Designing executive education programmes for today's leaders

Executive education begins with the recognition that we are not teaching students - we are working with experienced leaders. When we step into an executive classroom, we are not entering a traditional academic environment. We are entering a room filled with experience, authority, skepticism, ambition, and constraint. Participants arrive with deeply formed mental models, organisational responsibilities waiting for them, and a finely tuned instinct for what is useful and what is not.

This simple reality should shape everything about how we design and deliver executive education.

From teaching to facilitating

Many of us were trained in systems rooted in pedagogy - the model traditionally associated with teaching children and adolescents. Pedagogy assumes dependency. The instructor determines what will be learned, how it will be learned, and when. Knowledge is transmitted first; application may follow later. Motivation is often external: grades, credentials, progression.

Executive education operates under fundamentally different assumptions.

The adult learning model - andragogy - articulated most clearly by Malcolm Knowles, starts from the premise that adults are self-directed. They bring extensive experience. They are ready to learn when learning connects directly to the roles they occupy. They are problem-centred rather than content-centred. And their motivation is primarily internal.

This is not a minor adjustment in teaching style. It is a philosophical shift.

Executives do not come to be filled with content. They come to test ideas, sharpen judgment, solve problems, and challenge assumptions — including their own. If we design sessions that prioritise content delivery over engagement, we will lose them quickly. Not because the material lacks quality, but because the method lacks relevance.

Experience is the curriculum

In executive education, participant experience is not incidental — it is central. The collective experience in the room often exceeds that of the faculty in sectoral depth, technical understanding, geopolitical exposure, and leadership complexity. Our task is not to override that experience, but to surface it, interrogate it, and connect it to broader frameworks.

This requires a shift in identity for faculty and guest speakers. We are not primarily lecturers. We are facilitators of structured reflection and curators of insight. We design intellectual experiences that enable participants to see their own challenges differently and facilitate peer learning.

The most powerful moments in executive classrooms rarely come from slides. They emerge from well-structured dialogue, carefully framed tensions, and the disciplined integration of theory with lived practice.

Why experiential learning is foundational

Applied experiential learning is not an enhancement to executive education — it is its backbone.

The learning cycle described by David Kolb offers a useful lens: concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualisation, and active experimentation. Too often in higher education we move rapidly from concept to concept. In executive education, the cycle must be completed.

Leaders learn most effectively when they:

• engage with a concrete problem or scenario

• reflect on how it connects to their own experience

• use conceptual frameworks to reinterpret that experience

• experiment with new approaches in their organisational context

If we stop at abstraction, we have provided insight without transformation. If we stop at discussion, we have created engagement without change.

Applied experiential learning takes many forms: live case debates, simulations, peer consulting, site visits, leadership labs, strategy workshops, structured reflection exercises. The common thread is this: participants must grapple with real dilemmas and leave with clarity about what they will do differently.

The question “What does this mean for me on Monday?” should always be answerable.

The design imperative

Designing for adults means designing for relevance, autonomy, and application.

Before a session begins, we must be clear about why it matters. Executives are highly attuned to opportunity cost. If the relevance is not explicit, engagement will diminish.

During a session, the balance must favour interaction over exposition. This does not mean abandoning rigour. On the contrary, it means using theory precisely — as a lens to sharpen thinking, not as an end in itself.

After a session, learning should not dissipate. Reflection prompts, application commitments, peer accountability, and organisational projects extend learning beyond the classroom.

Without this extension, even excellent sessions risk becoming intellectually stimulating but operationally inert.

The risks we must avoid

There are predictable failure modes in executive education:

• overloading participants with theory

• confusing activity with learning

• ignoring the expertise in the room

• treating senior leaders as passive recipients

• designing intellectually elegant sessions with no pathway to application

Activity alone is not experiential learning. Experience must be structured, reflected upon, and connected to conceptual understanding. Otherwise, it remains anecdotal.

The broader purpose

At its best, executive education creates space that leaders rarely find in their daily roles: space to think, to question, to reframe, and to imagine alternatives. It supports not just skill acquisition but perspective transformation.

When designed around adult learning principles and grounded in applied experience, executive programmes do more than transfer knowledge. They shift mindsets. They alter decision-making patterns. They enable leaders to act with greater clarity, judgment, and intentionality.

For those of us involved in delivery, the responsibility is significant. We are not simply teaching sessions. We are shaping environments in which experienced leaders reconsider how they lead, decide, and influence.

That requires empathy, structure, intellectual rigour - and above all, a commitment to learning that is lived and applied, not merely discussed.