The Stanford Leadership Institute — officially known as SLI — launched at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business as an interdisciplinary hub dedicated to preparing leaders with the insights and strategies needed to navigate and shape the modern world. Announced by Professor Ken Shotts at the inaugural Stanford Leadership Forum, SLI extends the university's long-standing commitment to leadership education into a broader, more formalized institution that serves not just the GSB, but all of Stanford and the wider world.

If you've been wondering what the Stanford Leadership Institute is, what it does, and why it was created right now, this article breaks it all down.

What Is the Stanford Leadership Institute (SLI)?

The Stanford Leadership Institute is a newly launched interdisciplinary research, teaching, and convening hub based at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Its official mission is to prepare leaders with insights and strategies to navigate and shape our world — improving how we do business and govern society.

SLI brings together expertise from across Stanford University and beyond to address the critical issues of our time. It is not a standalone department or degree program — it is a connective institution designed to amplify leadership thinking across disciplines, industries, and sectors.

  • Research: The institute funds and coordinates interdisciplinary research on leadership, governance, business, and society.
  • Teaching: It introduces cutting-edge faculty research into classrooms through programs like "Insights and Bites," where professors share timely findings directly with students.
  • Convening: SLI hosts high-profile events including conferences, forums, and conversations with global leaders — such as the Stanford Leadership Forum itself.

The institute is led by Professor Ken Shotts, the newly appointed Vélez Reyes Director of the Stanford Leadership Institute, who also holds the David S. and Ann M. Barlow Professorship in Political Economy and teaches the popular core course Leading with Values.

What Challenges Are Today's Leaders Being Prepared For?

One of the clearest signals of why SLI was created now is the sheer complexity of the environment modern leaders face. According to Shotts, leadership today goes far beyond personal style, character, or internal organizational management. Leaders of major companies, governments, and institutions must contend with a wave of external forces that are reshaping the world in real time.

Those forces include:

  • Artificial Intelligence and emerging technology — transforming industries, workforces, and ethical frameworks faster than most organizations can adapt.
  • Sustainability and resource demands — as climate pressures and environmental accountability grow, leaders must build long-term thinking into short-term decisions.
  • Volatile markets — economic unpredictability requires leaders who can act decisively under uncertainty.
  • Domestic political tensions — polarization and shifting political landscapes affect everything from corporate policy to talent recruitment.
  • Geopolitical tensions — global supply chains, international partnerships, and cross-border operations are increasingly at risk.
  • Cultural shifts — changing values within societies and workforces demand new approaches to organizational culture and communication.

The core insight driving SLI is that leaders are not passive responders to these forces — they have agency to shape how those forces impact their organizations and society. That is a fundamentally different framing of leadership than the traditional model focused on internal execution and management.

How Does Stanford GSB Define and Teach Leadership?

Stanford's Graduate School of Business has long positioned itself as more than a business school. As Shotts put it directly: "It's called the Graduate School of Business, but in some sense, it's actually a school of leadership." That philosophy underpins everything SLI is building on.

What makes Stanford's approach distinctive is the combination of three elements that most institutions treat separately:

1. Scholarly Knowledge

Stanford is a research university, and that means leaders trained here are grounded in rigorous, evidence-based thinking. SLI will deepen that by funding over 100 research projects and engaging more than 60 faculty members across disciplines — not just business, but political science, engineering, law, and beyond.

2. Practical Experience

The institute places enormous value on people with deep, real-world leadership experience. The Leadership Forum itself is a showcase of this — featuring conversations with sitting and former heads of government, CEOs, and policymakers who have made high-stakes decisions at scale.

3. Principled Values

Perhaps most distinctively, SLI emphasizes that leaders need a principled, self-developed view of their role and the role of their organization in society. This includes understanding what responsibilities a company or institution has — and what falls outside its remit. Shotts argues this isn't optional; it's a prerequisite for effective leadership in a complex world.

Why Does Leadership Education Matter More Than Ever?

The timing of SLI's launch is not coincidental. The world is changing at a pace that outstrips traditional models of executive education. Leaders who rose through the ranks during periods of relative stability now find themselves making decisions in environments shaped by AI disruption, democratic fragility, and environmental urgency — often simultaneously.

Shotts made a compelling point about where true leadership insight comes from: engaging with people you disagree with. "Often those are the most valuable sorts of interactions to have," he said, "with people who have a different perspective from our own." SLI is designed to be a space where those conversations happen deliberately, not accidentally — bringing together business leaders, government officials, technologists, and academics who wouldn't otherwise share a room.

This matters because leadership decisions don't happen in a vacuum. A CEO navigating an AI transition is also navigating regulatory risk. A policymaker addressing climate change is also navigating business lobbying. The more leaders understand each other's worlds, the better the decisions they make for everyone.

How Does Stanford Prepare Leaders for Geopolitical Risk?

One of the more distinctive commitments of SLI is its focus on governance and geopolitics — areas traditionally siloed away from business education. Professor Shotts' own research background in electoral accountability and policy entrepreneurship reflects this blend. The institute is built on the premise that business leaders must understand political systems, not just financial ones.

Past events under the Business Governance Society Initiative — which SLI now expands — have included over 40 conferences on sustainability, multiple events on AI and technology policy, and high-profile convenings such as a recent discussion with Jensen Huang (CEO of NVIDIA) and Congressman Ro Khanna. These aren't academic seminars; they are strategic conversations at the intersection of business, technology, and governance.

SLI formalizes and scales this work, creating an ongoing infrastructure for these kinds of interactions rather than relying on one-off events.

Who Founded and Funded the Stanford Leadership Institute?

The institute has been five years in the making, growing out of the Business Governance Society Initiative at the GSB. Reaching the official launch required a significant team effort across the GSB and Stanford University at large.

Key foundational funding came from Andreas and Diane Halvorsen, whose philanthropic vision for leadership and Stanford's unique position to shape the future made the institute possible. Their contribution is recognized as essential to transforming an initiative into a fully realized institution.

What Was the Business Governance Society Initiative?

Before SLI existed formally, the Business Governance Society Initiative served as its predecessor and proving ground within the GSB. The initiative funded over 100 research projects by more than 60 faculty members, introduced classroom innovations like the Insights and Bites program, and hosted dozens of events on sustainability, technology, and AI.

SLI extends this work in two important directions: outward, bringing the GSB's knowledge to broader audiences across Stanford and the world; and inward, infusing the business school itself with fresh perspectives from outside disciplines and industries.

What's Next for SLI?

The Stanford Leadership Forum — featuring conversations with figures like former UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak — marks just the beginning. SLI is positioned to become a permanent, high-impact institution at the center of global leadership thinking, connecting research, education, and practice in ways that individual schools or departments rarely achieve on their own.

For anyone serious about understanding where leadership education is heading — or about the forces reshaping how we govern companies, countries, and communities — the Stanford Leadership Institute is worth watching closely.