Innovation Leadership Program (ILP)

Overview

The Innovation Leadership Program is an experiential development model designed by the Center for Higher Education Innovation (CHEI) to build institutional capacity for operational strategy, data-informed decision-making, and cross-unit implementation.

Rather than separating learning from practice, the program embeds participants directly within active CHEI initiatives, developing talent while accelerating institutional work.

The Challenge

Institutions often struggle to translate strategy into execution due to limited capacity, fragmented implementation, and a lack of applied leadership development. Traditional professional development models separate learning from practice, resulting in limited impact on institutional operations.

At the same time, innovation efforts frequently rely on centralized teams, creating bottlenecks and limiting scalability across units.

As a result, institutions face difficulty:

• building a pipeline of leaders with applied strategy and implementation experience
• aligning institutional priorities with unit-level execution
• sustaining innovation beyond pilot initiatives
• scaling operational improvements across teams and departments

Without intentional structures for developing and deploying talent, institutions are limited in their ability to implement and sustain change.

What We Do

• Design and operate an experiential leadership development model embedded within active CHEI initiatives
• Develop graduate students (Innovation Scholars) to build applied skills while supporting execution
• Equip professional staff (Innovation Fellows) to lead implementation within their home units
• Establish structured onboarding, coaching, and deliverables aligned with institutional priorities
• Create repeatable systems for implementation, documentation, and knowledge sharing
• Align leadership development with real institutional work and measurable outcomes

How This Work Is Different

The Innovation Leadership Program integrates leadership development directly into institutional work rather than treating it as a separate activity. Participants contribute to active initiatives, ensuring that learning is applied, relevant, and immediately impactful.

The program is designed to build distributed capacity rather than centralized dependency. By embedding leadership within units and aligning it with institutional strategy, the model enables scalable implementation across the institution.

It also introduces a structured pathway for recognizing demonstrated capability through the Pegasus Innovation Strategist credential, reinforcing a culture of execution, accountability, and operational excellence.

Impact

• Builds a pipeline of leaders with applied strategy and implementation experience
• Increases institutional capacity to execute and scale initiatives
• Reduces reliance on centralized teams by distributing implementation capability
• Strengthens alignment between strategy and operations across units
• Creates repeatable models for documentation, governance, and scale

Partners

UCF Dept. of Educational Leadership & Higher Education

UCF Dixon Career Development Center

UCF Office of Academic Advocacy