Designing and Leading Change Certificate

Complete in 6–12 Months

Become a Catalyst for Organizational Transformation

About the Designing and Leading Change Certificate

The Designing and Leading Change Certificate is a program offered through Meridian University's Center for Transformative Learning. Designed for professionals seeking to develop expertise in facilitating organizational and systemic transformation, the certificate draws on Meridian's graduate curriculum in organizational development to provide a comprehensive foundation in change leadership.

As a certificate participant, you will take courses from the anchor and other parts of Meridian's graduate curriculum offered during the period of your enrollment. This means you will engage with the same rigorous, faculty-led coursework that graduate students experience, tailored to the certificate's focus on designing and leading change processes.

What is Designing and Leading Change?

Designing and Leading Change is an interdisciplinary approach that draws on systems thinking, organizational development, and transformative learning to equip professionals with the knowledge and skills needed to facilitate meaningful change in complex environments. This approach recognizes that sustainable change requires both strategic design and adaptive leadership -- the capacity to see patterns, engage stakeholders, and navigate the emergent dynamics that arise when systems undergo transformation.

Meridian's organizational development curriculum provides the intellectual and practical grounding for this certificate. Coursework emphasizes cultural transformation, appreciative inquiry, action inquiry, multicultural collaboration, simulation-based practices, and the OD consultation cycle. Sample courses such as Systems Theory and Practice; Creative, Generative, and Appreciative Approaches to Inquiry; Sense-Making and Meaning-Making in Organizations; and Transforming Organizational Cultures equip certificate participants with methods drawn from the forefront of organizational development practice.

The Demand for Change Leaders

Organizations and communities worldwide face unprecedented complexity, from technological disruption to social and environmental challenges. The organizational development field emphasizes leadership and development across institutional domains including business, nonprofits, NGOs, government, education, law, and the arts. The ability to design and lead change processes that are responsive, inclusive, and generative has become a critical competency for leaders across all of these sectors. Change practitioners serve in diverse roles including organizational consultants, executive leaders, community organizers, and social innovators, bringing the skills needed to facilitate transformation at every level.