Overview
Today's leadership challenges cannot be understood simply through individual capability, communication techniques, or management frameworks. Senior leaders operate within complex human systems shaped by competing demands, organizational cultures, informal power structures, and often unseen emotional dynamics.
The Certificate in Effective Leadership for Senior Managers helps experienced leaders develop the capacity to understand and lead within these complex systems. Drawing from organizational behavior, systems thinking, group relations, and systems psychodynamics, participants explore how authority, power, identity, culture, and organizational anxiety influence leadership effectiveness.
Participants learn to diagnose organizational patterns beneath the surface, navigate ambiguity, mobilize collective intelligence, and exercise leadership in ways that create sustainable organizational performance and healthier workplaces.
Program Details
Format
- Online
- 8 Sessions
- half-day / biweekly
Duration/Timing
- 4 months
- Fridays
- 9 am – 12 pm (EST)
Dates
Module 1 | Oct 9 & 23, 2026
Module 2 | Nov 6 & 20, 2026
Module 3 | Dec 4 & 18, 2026
Module 4 | Jan 15 & 29, 2027
Program Fee
$2,500 + HST
Ready to elevate your leadership journey? We are accepting applications for Fall 2026 until Sept 25!
Participant Profile
Senior Managers and Directors, as well as experienced leaders who have led teams or departments for several years, are encouraged to apply.
To support a meaningful peer-to-peer learning environment, all applications are reviewed to ensure alignment with the program’s intended audience. If you are interested, please email your resume or LinkedIn profile to imi.executiveprograms@utoronto.ca and one of our team members will be in touch. If you have already been approved for the program, please proceed with your application:
APPLY HERE
The Deeper Dimensions of Leadership
This immersive certificate program is specifically designed to address the challenges senior leaders face and help them think, act, and influence strategically. It builds upon their strategic leadership skills to support continued growth at both a personal and professional level. Rather than focusing solely on what leaders do, the program examines how leadership emerges through relationships, roles, groups, and systems.
What You'll Be Able to Do After the Program
- Understand organizations as living social systems rather than merely hierarchical structures.
- Diagnose both visible and invisible organizational dynamics.
- Recognize how anxiety and uncertainty influence behaviour, decision making, and culture.
- Exercise authority effectively within complex stakeholder environments.
- Navigate competing organizational demands, political dynamics, and role conflicts.
- Build resilient teams capable of productive dialogue and adaptive learning.
- Lead organizational change by addressing both structural and emotional dimensions.
- Develop greater self-awareness regarding leadership identity, assumptions, defenses, and impact on others.
How You'll Learn
- Masterclass with an Expert - Learn from a senior professor who brings deep expertise and real-world experience to every session.
- Systems Psychodynamic Inquiry - Apply key leadership principles and strategies to real-world scenarios.
- Leadership Laboratories -
Participate in experiential exercises designed to uncover group dynamics, authority relationships, and leadership challenges in real time.
- Organizational Case Consultation - Work with peers to analyze live organizational challenges through a systemic lens.
- Reflective Practice - Develop a deeper understanding of yourself as an instrument of leadership and change.
- Applied Organizational Projects - Apply course concepts directly to complex leadership challenges within your organization.
Leadership begins with understanding the relationship between self, role, and system. This module explores leadership identity, role effectiveness, authority, and personal patterns that influence leadership behavior. Participants examine how they take up leadership roles and how organizational expectations shape their effectiveness.
Topics
- Leadership as a role-in-system
- Sources of authority
- Formal and informal power
- Leadership identity
- Role analysis
- The use of self in leadership
Key Question
Who am I being asked to be in this role, and how do I take up authority effectively?
Senior leaders rarely succeed through expertise alone. Organizational outcomes are often shaped by relationships, competing interests, coalition building, and organizational politics. This module explores how power operates both openly and beneath the surface of organizational life.
Topics
- Sources of organizational power
- Influence and stakeholder dynamics
- Organizational politics
- Boundary management
- Cross-functional leadership
- Projection and scapegoating
- Managing expectations
Key Question
What dynamics are operating beneath the surface of this organizational challenge?
Teams are more than collections of individuals. They function as emotional systems with norms, identities, patterns, and defenses that influence effectiveness. Participants examine group behavior and learn how to create conditions for learning, accountability, psychological safety, and productive conflict.
Topics
- Group dynamics
- Team identity and belonging
- Psychological safety
- Organizational culture
- Social defense systems
- Conflict and collaboration
- Managing diversity of perspectives
- Containment and leadership presence
Key Question
How do groups unconsciously organize themselves around anxiety, conflict, and performance?
Most change initiatives fail not because of poor strategy but because they underestimate the emotional and systemic dynamics involved. This module explores leadership during periods of uncertainty, transformation, and disruption.
