The thing that excites me the most is what happens when we can see the correlation between what we are doing, what our organizations are asking us to do, and how it is that what we do is making a difference,” Toomey says. “It would be easy to make the organization responsible for that one, and I think you could make a good case for it. But beyond that, there is not a thing in the world that prevents us from seeing how it is that our work makes a difference in the world.”

Mel holds an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters for his contributions to establishing leadership as a profession. He serves as Scholar in Residence at the Graduate Institute in Bethany, Connecticut, where he works to advance his methodology for rapid leader development.

Mel teaches leadership at the Graduate Institute and the University of Arkansas. He is the principle designer for one of the first Master of Arts in Organizational Leadership accredited degree programs offered to mid-career business leaders. Mel is also co-designer of the first certificate program in the emerging field of leadership, faith and spirituality sponsored by the Tyson Center for Faith and Spirituality in the Workplace, University of Arkansas, Sam Walton School of Business.

Mel is the founder of The Center for Leadership Studies, which provides research, development and program material for degree and certification programs. He is also the founder of Generative Leadership Group, an internationally recognized consulting and advisory services firm.