Strategic Change & Innovation Leadership Certificate
Innovative. Customizable. Necessary.
A custom certificate program from Dynamize Health + eCornell
Self. System. Strategy.
Welcome to a pivotal phase of leadership development for today’s healthcare landscape. Leading meaningful change – especially in complex, rapidly evolving environments – requires a distinct set of skills grounded in systems thinking, adaptability, and execution.
The Strategic Change & Innovation Leadership Certificate is designed for leaders who are ready to move beyond intention and into impact. This program combines proven leadership frameworks with directly applicable coursework to help participants navigate complexity, lead cultural transformation, and drive innovation that lasts.
The curriculum is organized around three core leadership domains:
Self
Strengthening self-awareness, leadership identity, and decision-making capacity to lead effectively through uncertainty and change.
System
Understanding organizational dynamics, culture, and structure — and how change moves (or stalls) within complex healthcare systems.
Self
Builds practical strategic thinking through real-world projects.
Leaders learn to turn vision into action and lead change with clarity and confidence.
Let’s take strategic change and innovation leadership to the next level — together.
Advancing your strategy development skills with course projects designed for immediate application to your work
PROGRAM OVERVIEW
What You'll Love About The Program
Cornell’s Top Minds
All courses are personally developed by Cornell faculty and experts.
100% Online
Flexible learning that fits your life and career.
Business Impact
Learn in-demand skills and apply them immediately at work.
“Starting this program demonstrates how Dynamize values the professional development of the members of this group. I was thrilled to hear about the opportunity to participate in this inaugural certificate program! I was even more excited to know that the program was in partnership with Cornell University. One of the courses that I really enjoyed was the Leading Strategic Change Initiatives.
One course exercise was to identify all stakeholders involved in organizational change and to discuss how the stakeholders are influenced by change. This was a meaningful exercise because, as leaders, we/I must consider the impact of change on stakeholders at each level of the organization or unit.”
– Administrative Leader
Counteracting Unconscious Bias
In this course, you will identify the perceptual and psychological processes that impact the way that individuals interact with people who are demographically dissimilar from them. You will examine the psychological processes that impact decision making within organizations and identify how professionals can design better work practices and help to more effectively leverage the potential among employees.
Becoming a Strategic Leader
Advancing to a more senior leadership role requires a specific set of skills. Senior leaders must shift away from tactical oversight into a more strategic and visionary role. This transition does not occur naturally and is often not a part of standard professional training, development, or on- boarding. The ability to adapt to this mindset is crucial and can lead to the success or failure of an individual and/or their team.
Learners will create a personal leadership strategy and build a professional network within their organization to prepare and further their roles in the organization.
CHANGING ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE IN HEALTHCARE
In this course, professionals will “reset” their thinking around how best to understand, measure, implement, and lead successful change initiatives. Leaders will assess their current culture, map out the ideal future state, create a business strategy consistent with the organization’s vision and values, and ultimately implement the strategies or business processes needed to affect and support the organizational culture they want.
Improving Engagement
Research shows that engagement is the key factor that promotes higher performance and effort, greater returns, and lower turnover. Yet across companies, industries, and countries, studies show that only 11–19% of employees are highly engaged. In this course, participants examine the foundational drivers of engagement, explore the components of successful engagement initiatives, and identify strategies for building stronger engagement across teams.
ELECTIVE COURSES
ELECTIVE TRACK #1: CREATING SOLUTIONS
Select one track from the options listed:
Problem Solving Using Evidence And Critical Thinking
In this course you will practice a disciplined, systematic approach to problem solving that helps ensure that your analysis of a problem is comprehensive, is based on quality, credible evidence, and takes full and fair account of the most probable counterarguments and risks.
The result of this technique is a thoroughly defensible assessment of what the problem is, what is causing it, and the most effective plan of action to address it. Finally, you will identify and frame a problem by assessing its context and develop a well-reasoned and implementable solution that addresses the underlying causes.
Making A Convincing Case for Your Solution
To make a convincing case, it is more effective to engage with the decision maker as a partner in problem-solving. This makes your counterpart feel less like someone is trying to get them to buy something and more like you are working together to bring about an outcome that is desirable to both parties. Begin by asking yourself: “What is the problem you and the decision maker are solving together?”
By the end of this course, you will have learned how to deeply analyze a problem, possible solutions, and the associated risks as well as the most persuasive and efficient ways of presenting your proposal.
