A New Kind of Education

The Historic Thayer Hotel serves as an inspirational headquarters and primary venue of education for Thayer Leadership, as well as the civilian gateway to the United States Military Academy at West Point. Built in 1926, it is a National Registered Landmark Hotel that has welcomed generations of cadet families and distinguished patrons, including five U.S. presidents and countless foreign heads-of-state.

When the founders of Thayer Leadership bought the hotel in 2009, they set out on a mission to rebuild it with a multimillion-dollar renovation and to develop a new kind of executive education, one based on West Point’s 200-plus-year-old method for creating leaders of character.

In 2010, Thayer Leadership was born to tap into West Point’s strength as the premier leadership development institution and brand in the world. The founders recruited Karen Kuhla McClone, Ph.D., from General Electric’s legendary Crotonville corporate university to develop the transformational Thayer Leadership curriculum for corporate executives.

In just a few years, a growing roster of clients like 7-Eleven, Deloitte, and Pratt & Whitney discovered – to their surprise – that the Army way of doing things was extremely effective in a volatile, uncertain era of disruption in business.

There’s a perception about the military that it’s very hierarchal and in order for someone to do something, they have to go up several levels in order to get permission. It’s actually the opposite of that. The Army teaches empowerment and pushing down authority. Thayer Leadership has taken many of these processes and created the Thayer Leadership Model™ that resonates with senior executives and is qualitatively and quantitatively proven to work. Many of our clients engage us to help create cultural change in their organizations of all sizes.