Minicourse Choosing Leadership: How to Do it Yourself
Spring 2026
Overview
Choosing Leadership: How to Do It Yourself is a four-week, live virtual course designed to make leadership accessible, practical, and actionable—for anyone, at any level. Led by Linda Ginzel, Clinical Professor of Managerial Psychology, this program is open to both individual learners and intact teams, and invites employees to develop leadership with their company, at their startup, and alongside their internal team. Each week, participants join a one-hour live session to learn core leadership concepts, then spend an additional hour working through guided assignments together with their colleagues. This “do-it-yourself with your internal team” model allows participants to work through self-development on their own time, at their own pace, while applying ideas directly to their real workplace challenges. The result is not just individual growth, but shared language, trust, and leadership capacity that participants can bring back to the rest of their organization—creating leaders who grow together and lead from where they are.
Schedule & Time Commitment
Minicourses are designed to be manageable alongside a full workload, with a steady tempo and easy access to recordings. We will meet once per week for four weeks in a one-hour live virtual session. Live attendance is encouraged but not required. Recordings will be made available after each session.
Live meeting time: 8-9 a.m. Central Time
Dates: April 7, 14, 21, and 28
In addition, you may spend up to one hour each week on take-home assignments. To receive a certificate of completion, you must submit all assignments within a month of the final session.
Participate With Your Team
Choosing Leadership: How to Do It Yourself is purpose-built for team training. For teams of five or more, we can offer a 20% discount on the total order. Please email us to coordinate.
Booth Staff, Students, and Spouses
We can offer the reduced rate of $25 to Booth staff, students, and their spouses. Please email us to coordinate.
Resources for Discussion Groups
Whether you register as an individual or part of an intact team, we encourage you to expand on the classroom instruction by forming a discussion group with your colleagues. You can get started by downloading these guides for facilitators and participants.
Linda E. Ginzel has been on the Chicago Booth faculty since 1992. She specializes in negotiation skills, managerial psychology, leadership and executive development. The new edition of her best-selling book, Choosing Leadership, includes Leadership Modules that demonstrate how to use the book to teach and learn with a group while developing what she terms Leadership Capital: the courage, wisdom and capacity to decide when to manage and when to lead.
Ginzel has taught at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. She is a charter member of the Association for Psychological Science, as well as a member of the Academy of Management. She has won numerous teaching awards across all the programs at Booth. Ginzel received the 2011 Faculty Excellence Award, and the Inaugural Global Hillel J. Einhorn Excellence in Teaching Award in 2013. She was named an Impact Professor by the class of 2014, and received the Hillel J. Einhorn Excellence in Teaching Award in 2019 and 2021. By popular vote, Ginzel received the Phoenix Award from the class of 2020. In 2022, she was recognized as the faculty member who best demonstrates excellence in teaching at Booth with the Emory Williams Teaching Award for Excellence in Teaching.
Ginzel received her bachelor's degree with distinction and Summa Cum Laude in psychology from the University of Colorado in 1984. She studied experimental social psychology at Princeton University where she earned a Master's degree in 1986 and a PhD in 1989. During her PhD studies, she worked as senior consultant in training and development for Mutual of New York's Group Pensions and Operations Center.
In 2000 President Clinton awarded her a President's Service Award, the nation's highest honor for volunteer service directed at solving critical social problems. Ginzel is the co-founder of Kids In Danger, a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting children by improving children's product safety. She also served as director of the Consumer's Union, the nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports.