High-Impact Leadership Communication
Effective communication strategies for modern leaders
Build enterprise alignment with the High-Impact Leadership Communication program
The High-Impact Leadership Communication program from Wharton Executive Education helps mid- to senior-level leaders and high-potential professionals develop communication intelligence to lead with clarity, credibility, and impact. In modern organizations, communication shapes trust, decision making, and outcomes as powerfully as strategy, especially in fast-moving, digitally amplified environments. As AI tools increasingly influence professional communication, leadership advantage depends on combining speed and efficiency with sound human judgment.
Led by Wharton faculty, this six-week online program builds communication intelligence for high-impact leadership roles, drawing on applied frameworks, practical tools, and real-world exercises to sharpen judgment across everyday interactions and moments of high visibility and consequence. You will learn how to use digital and AI tools responsibly while knowing when human judgment must guide accountability and trust. By the end of the program, you will develop a Leadership Communication Playbook — a personalized and practical guide that captures your communication approach and supports effective leadership under pressure.
Key takeaways
Through this program, you will develop practical communication capabilities that strengthen leadership effectiveness across everyday interactions and high-stakes situations. The program will enable you to:
Improve effectiveness and credibility as a leader by adapting your communication style across audiences and contexts
Drive alignment and impact through persuasive communication in professional and leadership settings
Strengthen trust and team engagement by listening actively and responding with intention
Enhance communication effectiveness by using digital platforms and AI tools responsibly
Build and sustain trust, empathy, and credibility by communicating with clarity under pressure
Faculty quote
Program highlights
Immerse yourself in a structured six-module curriculum focused on strengthening leadership effectiveness through clear, credible, and persuasive communication across contexts.
Build effective communication skills using evidence-based insights from behavioral research on trust, emotion, and leadership communication.
Develop practical approaches to digital communication; AI-assisted tools; and high-stakes situations where scrutiny, speed, and visibility are high.
Engage in real time with Wharton faculty to deepen your understanding and apply core communication concepts to leadership scenarios.
Apply learning through self-study try-it activities, weekly assignments, and reflection exercises designed to reinforce real-world application.
Conclude the program with a customized communication playbook that aligns your communication strategy with your leadership goals and responsibilities.
What you will learn in the Wharton High-Impact Leadership Communication program
The High-Impact Leadership Communication program is designed with the needs of busy mid- to senior-level leaders and high-potential professionals in mind. You will learn through video lectures, applied frameworks, practical exercises, and interactive discussions guided by Wharton faculty. The program curriculum combines research-based learning, real-world application, and collaboration within a diverse peer group, enabling you to strengthen communication strategies, lead with credibility, and communicate effectively in high-stakes leadership situations.
Develop the awareness, tools, and frameworks to communicate effectively by clarifying goals, understanding audiences, and recognizing personal communication tendencies. You will build skills in clarity, active listening, and effective responses to support everyday leadership communication across audiences and contexts.
Analyze how personality traits and conflict styles shape communication behaviors and outcomes
Adapt communication approaches to align with diverse audience expectations and perspectives
Define clear conversational goals to improve focus, clarity, and intention
Craft clear, purposeful messages that drive understanding and meaningful responses
Build the tools and frameworks to use communication as a core leadership capability for setting direction, coordinating work, motivating performance, and learning from others. You will examine how clear goals guide behavior, reduce risk, and shape how leaders’ words and actions are understood. The module also develops techniques for clarity, active listening, credibility, and persuasive messaging, enabling intentional and responsible communication across varied professional settings.
Explain how communication enables core leadership responsibilities
Develop clear visions and goals while anticipating risks and consequences
Apply communication techniques that strengthen trust and credibility
Craft persuasive leadership messages tailored to varied professional contexts
Develop the tools and frameworks to identify cues and conditions that affect communication effectiveness at work. The module builds strategies to adapt messages, anticipate challenges, and strengthen trust and engagement through active listening. The module also builds communication strategies to adapt messages with intention, anticipate challenges, and apply active listening to strengthen trust, engagement, and impact within teams.
Identify cues and conditions that may signal deception
Understand what builds or damages trust in professional relationships
Analyze how emotions influence communication and decision making
Apply strategies for managing emotions in difficult conversations
Build the tools and frameworks to navigate how communication media, digital norms, and systems shape trust, clarity, and collaboration in modern work. You will apply practical principles to choose the right channels, set digital norms, and design communication systems for remote and hybrid teams. The module also shows how to use digital platforms and AI tools to support communication at scale.
