More than 120 people from as far afield as Australia and China are expected to attend a leadership course described as ‘the wave of the future’ by management consultant Vaughn Mosher.

The event is set to start at the end of next month at The Fairmont Southampton.

Among the instructors are Werner Erhard, who was awarded the Mahatma Gandhi Humanitarian Award, and is best known for developing ‘est’ training in the early 1970s, and later for its evolution into ‘The Forum’.

This course is described as a semester-long graduate level leadership programme. In Bermuda, ‘Being A Leader 2014’ will be in an eight-day format, tailored for business, academic and community leaders.

Mr Mosher, who is the managing director at Benedict Associates, said he wanted people in Bermuda to know the course was being offered and that they had the opportunity to take it. “This is the wave of the future,” he said.

“We are calling it a laboratory; it’s a full emersion course — not a classroom/lecture setting. You leave the course being a leader in a way that is natural to you. So, you and I might have very different experiences in the laboratory, because you are you, and I am me,” he said.

“One of the things we talk about is how when we are in a stadium watching a sports game, that we can be so totally involved in the game as a spectator — our heart is beating, we are sweating — except that we are not players in the game!

“So what this is doing, is having the people who take the course be the players,” he said.

He explained there are four elements at its foundation: integrity, authenticity, being committed to something bigger than oneself and being ‘cause in the matter’ — in other words, making things happen.

He said: “The ontological/phenomenological model comes from Greek philosophy. Ontology is the philosophy of being — what we are as individuals, and how we are being, while the phenomenological approach is the exercise of doing — (in this case) doing the things that leadership does.

“Another Greek word — epistemology — is the actual observance or study of something. Most leadership courses use the epistemological approach — it’s the scrip or power point approach. In an epistemological setting, you observe and study leadership. The phenomenological is experiential, and it is the ontological aspect which is actually being a leader,” he said.

The instructors also include Michael Jensen, a professor emeritus of business administration at Harvard Business School, Kari Grander, a fellow of the Center for Character and Leadership Development at US Air Force Academy and Jeri Echeverria, a professor and provost emerita, California State University, Fresno, and retired executive vice-chancellor and chief academic officer with the California State University System.

The course website says: “You will leave this course being a leader and exercising leadership effectively as your natural self-expression in any situation, and no matter what the circumstances.”

It adds: “The method utilised in this course provides participants with the opportunity to master being a leader, and two, the effective exercise of leadership, as these are actually lived and personally experienced ‘on the court’.”

Anne Peterson, a director of Innovative Event Management and an organiser of the event, said: “The training is for anyone who wishes to provide leadership in some area of life or in their position. In fact, one of the things participants walk away with is that leadership does not require position, job, a certain education, et cetera.

“All of those things we typically think of as needed for leadership may be useful, but are not required as a condition of leadership.

“In fact, we all witness many people that have all of those things and they provide little to no leadership in life or their organisation.

“This course gets at the very essence of what it is to be a leader. For this reason it is an excellent tool for any person, individual, group, staff et cetera.”

Ms Peterson said many executives who take the course find is that providing leadership in their personal lives is as important and valuable as the leadership they are charged with providing in the jobs.

“Conversely, individuals discover they do not need to have the job, title, position, et cetera to provide leadership in what matters for themselves, their families and their communities.”

Being a Leader 2014 will be held at The Fairmont Southampton from October 28 to November 6. The fee is $4,200 without hotel room costs. For more information go to www.beingaleader.net