1. Giving Your Teens a
Competitive Edge as
Leaders: A White Paper
Advanced Leader Pilot Program Results.
Executive Command® partnered with the AVID program at Arcadia High School, Arizona. A four-day pilot
called the Advanced Leader Program ran from March to April, 2015. The goal was to provide the
participating students an elite leadership education. The program employed an advanced curriculum
formerly used to train business executives along with computer gaming as the learning platform. The
results of the program exceeded expectations of the students and the teachers.

2. GivingYourTeensaCompetitiveEdgeasLeaders:AWhitePaper
1
Giving Your Teens
a Competitive
Edge as Leaders:
A White Paper
Advanced Leader Pilot Program Results.
Demand for teens with leadership talents is greater than ever.
Google recently acknowledged leadership as the second most
important factor in their hiring process. Recent research
echoes this new priority, “leadership and learning have
dramatically increased in importance…companies see an
accelerating demand for leadership at all levels, especially
among [young leaders].” Yet, “the capability gap is
widening.”1
Your teen is not being effectively educated on leadership.
Traditional leadership programs are too often exclusively
academic and fail to deliver learning experiences essential to
understanding the lessons presented. As a result many teens
cannot declare with certainty, “My strengths are…” or “To
lead a team, we must first…” Answering these questions
convincingly will put a teen in advantageous position over
peers, especially when competing for college acceptance,
earning scholarships, or being hired at the job of choice.
Executive Command® launched a pilot leadership program for
AVID students at Arcadia High School to help them excel as
leaders. The following is the program overview and its results.
1 ”Developing Leaders.” Human Capital Trends 2015, Deloitte.
As a business
strategy and
leader
development
program:
“The Executive
Command®
program played a
significant role in
our meteoric
ascent.”
- Todd Davis,
CEO, LifeLock®

3. GivingYourTeensaCompetitiveEdgeasLeaders:AWhitePaper
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OVERVIEW: CURRICULUM
The Advanced Leader Program provides a comprehensive, multi-disciplinary curriculum
supported by computer games. The content integrates the best leadership methods
and philosophies from the private sector and the military. It is designed to develop
the competencies that are in the greatest demand for leaders (junior, mid-level or
senior). This includes critical thinking, communication, planning and the know-how to
effectively execute strategies under real-time stress.
The success of this program is measured according to three areas:
Self-awareness, the understanding of one’s natural
strengths and those that need to be developed. Here participants
identify their automatic inclinations toward particular styles of
thinking, communication and leadership when placed under
pressure. Scientific behavioral assessment tools are employed in
conjunction with reflections after team activities.
“I realized without detailed information or directives, I take-charge.”
– Lily, high school junior
Competence, the critical skills necessary to effectively build teams,
communicate, plan strategies and lead others to actualize them. Participants are
introduced to a variety of tools and methodologies, such as basic planning skills,
proper employment of communication
systems, systematic leadership
procedures, and mission analysis.2
“The experience has been hugely
beneficial to me, especially in my job. A
lot of the skills that I learned have
helped me get promoted to assistant
manager.”
– Jean-Paul, college sophomore
2 Competence material reinforces Arizona’s College and Career Ready Standards in Social Studies & Literacy.

4. GivingYourTeensaCompetitiveEdgeasLeaders:AWhitePaper
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Confidence, the conviction in one’s abilities to take charge and effectively lead
others. Participants are placed in roles where they must cooperate with others and
ultimately lead them to accomplish assignments. This requires public speaking,
assigning roles and tasks to
teammates, overseeing the
planning process, ensuring effective
communication and proper team
performance.
“I feel like I’m totally ready to lead a
team, now! If I’m given a mission
and team, I completely confident I
can accomplish our mission!”
– Simon, high school sophomore
OVERVIEW: EXPERIENCE
The experience is fun and engaging; it also provides the rare opportunity to personally
validate the curriculum in a short amount of time. Our participants learn thru “ah-hah”
moments that validate the lessons presented. Teams play real-time strategy computer
games (a medium very familiar to this generation). The experience itself is modelled
on how military officers conduct unit training.
Participants cooperate and
collaborate with one another as
they create nations, develop
economies and build armies.
Success, however, does not depend
on actual game play; rather, it lies
in ensuring the team effectively
performs.
Everyone participates in different roles, such as the planning, operations, and
intelligence officers. (Only those in the operations role actually play the game.) Each
participant will ultimately take the center leadership role, the Commander, which is
responsible for overseeing the success or failure of accomplishing the mission.
“Researchers found…that ‘real-time strategy’
gaming…improved their [participants] cognitive
flexibility. That is to say, they got better at switching
between thinking about different concepts, and at
thinking about multiple concepts simultaneously.”
– “Video Games Build Strong Brains,” Reason Magazine

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PROGRAM RESULTS
The AVID program at Arcadia High School hosted the four day pilot of the Advanced
Leader Program. A total of nine students
participated. The data analyzed signals that
the program enables participants to quickly
progress up the learning and experience
curves in a short amount of time.
The following are averages collected during the four-day pilot3:
– 100% engagement during ALL simulations.
– 65% improvement in self-awareness of strengths by
the end of Day 2.
– 75% increase in self-confidence to “take charge” and
lead a team.
– 200% growth in competencies required to lead, plan
and execute strategy.
– “Awesome,” the highest rating to survey question,
“How would you rate this experience?”
– “Absolutely,” the highest rating to survey question,
“Would you recommend this program?”
3 Participants answered survey questions according to numerical scales, 1-10. Question format was “How would
you rate your...?” Four surveys were used, one for each day of training.
“In one day, I’ve witnessed my students
gain a self-awareness that would take
years to accrue.”
– Sara Teller, High School teacher

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Contact us for more information on
how to get the Advanced Leader
Program into your school!
Call (480) 251-3147 or visit
www.EXECUTIVE-COMMAND.com