Program Outline
Eight dinners.
Eight pillars.
- 8 weeks
- Dinner every week
- Completely free
The Leadership Academy will meet over dinner once a week for eight weeks beginning in the fall of 2026. Each week, students will learn directly from Coach Parker and guest speakers while working through one of Parker’s 8 Pillars of Leadership. But The Leadership Academy isn’t designed to be a class where students sit in a room, listen to someone talk about leadership, and then go home.
Leadership has to be practiced.
Every week, out in the real world
Each week, students will be given a Leadership Challenge that requires them to take that week’s lesson out into the real world and put it to work in the hallways, classrooms, teams, activities, and communities they are already part of. They’ll build new relationships, step outside their comfort zones, practice serving others, and begin intentionally changing the culture around them.
Learn
“learn directly from Coach Parker and guest speakers”
Practice
“take that week’s lesson out into the real world”
Change the culture
“in the hallways, classrooms, teams, activities, and communities they are already part of”
A skill which few people possess
Students will also learn something that is at the heart of the entire program: how to build meaningful relationships with people who may be very different from themselves. That begins during the first session with learning how to ask deep follow-up questions and continues throughout all eight weeks as students practice those skills with one another.
The payoff
Students who attend all eight sessions will graduate from The Leadership Academy and be invited on…
an all-expense-paid charter bus trip to a Kansas City Chiefs game in November.
Coach Parker’s 8 Pillars of Leadership
The eight weeks of the Academy are built around the following pillars. Each Pillar includes a simple tagline designed to make the lesson stick, along with a Leadership Challenge that puts the principle into action.
Pillar 1: Invest in relationships.
They don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.
Leadership ChallengeLunch with a stranger within your program
Pillar 2: Add value to the lives of others.
To lead is to serve.
Leadership ChallengeAdd Value
Pillar 3: Learn to network.
It’s not what you know, it’s WHO you know.
Leadership ChallengeThe Adult You Walk Past
Pillar 4: NEVER stop learning.
Make education a part of your daily routine.
Leadership ChallengeInterview with a respected coach with whom you’ve never worked
Pillar 5: Nothing matters more than integrity.
At the start and end of every day, you have to look in the mirror.
Leadership ChallengeThe 7 days of self-accountability: the habit tracker
Pillar 6: Overprepare, then adapt.
BE LIKE WATER.
Leadership ChallengePerfect day crossout activity
Pillar 7: Lead with positivity.
Love always wins.
Leadership ChallengeDocumented positivity: impact 10 people at your next practice or competition, physical contact included (high fives and the like)
Pillar 8: Lead with intention.
Leaders NEVER “wing it.” For everything you do, there must be a reason.
Leadership ChallengeManifestation Mantra activity