Evaluate how various communication media affect trust, clarity, and participation
Apply principles for effective in-person and video communication
Establish norms for digital tools and meeting recordings to promote psychological safety
Design communication systems that support alignment and durable decision making
Gain a clear understanding of how AI and automation are changing communication, including benefits and risks. You will gain hands-on experience by using AI tools to plan, draft, refine, and evaluate communication while maintaining accuracy, tone, authenticity, and trust. The module addresses ethical risks such as bias, errors, and overreliance and helps you decide when AI or human judgment should lead.
Leverage AI tools to support communication planning and drafting
Evaluate AI-generated content for accuracy, tone, bias, and potential risks
Assess when AI enhances communication and when human judgment is essential
Apply ethical principles to avoid overreliance and maintain accountability
Examine how communication changes under pressure in high-stakes situations by analyzing real-world cases and research-based frameworks. You will explore what makes apologies effective, how anger affects judgment, and how structure supports clarity under pressure. Using crisis negotiation principles, the module builds skills for calm, empathetic, and effective communication in difficult situations.
Assess what distinguishes effective from ineffective apologies
Develop approaches for managing anger in high-stakes interactions
Use structured communication frameworks under time pressure and deadlines
Apply crisis-negotiation principles to challenging workplace conversations
Note: Module topics are subject to change.
Effective leadership communication in digital and AI-enabled environments
Modern leadership communication now unfolds across a growing range of digital channels — and increasingly with the support of AI tools. In this program, you move beyond simply learning what tools are available to developing sound judgment about when and how to use them to reinforce trust, clarity, and impact.
Communicate with intention by selecting the medium that best enables clarity, trust, and participation.
Set clear norms for meetings, recordings, and collaboration tools to minimize friction and foster psychological safety.
Leverage AI to support planning and drafting while applying human judgment to tone, accuracy, and accountability.
Design communication for speed, visibility, and high-pressure situations without compromising credibility or empathy.
Frame decisions, manage emotion, and communicate accountability when visibility is high and the stakes are real.
Leadership Communication Playbook
The Leadership Communication Playbook is developed progressively across the six modules of the program and serves as the culminating project. In each module, you complete a dedicated playbook activity that helps you synthesize key concepts, tools, and reflections from that week’s learning.
As the program progresses, these module-level inputs come together into a cohesive, personalized communication tool kit. At the end of the program, you will leave with a practical, actionable playbook that captures your communication approach; supports sound judgment under pressure; and guides how you communicate across audiences, channels, and high-stakes leadership situations.
Meet the faculty
Gain insights from renowned Wharton faculty whose research spans decision making, trust, behavioral science, and technology economics. You will leverage their research-driven expertise to strengthen communication intelligence, navigate high-stakes and everyday leadership interactions, and use digital and AI tools responsibly to address modern communication challenges.
Cecilia Yen Koo Professor; Professor of Operations, Information and Decisions; Professor of Management, The Wharton School; Academic Director of Effective Decision Making, a Wharton Executive Education Program
Maurice Schweitzer is the Cecilia Yen Koo Professor and a professor of operations, information, and decisions and of management at the Wharton School of the University of Penn...
Assistant Professor of Operations, Information and Decisions, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
Daniel Rock is an assistant professor of operations, information, and decisions at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. His research examines the economic eff...
Certificate
Upon successful completion of the High-Impact Leadership Communication program, you will earn a digital certificate of completion from the Wharton School.
Note: After successful completion of the online program, your verified digital certificate will be emailed to you in the name you used when registering for the program. All certificate images are for illustrative purposes only and may be subject to change at the discretion of the Wharton School.
FAQs
The High-Impact Leadership Communication program focuses on effective communication and leadership communication, helping leaders develop communication intelligence about what to say, how to say it, and when to say it in real-world professional and executive contexts. Through applied frameworks, reflective exercises, and hands-on work with digital and AI tools, participants develop the ability to plan, evaluate, and refine communication across audiences and channels.
The program is designed to strengthen leadership communication skills that support trust, alignment, and clarity under pressure. Through applied frameworks and practical tools, you will build communication intelligence and sharpen executive presence; persuasive messaging, active listening, and the ability to deliver difficult messages with credibility, especially in digitally amplified and AI-enabled environments.
The program focuses on building communication intelligence for high-stakes leadership situations. Participants learn how communication choices are shaped, amplified, and interpreted in digitally mediated and AI-enabled environments where messages travel quickly and consequences are magnified.
The program emphasizes when and how leaders should communicate; how to anticipate downstream effects of messages; and how to maintain clarity, credibility, and trust in situations marked by visibility, urgency, and consequence.