ELECTIVE TRACK #2: ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE CONSIDERATIONS
Select one track from the options listed:
Fundamentals of Organizational Design
In this course, you’ll analyze an organization in terms of how it is structured, what it does, and how it interacts within the larger ecosystem. You’ll develop ways of thinking about these categories and the language you’ll need to describe them, whether you are focusing on organizations in your immediate neighborhood or global organizations. Description is the first step.
You will also develop the analytical skills to explain, from an organizational design perspective, why some organizations function more successfully than others so you can anticipate future changes that may create a need for redesign.
Leading Strategic Change Initiatives
If you’re in charge of developing and leading strategic organizational change, there are certain tools and concepts you must be familiar with. In this course, the emphasis is on cultivating your ability to assess the need for change.
By determining why your organization or team needs change, you’ll be able to better answer questions like: What should you change and how should the change be handled?
You will explore the political and complex process of introducing change, which includes motivating others, dealing with resistance and the emotional elements of change, and finally, extending change over time and sustaining it. The course is designed to give you practice so you can initiate and carry out a change effort.
ELECTIVE TRACK #3: NEGOTIATION AND PERSUASION
Select one track from the options listed:
Negotiation Skills
Being able to negotiate is a practical, everyday skill that is critical for anyone working within an organization. The good news is it’s a skill you can practice and master. Negotiation skills are ones you can use in any context and, once you master the behaviors of effective negotiation, you will use all the time.
In this course, developed by Cornell University’s Professor Samuel Bacharach, Ph.D., you will develop an awareness that every conversation is a negotiation, and you will identify the critical components of effective negotiation.
Persuasion
The key to persuasion is knowing your audience, their perspective and needs, and how your solution will benefit them. Through this course, you will understand that the bulk of the persuasion process is spent learning about your audience. Once this is achieved, you use what you’ve discovered to persuade them toward your way of thinking.
While this goes against a natural tendency to think of persuasion as being about you — your cause, your beliefs, your mission — true persuasion requires you to take your needs out of the equation. By focusing on your audience’s needs, you will more solidly persuade them and, ultimately, everyone will benefit.
ELECTIVE TRACK #4: INCLUSIVE AND IMPACTFUL LEADERSHIP
Select one track from the options listed:
Fostering An Inclusive Climate
Inclusion is a relational construct. It’s ultimately about how your team functions and performs based on the quality of social connections, openness to learning, agility, and depth of decision making. How can you foster greater inclusion within your workgroup?
Throughout these modules, you will be asked to reflect upon your own experiences and apply the lessons in the modules in your own role. You will examine the concept of climate, specifically inclusive climates, as well as learn about the specific behaviors and skills you need to demonstrate in order to be successful in shaping an inclusive climate.
Mastering The Essentials of Influence
As a leader, you are always influencing others. However, if you’re not mindful of how you exert this influence, it could lead to unforeseen consequences for yourself and your team. Your ability to negatively impact someone’s performance, or elevate it to new levels, is powerful and should be taken seriously.
In this course, Professor Allan Filipowicz discusses how your beliefs drive your subordinates’ performance. You’ll learn how to identify negative and positive expectancy cycles and get the tools needed to reverse the former and accelerate the latter.
Frequently Asked Questions
1: Who is this certification designed for?
This certification is built for healthcare professionals, clinicians, administrators, executives, and trainees across all specialties who are preparing to lead change in complex environments. It is designed for leaders seeking to strengthen strategic clarity, drive innovation, align teams with organizational priorities, and position their institutions for the next era of healthcare.
2: What makes this program different from other Healthcare Leadership Certificate Programs?
The Dynamize Health Strategic Change and Innovation Certificate is built specifically for healthcare leaders navigating complexity, restructuring, and system-level transformation. It integrates clinical insight, operational strategy, and executive decision-making to equip leaders with practical frameworks for driving innovation, aligning teams, and executing change with measurable impact. This is not a generic leadership course — it is a healthcare-specific strategy certification designed for real-world application.
3: What is the cost of the program and are there any discounts available?
Tuition is $4,500 and includes access to core courses, your selected elective track, and additional eCornell benefits — delivering exceptional value relative to comparable leadership programs. Dynamize Health honors discount codes available through partner organizations (e.g., ODLC (embed orthodiversity.org/membership) link). Group discounts are available for teams of five or more. Contact us for more information on group enrollment (link to Contact Us page)
“As an aspiring orthopedic surgeon and entrepreneur, I believe the Certificate program has been an invaluable learning and professional development experience. These essential skills have allowed me to solve problems effectively at my current teams and will undoubtedly be instrumental in my future career as an aspiring physician-leader.”
– MD/MBA Candidate
Ready to Enroll?
Visit the eCornell enrollement site
