Blanchard Leadership Institute

Building upon one of our core beliefs, the Blanchard Leadership Institute is an institute without walls, embedded across all divisions of Brookstone School and serves to help every Brookstone student, faculty, and staff member become a deliberately developmental individual utilizing proven methodologies developed by researchers at Harvard University, helping them unlock their true potential as leaders, teaching them how to lead and how to serve, while fostering growth together as an educational institution. 

Founded in 2020, the Blanchard Leadership Institute began with a partnership between Brookstone School and The Developmental Edge. TDE works with corporations and institutions around the globe; however, this is the first partnership of its kind, as Brookstone is the only school in the world to engage in this type of intensive leadership development with its faculty and students.

The Blanchard Leadership Institute honors Mr. Jim Blanchard’s dedication and devotion to growing leaders at all levels. Mr. Blanchard, along with his wife, Sis, have a long history of bringing the best and brightest minds here to Columbus, Georgia, and this new endeavor with Brookstone builds on that legacy.

As Billy Blanchard, Chairman of the Board of Trustees said, “It’s really a great testimony to what we have already created here at Brookstone that we are now in a position to go where no independent school has gone before. We are accessing and putting into practice the very best thinking and research into human development.” 

Through the BLI, Brookstone students are taken through an exercise called The Developmental Sprint.® The Sprint process was pioneered by TDE utilizing research-based methodology developed in conjunction with their colleagues at Harvard University. It is designed to break down and analyze thought processes, behaviors, and emotions, allowing Sprint participants to accelerate their own individual growth and gaining what we call “Developmental Intelligence.” 

This ongoing leadership development is a part of our school culture at all levels, from our Preschool students to our Seniors. Through earnest, self-reflective, and deliberate work, our students will be equipped with the tools and skills necessary to unlock the potential not only in themselves, but in their peers. It will further enable them to develop the new capabilities they'll need to face the challenges of our quickly changing world.