Deans Annual Meeting

Executive Development Series (EDS) for Deans

Leadership Intelligence in the Age of AI

March 27-28, 2026

A program designed for deans and directors to gain practical leadership and management skills.

Save your seat early! Limited spots available.

This 1.5-day pre-conference session, connected to AACN’s Deans Annual Meeting, is designed for leaders in higher education to gain high-level leadership and management skills. The Executive Develop Series (EDS) for Deans program will be delivered by the nationally recognized leadership development provider, Center for Creative Leadership (CCL).

AI is fundamentally transforming the way we work, learn, and lead. Today’s academic administrators must grapple with unprecedented levels of uncertainty and complexity as they work to build effective teams and achieve results. Join us to discuss how the leadership landscape is changing, explore our evolving understanding of intelligence, and reflect on the capabilities required to be a successful leader today.

We’ll take a deep dive into “embodied intelligence”, learn how to leverage AI as a strategic thought partner, and develop a comprehensive approach to evidence-based leadership. Participants in this interactive session will connect with peers and discover how to use leadership intelligence to improve direction, alignment, and commitment.

Facilitator

Julie Neill

Leadership Solutions Partner
Center for Creative Leadership

Inspiring and empowering leaders to unlock their potential is Julie’s passion. For the past two decades, Julie has coached and facilitated learning experiences for hundreds of individuals from a diverse array of backgrounds and cultures - both in the United States and internationally. Past clients and employers have included Fortune 100 companies, the world’s largest humanitarian network, federal government agencie…

Inspiring and empowering leaders to unlock their potential is Julie’s passion. For the past two decades, Julie has coached and facilitated learning experiences for hundreds of individuals from a diverse array of backgrounds and cultures - both in the United States and internationally. Past clients and employers have included Fortune 100 companies, the world’s largest humanitarian network, federal government agencies, including USAID and the Peace Corps, and one of the world’s largest scientific associations. The majority of Julie’s career was spent working in academia, including at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and the University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business, where she helped develop the leadership skills and careers of emerging leaders, MBA’s, midcareer professionals and senior executives. Earlier in her career, Julie had the unique opportunity to document lessons learned from the American Red Cross’s 9/11 relief and recovery efforts and conduct oral histories. Much of this work is now housed in the National Archives in Washington, DC.

Currently, Julie is a Leadership Solutions Partner, based in the Americas. She has experience in topics across the CCL portfolio, with particular interests and expertise in vertical development, innovation, and equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI).

Julie is an alumna of Barnard College, Columbia University in New York City, a former Fulbright Scholar and earned a master’s degree in Development Studies from the University of London’s School of Oriental & African Studies (SOAS). She is also a graduate of Georgetown University’s Leadership Coaching Program and the Maryland Equity & Inclusion Leadership Program.

Julie is an International Coach Federation (ICF) certified coach at the PCC level. She has previously served as the President of the Maryland Career Development Association and has presented at various international and national conferences on a range of career development topics.

Program Agenda

Program subject to change.

March 27

Day 1 lays the foundation by painting a portrait of today’s leadership landscape, defining leadership and examining the evolution of our understanding of intelligence.

12:00-1:00 p.m.	Registration Open

1:00 p.m.	Welcome & Intro

1:15 p.m.	Visualizing Your Key Strategic Leadership Challenge Engage in an interactive exercise using images to foster deeper reflection and new insights on a key strategic challenge you are currently facing. This challenge will be used throughout the session to help anchor the various concepts and ideas we explore over the two days.

1:45 p.m.	Today’s Leadership Landscape: Perpetual Change in a BANI World In an era that has shifted from VUCA to BANI—brittle, anxious, nonlinear, and incomprehensible—leaders face unprecedented levels of uncertainty and complexity. Change is now perpetual, pervasive and exponential. Explore what distinguishes BANI and identify the capabilities required to lead effectively in this environment.

2:00 p.m.	Defining Leadership: The Direction, Alignment & Commitment (DAC) Framework Leadership can be defined in terms of three discrete, interrelated outcomes – direction, alignment and commitment. Gain a deeper understanding of the DAC framework and how to use it as a diagnostic tool to assess leadership effectiveness. Through small group discussions, analyze your key strategic leadership challenge using DAC as a lens.

3:00 p.m.	A Very Puzzling Activity Put your problem-solving abilities and teamwork skills to the test in this challenging experiential learning activity.

3:30 p.m.	Our Evolving Understanding of “Intelligence” & the Human Brain How would you define intelligence? Examine how its definition has evolved and continues to transform as it is shaped by advances in neuroscience, our understanding of the human brain and AI. We’ll also explore the impact of chronic stress on executive functioning.

4:00 p.m.	Expanding Your Window of Tolerance Coined by Dr. Dan Siegel, the window of tolerance is our optimal zone of emotional arousal and is used to explain how our nervous system manages stress. Learn practical strategies and techniques to expand your window of tolerance and strengthen leadership resilience in the BANI era.

