Leadership Development Program

2025-2026 Leadership Development Program

Applications for the 2025-2026 cohort are now open!

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  • Click on "2025-2026 Leadership Development Program" to submit your application.

  • Applications are due June 30, 2025. 

Are you interested in volunteering for leadership positions, but feel like you don’t have the right skills? Have you been in positions of leadership, but felt like you didn’t quite know how to be effective? Would you like to learn how to be a better leader in both professional and volunteer roles? If so, ISHA has a new program developed with you in mind!

ISHA’s Leadership Development Program (LDP) is a seven-month curriculum designed to teach speech-language pathologists and audiologists to apply acquired knowledge and skills in future professional and volunteer leadership roles, while building a strong pipeline of future leaders for ISHA volunteer positions. These skills are also valuable when applied in the professional work setting. By the end of the LDP, participants will be able to develop goals for applying leadership knowledge and skills to professional and volunteer roles.

The program utilizes materials made available by ASHA for state associations through the Leadership Academy and Leadership Development Program Toolkit. Each month from September 2025 through February 2026, participants watch a one-hour webinar focused on a particular leadership topic on their own time. All members of the group meet in an online forum on the second Tuesday of each month at 7 p.m. (CT) to engage in a facilitated discussion on that month’s topic. Topics include Emotional Intelligence, Conflict Management, Influencing Others, and more. 

Program Details and Requirements

  • The program is provided at no cost.

  • Applicants must agree to watch all pre-recorded webinars and participate in all live online facilitated discussions.

  • Participants must be active Affiliate or Regular members of ISHA in order to apply. Life/Retired/Student/Spouse members are not eligible for this program.

  • Participants meeting all graduation requirements will receive a certificate of completion at the conclusion of the program.

  • Participants who wish to receive ASHA CEs must pay the applicable ASHA CE fees directly to ASHA for each webinar.

  • One of the requirements for participation and graduation of the Illinois Leadership Development Program is the selection and completion of a leadership project. These projects are meant to benefit the participant’s professional or volunteer community and serve as learning experiences for participants to apply leadership tools and techniques contained in the program. Project objectives should be reachable and achieved during the course of the LDP. Brief updates (1-2 mins) on project completion will be given at each meeting throughout the course of the year with mentoring support provided by the LDP team, if needed. The updates might consist of the following questions about the project:  What is your project?  What is one key insight or lesson learned so far? All projects must be completed by March 1.