The High-Impact Leadership Communication program treats communication as a core leadership capability rather than a standalone skill, focusing on how leaders use communication to set direction, align teams, navigate trade-offs, and manage stakeholder expectations across organizational contexts.
You will develop the ability to make deliberate communication choices by selecting appropriate channels; framing decisions with clarity; and responding thoughtfully in situations marked by visibility, complexity, and consequence. The program strengthens leadership effectiveness by enabling clearer alignment, sound judgment, and more consistent decision making across everyday interactions and high-stakes leadership moments.
The High-Impact Leadership Communication program strengthens your ability to communicate effectively in difficult and sensitive situations by helping you understand how pressure, emotion, and context influence communication choices.
You will learn structured approaches for delivering difficult messages, managing conflict, and responding to mistakes or setbacks in ways that preserve trust, credibility, and professionalism. The program also strengthens your ability to navigate high-stakes conversations thoughtfully, balancing clarity, empathy, and accountability when consequences and visibility are high.
The High-Impact Leadership Communication program strengthens communication in digital and AI-enabled environments by helping leaders apply intelligence and judgment when using AI and digital tools across high-stakes professional contexts.
You will learn how to preserve clarity, credibility, and trust when AI is used to draft messages, shape stakeholder communication, and support decision making. The program also equips you with practical strategies to communicate effectively across remote and hybrid teams, where tone, alignment, and accountability are harder to sustain.
The High-Impact Leadership Communication program helps leaders communicate with greater clarity, credibility, and strategic intent when the stakes are high. It is designed to help mid- to senior-level professionals strengthen communication intelligence and gain clarity and credibility in everyday leadership interactions and high-stakes situations. Delivered by Wharton Executive Education, the program focuses on communication across digital and AI-enabled environments.
The value you get out of an effective communication program varies based on your professional goals, learning preferences, and the contexts in which communication is applied. Some focus on presentation skills or foundational techniques, while others emphasize specific formats or delivery styles.
The High-Impact Leadership Communication program is designed for leaders who want to strengthen communication as a core leadership capability. The curriculum emphasizes communication intelligence, how leaders exercise judgment, maintain credibility, and build trust when communication decisions carry visibility and consequence.
Through applied frameworks, behavioral research, and hands-on work with digital and AI-enabled tools, participants learn to communicate with clarity and accountability across high-stakes professional contexts. The program culminates in a Leadership Communication Playbook that translates learning into a practical, decision-focused approach leaders can apply across everyday and high-impact situations.
The High-Impact Leadership Communication program, offered by Wharton Executive Education, addresses how leaders use digital and AI-enabled tools as part of modern leadership communication.
Participants learn how AI can support communication planning, drafting, refinement, and evaluation, while applying human judgment to preserve clarity, credibility, and trust. The program emphasizes responsible use of AI in professional communication, helping leaders assess when technology adds value and when leadership judgment must guide tone, accuracy, and accountability in high-visibility contexts.
How do I know if this program is right for me?
After reviewing the information on the program landing page, we recommend you submit the short form above to gain access to the program brochure, which includes more in-depth information. If you still have questions on whether this program is a good fit for you, please email learner.success@emeritus.org, and a dedicated program advisor will follow-up with you very shortly.
Are there any prerequisites for this program?
Some programs do have prerequisites, particularly the more technical ones. This information will be noted on the program landing page, as well as in the program brochure. If you are uncertain about program prerequisites and your capabilities, please email us at the ID mentioned above.
Note that, unless otherwise stated on the program web page, all programs are taught in English and proficiency in English is required.
What is the typical class profile?
More than 50 percent of our participants are from outside the United States. Class profiles vary from one cohort to the next, but, generally, our online certificates draw a highly diverse audience in terms of professional experience, industry, and geography — leading to a very rich peer learning and networking experience.
What other dates will this program be offered in the future?
Check back to this program web page or email us to inquire if future program dates or the timeline for future offerings have been confirmed yet.
How much time is required each week?
Each program includes an estimated learner effort per week. This is referenced at the top of the program landing page under the Duration section, as well as in the program brochure, which you can obtain by submitting the short form at the top of this web page.
How will my time be spent?
We have designed this program to fit into your current working life as efficiently as possible. Time will be spent among a variety of activities including:
Engaging with recorded video lectures from faculty
Attending webinars and office hours, as per the specific program schedule
Reading or engaging with examples of core topics
Completing knowledge checks/quizzes and required activities
Engaging in moderated discussion groups with your peers
Completing your final project, if required
The program is designed to be highly interactive while also allowing time for self-reflection and to demonstrate an understanding of the core topics through various active learning exercises. Please email us if you need further clarification on program activities.
