Mastering Executive Influence: Neuroscience-Driven Leadership Strategies

In an era where leadership effectiveness defines organizational success, executives are expected to project confidence, influence stakeholders, and drive impact on high-stakes projects as well as in day-to-day operations. Achieving this requires more than experience — it calls for a purposeful integration of executive presence and science-based influence.

The Mastering Executive Influence: Neuroscience-Driven Leadership Strategies program from Wharton Executive Education brings together the Executive Presence and Influence program and Understanding the Brain program into a comprehensive learning journey. This experience equips you with a science-backed playbook to refine executive presence for credibility and trust and to leverage neuroscience-driven influence techniques informed by psychology. You will also learn to leverage cognitive persuasion frameworks to advance strategic objectives and elevate decision making through an advanced understanding of how the brain processes information.

This immersive 12-week program enables you to:

• Cultivate an unshakable executive presence to inspire trust and authority

• Strengthen your strategic communication skills for high-stakes leadership

• Apply neuroscience-driven persuasion techniques to shape decisions

• Navigate power dynamics and secure stakeholder alignment

• Make high-impact decisions informed by cognitive insights

Acquire science-backed frameworks and leadership insights to project your executive presence, influence with intent, and drive lasting organizational impact.

The Mastering Executive Influence: Neuroscience-Driven Leadership Strategies program is designed for senior executives, emerging leaders, and enterprise influencers seeking to elevate their executive presence, influence outcomes, and lead with cognitive precision. It is ideal for:

• C-suite executives and senior leaders: CEOs, COOs, CFOs, CMOs, VPs, and directors seeking to project executive presence, engage boards and investors, and shape enterprise strategy through science-backed influence

• High-potential leaders and rising executives: Senior managers and leadership-track talent preparing for expanded roles by cultivating presence, building strategic capital, and navigating complex decision environments

• Founders and growth-stage leaders: Entrepreneurs and organization owners aiming to strengthen credibility, mobilize investors and partners, and steer negotiations and high-stakes discussions with precision

• Advisors and consultants: Management consultants, executive coaches, and financial and legal advisors seeking advanced influence strategies to build trust, drive client alignment, and elevate advisory impact

• Commercial and business-development leaders: Heads of sales, CMOs, negotiators, and senior business development executives looking to apply neuroscience-backed persuasion to secure buy-in, drive market growth, and close high-value deals

The Mastering Executive Influence: Neuroscience-Driven Leadership Strategies program is designed specifically to help you:

• Identify mission-critical leadership principles and refine mindset and behaviors to strengthen executive presence

• Understand brain anatomy and physiology and assess techniques for applying cognitive insights in leadership

• Leverage rhetorical strategy and the social brain to advance agendas, build social capital, shape culture, and drive change

• Apply strategic networking to build authentic connections and craft a personal leadership narrative that defines vision and character

• Synthesize business decision making using normalization, choice overload, decoy effects, and evidence accumulation enhanced by neuroscience tools and insights

• Examine brain processes underlying exploration to boost creativity and drive organizational innovation

Create a pitch

With Wharton's Understanding the Brain: Using Neuroscience to Deliver Better Business Results program, you will get a chance to pitch a startup that develops and commercializes a novel application of brain science to business or pitch an application of brain science relevant to your current organization.

Create an action plan

With Wharton’s Executive Presence and Influence program, you will be ready to display your leadership skills in real time with real impact. During the program, you will receive relevant tools to create your leadership narrative through:

• Informal influence: Recognize the factors influencing your ability to achieve meaningful impact

• Communication of vision: Use your vision for your future self to strategize your success

• Informal networks: Identify techniques to diversify your network strategically

• Leadership narrative: Strengthen your leadership presence

• Framework for persuasion: Understand the foundations of successful persuasion

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).