Topics
- Systems thinking and organizational change
- Adaptive leadership
- Resistance to change
- Organizational anxiety
- Culture transformation
- Sustaining organizational learning
- Building resilient systems
Key Question
What must change in both the organization and the people within it to achieve sustainable transformation?
Meet the Faculty
Rafael ChiuziRafael Chiuzi is an experienced Organizational Behaviour Consultant with a strong, demonstrated capacity to leverage human capital for the benefit of organizations and people alike. In his ten plus years of innovative practice in North & South America, Europe and the Middle East, he has been able to overcome widespread organizational challenges, and successfully implement lasting and meaningful change. Rafael is also a published author and Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream, at the University of Toronto Mississauga where he teaches organizational behavior and correlated courses. |
I highly recommend the IMIx Certificate in Effective Leadership for Senior Managers. The program provided an invaluable opportunity to engage with fellow senior leaders, all of whom were open about the challenges they face in their roles. This created a collaborative and supportive environment where we could work together to find solutions. What truly set the program apart was the exceptional teaching of Professor Rafael Chiuzi. His insightful, interactive approach helped us navigate complex leadership concepts while ensuring practical application. With real-world examples and a deep understanding of leadership, he enriched the entire experience, providing me with the tools and knowledge to enhance my own leadership journey.
Farhat Rabia
Senior Change Management Lead
Digital Strategy & Engagement
Metrolinx
How to Apply
To support a meaningful peer-to-peer learning environment, all applications are reviewed to ensure alignment with the program’s intended audience. If you are interested, please email your resume or LinkedIn profile to imi.executiveprograms@utoronto and one of our team members will be in touch. If you have already been approved for the program, please proceed with your application:
Before beginning the application process, please review the participant profile to ensure eligibility. Our programs follow one of two pathways for enrollment: Direct Registration or Application Review.
Direct Registration Programs
These programs are open to all participants who meet the general eligibility criteria.
- Register online through the program page.
- Full payment is required at the time of registration.
- Enrollment is on a first-come, first-served basis.
Application Review Programs
These programs involve a review process to ensure alignment between participant goals and program outcomes.
- Programs requiring a review will indicate this in the Participant Profile section
- When a résumé or LinkedIn profile is requested, please email it to imi.executiveprograms@utoronto.ca.
- If accepted, you will receive a confirmation email with instructions on how to proceed with registration and payment.
Participant Notification Process
If space is available and eligibility requirements are met, you will receive an automatic confirmation and receipt from the application system once you have submitted a completed application and fee deposit. Program details, calendar invites, and additional instructions will be sent via email two weeks before the program's start date.
- The full deposit fee is required at time of application. Payment can be made through the application link via credit card. Please note that we do not accept cheque payments.
- Please note that all prices are quoted in Canadian dollars and subject to applicable taxes.
- IMIx certificate program dates, fees and faculty are subject to change. In the case that a program is canceled, you will be offered enrollment in either the same or any other future program or alternatively, a full refund.
Visit our Funding and Financial Support page for information on potential financial assistance options (i.e OSAP) and discounts for groups and alumni.
FAQs
All of our programs are offered entirely online using Zoom (a free basic account is required). There is no in-person component.
The program fee includes all modules and all necessary course materials, including any licensed content. There are no additional costs, Software access or online tools (if applicable) are also fully covered by the fee.
A Certificate of Completion will be awarded to all participants who meet all program requirements, including attending at least 90% of the sessions. Certificates are mailed to participants, and a digital copy can also be provided via email upon request.
For programs that include an assessment component, the certificate is awarded upon successful completion of the required assessment activities. Assessments may include assignments, reflection essays, or a project, and are typically graded on a pass/fail basis.
Programs that include an assessment:
- Canadian Income Tax Practice
- Data Analytics
- Effective Healthcare Management
- Strategy & Critical Thinking
Programs that do not include an assessment:
- Effective Leadership for Senior Managers
- Pharma Challenges and Opportunities
- Governance & Ethics
- Effective Management of People
You may be eligible for a discount if you are;
- U of T or IMIx alumni
- Individuals eligible for a special offer (e.g., Early Bird or Team Discount)
- Teams of three or more participants from the same organization
- Groups of two or more individuals enrolling together (e.g., friends or family)
Visit our Funding and Financial Support page for more information.
Cancellation Policy
If you are no longer able to attend a program, requests must be sent via email to imi.executiveprograms@utoronto.ca. The following options will apply:
- 21+ days notice: You will be eligible for a 100% refund
- 10+ days notice: You will be eligible for a 50% refund
- Less than 10 days notice: you will not be eligible for any refund
In any of the above cases, you will have the option to take a credit or transfer registration to another person.
Group registrations are paid in advance and cannot be cancelled. However, participants may be substituted at any time before the program begins, provided the substitute meets the admission criteria.