What is it like to learn online with the learning collaborator, Emeritus?
More than 350,000 learners across 80 countries have chosen to advance their skills with Emeritus and its educational learning partners. In fact, 90 percent of the respondents of a recent survey across all our programs said that their learning outcomes were met or exceeded.
All the contents of the course would be made available to students at the commencement of the course. However, to ensure the program delivers the desired learning outcomes the students may appoint Emeritus to manage the delivery of the program in a cohort-based manner the cost of which is already included in the overall course fee of the course.
A dedicated program support team is available 24/5 (Monday to Friday) to answer questions about the learning platform, technical issues, or anything else that may affect your learning experience.
How do I interact with other program participants?
Peer learning adds substantially to the overall learning experience and is an important part of the program. You can connect and communicate with other participants through our learning platform.
What are the requirements to earn the certificate?
Each program includes an estimated learner effort per week, so you can gauge what will be required before you enroll. This is referenced at the top of the program landing page under the Duration section, as well as in the program brochure, which you can obtain by submitting the short form at the top of this web page. All programs are designed to fit into your working life.
This program is scored as a pass or no-pass; participants must complete the required activities to pass and obtain the certificate of completion. Some programs include a final project submission or other assignments to obtain passing status. This information will be noted in the program brochure. Please email us if you need further clarification on any specific program requirements.
What type of certificate will I receive?
Upon successful completion of the program, you will receive a smart digital certificate. The smart digital certificate can be shared with friends, family, schools, or potential employers. You can use it on your cover letter, resume, and/or display it on your LinkedIn profile. The digital certificate will be sent approximately two weeks after the program, once grading is complete.
Can I get the hard copy of the certificate?
No, only verified digital certificates will be issued upon successful completion. This allows you to share your credentials on social platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.
Do I receive alumni status after completing this program?
No, there is no alumni status granted for this program. In some cases, there are credits that count toward a higher level of certification. This information will be clearly noted in the program brochure.
How long will I have access to the learning materials?
You will have access to the online learning platform and all the videos and program materials for 12 months following the program start date. Access to the learning platform is restricted to registered participants per the terms of agreement.
What equipment or technical requirements are there for this program?
Participants will need the latest version of their preferred browser to access the learning platform. In addition, Microsoft Office and a PDF viewer are required to access documents, spreadsheets, presentations, PDF files, and transcripts.
Do I need to be online to access the program content?
Yes, the learning platform is accessed via the internet, and video content is not available for download. However, you can download files of video transcripts, assignment templates, readings, etc. For maximum flexibility, you can access program content from a desktop, laptop, tablet, or mobile device.
Video lectures must be streamed via the internet, and any livestream webinars and office hours will require an internet connection. However, these sessions are always recorded, so you may view them later.
Can I still register if the registration deadline has passed?
Yes, you can register up until seven days past the published start date of the program without missing any of the core program material or learnings.
What is the program fee, and what forms of payment do you accept?
The program fee is noted at the top of this program web page and usually referenced in the program brochure as well.
Flexible payment options are available (see details below as well as at the top of this program web page next to FEE).
Tuition assistance is available for participants who qualify. Please email learner.success@emeritus.org.
What if I don’t have a credit card? Is there another method of payment accepted?
Yes, you can do the bank remittance in the program currency via wire transfer or debit card. Please contact your program advisor, or email us for details.
I was not able to use the discount code provided. Can you help?
Yes! Please email us with the details of the program you are interested in, and we will assist you.
How can I obtain an invoice for payment?
Please email us your invoicing requirements and the specific program you’re interested in enrolling in.
Is there an option to make flexible payments for this program?
Yes, the flexible payment option allows a participant to pay the program fee in installments. This option is made available on the payment page and should be selected before submitting the payment.
How can I obtain a W9 form?
Please connect with us via email for assistance.
Who will be collecting the payment for the program?
Emeritus collects all program payments, provides learner enrollment and program support, and manages learning platform services.
Are there any restrictions on the types of funding that can be used to pay for the program?
Program fees for Emeritus programs with Wharton Executive Education may not be paid for with (a) funds from the GI Bill, the Post-9/11 Educational Assistance Act of 2008, or similar types of military education funding benefits or (b) Title IV financial aid funds.
What is the program refund and deferral policy?
For the program refund and deferral policy, please click the link here.
Didn't find what you were looking for? Write to us at learner.success@emeritus.org or Schedule a call with one of our Program Advisors or call us at +1 680 205 5118 (US) / +44 185 845 9995 (UK) / +65 3135 1422 (SG)
Flexible payment options available.
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