Building Next-Gen Leadership Series

Human Resources has introduced a new limited series, Building Next-Gen Leadership, for any employee across the institution who aspires to lead, regardless of position or title. Participants will learn leadership concepts and develop community, especially around the university's Next-Gen K-State strategic plan. This series is the first phase of leadership development efforts.

Upcoming workshops

Our series will return in Spring 2025 with three additional workshops. Check back in January for more information.

Meet our facilitator

headshot of Amanda Cebula Amanda Cebula has a passion for working with people, organizations and businesses seeking to create change. She has been connected to leadership development throughout most of her life whether as a person pursuing change herself or teaching and coaching others. Amanda began her career in higher education serving as an Admissions Representative for Kansas State University and then continued in higher ed as the Community Relations Coordinator for Webster University’s Ocala, Florida campus. Upon making it back to Kansas she worked at the Kansas Leadership Center where she co-authored the book “Your Leadership Edge: Tools and Strategies for When Everyone Leads” with Ed O’Malley.

After leaving her full-time role at KLC in 2017, Amanda continued her work in leadership development by serving as an Instructor with the Staley School of Leadership at K-State. Today, you can find her raising her family and running her own consulting company, teaching the occasional leadership course, facilitating programs, participating in various church and community activities and even teaching a couple of piano lessons. Amanda is a communication studies graduate from K-State with minors in music and leadership studies. She also earned a master’s degree in management and leadership from Webster University.

Prior workshops & recordings

Courage: Leading Starts With You

Whether change happens on a big scale or a small scale, the effort has to start somewhere. This ultimately takes courage. Someone has to take the first step. Ask the first question. Offer an idea. In this workshop, we will explore practical steps toward achieving the change you desire, in the places you have the most influence, no matter what role, position or title you hold.

Workshops held in April 2024. Recording is available through May 2025.

Impact: Closing the Gap

Leadership revolves around challenges. So what happens when we struggle with how to make progress on those challenges? This workshop will help us explore what makes it tough to close the gap between where we currently find ourselves and where we want to be. Once we know this, then we can apply what leadership needs to look like, no matter your title or position, to create lasting impact.

Workshops held in May. Recording is available through May 2025.

Communication: The Art of Listening and Asking Questions

To create change around the many challenges and opportunities we find ourselves facing, so much comes down to effective communication. And to communicate effectively, we must be able to listen. This workshop will offer skills and practice to enhance your ability to truly hear what another person has to say. Additionally, we will build your capacity around asking intentional questions that leave you wanting to hear another person's answer. Join us as we explore what it really means to be curious to solve our toughest challenges and become better communicators.

Workshops held in September. Recording is available through May 2025.

Conflict: How to Make It Productive

When the word “conflict” gets brought up, it can produce images filled with fighting, drama, and quite frankly, cause our stomachs to tighten up. But what if we were able to view conflict as a productive, and maybe even necessary, part of interacting with others to make progress on the things we care about? What if rather than looking for how we might get rid of conflict, we could work toward building the capacity to handle conflict? This workshop aims to help us better understand conflict and give us practical tools to engage with it, so we can keep showing up and stay on purpose.

Workshops held in October. Recording will be available soon.

Working Across Factions: How to Lead Among Differences

When exercising leadership, bringing a multitude of voices to the table becomes paramount in our ability to make progress. However, including all these voices means the work is ripe for different opinions, different perspectives, and introduces different layers to the challenge at hand. This workshop will explore how we take a step back and evaluate all the varying values, loyalties and losses people hold around the work we are trying to accomplish while recognizing the need for focusing on the challenge or opportunity at the center of our work – after all it is the thing we all have in common.

Workshops held in December. Recording will be available soon.