SPARKED LEADERSHIP ACADEMY

Your team is full of brilliant, highly skilled people. But technical expertise doesn’t automatically translate into leadership. The SPARKED Leadership Academy equips current and emerging leaders with the skills, confidence, and mindset to lead themselves, their teams, and your organization into the future. It not only builds your leadership pipeline but positions you for a thriving succession.

IT’s time to

TRANSFORM your managers into LEADERS

Why This Academy?

Many organizations struggle with the same challenge: they have incredible managers — technical experts and top performers — who’ve never been trained in leadership. Universities are too costly. In-house training teams don’t exist for small to mid-sized organizations. That’s why I built the SPARKED Leadership Academy: a turnkey solution to grow leaders from within, without the expense of degree programs and tailored to your industry and unique organizational needs.

PROGRAM OUTCOMES

After completing the program, participants will:

  • Deepen Their Self-Awareness — the #1 quality of impactful leaders.

  • Lead More Effective Teams with strategies for trust, collaboration, and performance.

  • Multiply Their Impact by replicating tools and exercises with their own teams.

What makes this academy different:

  • Certified use of industry-leading assessments

  • Cohort-based learning for peer accountability and connection.

  • Small-group coaching each month to personalize learning.

  • Capstone project that bridges learning to real organizational impact.

  • Mentor check-ins to sustain growth.

  • Designed for highly skilled, highly technical professionals who need leadership fundamentals to match their expertise.

PROGRAM STRUCTURE

  • 12-month cohort-based program (option for 6 months)

  • Monthly 2-hour live learning sessions

  • Monthly journal reflections

  • Monthly 1-hour virtual group coaching sessions

  • Three research-backed assessments with debriefs

  • Quarterly mentor check-ins

  • Capstone project + presentation

  • Learning resources: book chapters, articles, videos

This cohort model builds deeper relationships, peer learning, and accountability across the program.

CURRICULUM at a glance

Each module builds on the last to move leaders from self to team to enterprise-level thinking.

  1. Understanding the Foundations of Leadership

  2. Cultivating Meaning & Purpose at Work

  3. Becoming an Emotional Intelligent Leader

  4. Curating Your Leadership Presence

  5. Building Trusting & Effective Teams

  6. Creating a Safe & Inclusive Culture

  7. Giving Feedback & Holding Crucial Conversations

  8. Leading for Change that People Embrace

  9. Identifying Essential Productivity Tools for Success

  10. Influencing Difference Stakeholders & Audiences

  11. Developing Business Acumen

  12. Capstone Presentation & Celebration

The SPARKED Leadership Academy has allowed me to RESET MY PERSPECTIVE on the engineering industry to APPLY A MORE HOLISTIC APPROACH to my leadership style as we navigate consistently changing environments. I’m grateful to my employer for the opportunity to be a part of this program and trusting the lasting impact. This program has pushed me out of my comfort zone at times, and allowed me to GAIN VISION and CONFIDENCE utilizing a HIGHER LEVEL of THINKING as I navigate through my day to day.

Liz Baldwin P.E. | Senior Project Manager | ELA Group

ABOUT Dr. Katie Sandoe, THE SPARKOLOGIST

about DR. KATIE, the SPARKOLOGIST

Dr. Katie is the creator of the SPARKED Leadership Academy. She’s a keynote speaker, facilitator, and mindset/high-performance expert with more than 25 years of leadership experience across nonprofit, corporate, government, and small business sectors. She holds a Doctorate in Adult Education and Lifelong Learning from Penn State University and served as a Professor at Penn State Harrisburg for over seven years, teaching in both undergraduate and graduate departments.

Katie is also highly credentialed with certifications in multiple research-backed assessments, including:

  • EQ-i 2.0 & EQ360 (Emotional Intelligence)

  • TKI Conflict Mode (Conflict Style)

  • Change Style Indicator (Change Preference)

  • Sparketype® (Work Preferences)

  • Ikigai-9 (Wellbeing & Purpose)

  • Positive Intelligence (PQ) Saboteurs

This combination of rigorous academic expertise, decades of real-world leadership, and deep certification in proven tools makes Katie uniquely qualified to help leaders grow.

But qualifications are only half the story. Katie brings fun, energy, and spark to every learning experience. Her style is interactive and engaging, blending research and practice with humor, real-world application, and a dash of “Doctor + Dork” that makes even the hardest topics approachable. She’s also deeply empathetic and compassionate, curating experiences where participants feel safe to stretch, explore, and transform. The result is leadership development that is not only practical and effective — but also deeply meaningful.

ready to take the NEXT STEP?

Let’s talk about how the SPARKED Leadership Academy can enhance the growth and performance of your current and emerging leaders. Book a discovery call with me to explore your goals, discuss the best fit, and design an experience that delivers real results.