4:30 p.m.	Close

March 28

In Day 2, we’ll delve deeper into our understanding of leadership intelligence and build capability through a mix of embodied practices, AI experimentation, peer consultation, and reflection.

7:30-9:00 a.m.	Breakfast

9:00 a.m.	Welcome & Speed Networking Reconnect, share reflections from Day 1, and build new relationships through a fast-paced networking exercise.

9:20 a.m.	The DIKW Pyramid & Embodied Intelligence Used in a variety of disciplines, including nursing informatics, the DIKW model is a fundamental framework to explain how raw inputs are transformed into deep understanding and decision-making capability. We will use this model to delve deeper into understanding intelligence, examine the distinctions between “knowledge” and “wisdom” and how they help explain how human intelligence, and specifically embodied intelligence, is unique and distinct from AI.

10:00 a.m.	Beyond Our 5 Senses: An Embodied Leadership Lab Although the traditional concept of five senses – sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch – which originated with Aristotle has persisted for over 2,000 years, modern neuroscience has discovered that humans possess far more than five, and perhaps up to 33 different senses. In this “lab”, we’ll take a deeper dive into interoception and embodied self-awareness through breath, posture and movement.

10:45 a.m.	Embodied Leadership Lab continued Engage in additional somatic exercises to help get grounded and centered and tap into the intelligence of all three of your body’s brains to gain further insight into your strategic leadership challenge.

11:20 a.m.	The Extended Mind: Augmenting Our Intelligence In 1998, two philosophers Andy Clark and David Chalmers published an essay in which they proposed an extended mind thesis which posited that objects in our external environment can be part of our cognitive process. We’ll discuss this theory further and how AI can support cognitive augmentation instead of cognitive atrophy.

11:35 a.m.	Using AI as Your Strategic Thought Partner Learn an effective prompting technique to leverage your LLM of choice as a strategic thought partner and use that technique to gain additional insights into your key strategic leadership challenge. Bring a device.

12:00 p.m.	Lunch

1:00 p.m.	Review & Check-In Reflect on the morning’s learning & prepare for the afternoon’s applied work.

1:20 p.m.	Leadership Culture: The Key to Unlocking Collective Intelligence According to Edgar Schein, one of the most influential organizational psychologists of our time, “The only thing of real importance that leaders do is to create and manage culture”. But exactly what kind of cultures do organizations need to thrive in this new era? We’ll explore what we mean by culture, different types of organizational cultures and introduce a tool to help guide you in shaping the kind of culture that the AI era requires.

2:30 p.m.	Collective Intelligence in Action: Troika Consulting Leverage the wisdom of your peers to gain new insights and perspectives into your key strategic leadership challenge through this highly engaging liberating structure.

3:30 p.m.	Individual Reflection Now it’s time to pause, reflect and synthesize all your learning and put your leadership intelligence into action. What has resonated most with you? What are your key takeaways? What action steps will you take to put your learning into action?

3:45 p.m.	Authentic Leadership Presence In the age of AI, one of the most powerful tools any leader possesses is their presence or their use of self . Learn the ABC’s of authentic leadership presence and take time for a final reflection on how you can strengthen the embodiment of your leadership.

4:05 p.m.	Key Takeaways & Next Steps

4:30 p.m.	Close

Who Can Attend

The Executive Development Series for Deans is a member-only event exclusive to the primary dean/director of AACN member schools of nursing.

Conference Venue

The Fairmont Washington, DC
2401 M Street, NW
Washington, DC 20037

Registration Fee

Executive Development Series for Deans	Early Ends Feb. 28	Standard Starts March 1
Dean/Director	$699	$799

No substitutions are allowed for the Deans Annual Meeting and the EDS for Deans.
Your cancellation request must be received in writing and confirmed by AACN; otherwise, it cannot be honored. The following refund arrangements will then apply:
Cancellation requests received by March 15, 2026, will be refunded minus a $150 non-refundable administrative fee.
No refunds will be given after March 15, 2026 nor will refunds be given for no-shows.
No-show registrations with an open balance will be charged a $150 non-refundable administrative fee after the event.
Your cancellation request must be submitted in writing to conferences@aacnnursing.org and confirmed by AACN.

Please note: AACN will issue refunds within a 2-week time period of receipt of written cancellation notice.

Event Cancellation by AACN

AACN reserves the right to modify, postpone/reschedule or cancel this conference and any related group activity for any circumstance beyond AACN's control, including but not limited to emergency, acts of God, government regulations, disaster, strike, and non-fulfilment of minimum group requirements. If AACN cancels an event, every attempt will be made to reschedule or provide a modified virtual offering, and registration fees will be applied to the rescheduled/virtual event. If a cancelled event cannot be rescheduled, AACN will issue a full refund of the registration fee(s). Any travel, lodging, or incidental expenses incurred related to a cancelled/postponed event cannot be refunded under any circumstances as AACN resumes no responsibility for such expenses.

For questions, contact the AACN Conference Team today!

Phone: 202-463-6930 | Email: conferences@aacnnursing.org | Website: www.aacnnursing.org/conferences