With over 5 decades of experience in business management, Mike Cook is an intuitive and seasoned Leadership Coach and Trainer. His 15-month leadership training program, "Next Generation Leaders LevelUP", equips aspiring managers with the essential tools and strategies to become exceptional leaders.
Created in conjunction with Corsum Academy, the program has, as its foundation, the key concepts of Emotional Intelligence - the essential toolkit for all great leaders. Students take a DISC profile and an EQ (Emotional Quotient) test and are coached to understand who they are as individuals, what drives their behaviors and how to regulate them. It progresses into understanding what drives behaviors in others and explains the leadership skills necessary to recruit, develop and lead high performance teams and mission critical projects.
Targeted at existing managers, the 15 month leadership training program consists of directed self study where the students will watch videos and read articles from subject experts and prepare for in class practical exercises, followed by a monthly face to face group session with a course leader who provides further training material and organizes workshops and discussions. Students are encouraged to put their learnings into practice between meetings and to discuss results in the next class.
Students are required to demonstrate key take-aways from the course in order to graduate and receive their graduation certificate from Corsum Academy.
We run leadership training courses with students from multiple companies. Face-to-face sessions are in person or run virtually. Students have the opportunity to bring leadership topics or questions for discussion with their peers within the group and the whole group enjoys a collective learning experience.
We run internal courses for individual companies also in an in-person or virtual format. These leadership development courses foster cross functional knowledge and collaboration within the company and create bonding and peer groups that last beyond the duration of the course. LevelUP Executive coaching and training options are available for more senior leadership teams.
Each LevelUP leadership training program has a dedicated Course Leader selected from our network of experienced Facilitators skilled in leadership development coaching. TCFs have their own unique blend of leadership and coaching skills and contribute their own personal experiences into their courses.
Mike is a seasoned business leader having worked for BP, 3M, Alcatel and Hughes in management, leadership and executive positions. He started and ran a pan-European telecommunications joint venture and, prior to his retirement from Hughes in 2019, was part of the executive team that ran North American operations.
Post retirement, Mike has worked with TAB (The Alternative Board) as a an executive coach, a board facilitator and leadership trainer. He provided leadership training as well as consulting on marketing and business strategy.
Corsum Academy focuses on Leadership Training under principals Denise and Martin O'Neill. Martin is author of several books: 'Act Like an Owner', 'The Power of an Internal Franchise', 'Building Business Value' and 'Next Generation Leaders'. Denise runs TAB in the Baltimore-Washington region including boards and coaching for business owners and executives. Corsum have developed an online course, 'Next Generation Leaders (NGL), which is targeted at new and less experienced managers.