Leadership Academy Presented by LWRBA
In Sarasota-Bradenton, leadership is no longer confined to the corner office.
By Edit Sarasota Staff
In Sarasota-Bradenton, leadership is no longer confined to the corner office. It is visible in the people building new businesses, strengthening established companies, organizing community initiatives and finding better ways to connect the region’s fast-growing neighborhoods. This fall, a new program at Nathan Benderson Park will put those skills under the microscope—and invite local professionals to develop them in good company.
Presented by the Lakewood Ranch Business Alliance, the Leadership Academy is a six-week, interactive program created in partnership with Game On Nation. Its audience is deliberately broad: senior leaders looking to sharpen their approach, mid-level professionals preparing for greater responsibility and emerging talent moving quickly toward its next role. The common thread is ambition tempered by curiosity—the willingness to examine how one leads, communicates and motivates others.
That emphasis feels particularly relevant in a region where growth is reshaping the workplace as quickly as it is the landscape. Sarasota and Lakewood Ranch have attracted entrepreneurs, corporate teams, nonprofits and institutions with increasingly complex missions. Strong leadership, in this setting, is less about having all the answers than about building trust, making sound decisions and bringing people along through change.
Game On Nation, known for its work in leadership development and team performance, brings an energetic, practical sensibility to the curriculum. The academy’s format is designed to be participatory rather than purely lecture-based, giving attendees space to test ideas, learn from peers and translate leadership concepts into the realities of their own organizations. A six-week structure also allows those lessons to gather momentum between sessions, rather than disappearing into the familiar haze of a single professional-development morning.
The setting adds another dimension. Nathan Benderson Park is one of the region’s most distinctive public venues, a world-class destination for rowing and paddlesports that has also become a gathering place for major events, community programs and outdoor life. Its expansive grounds and purpose-built facilities offer a fitting backdrop for a program centered on movement, perspective and collective effort.
The Leadership Academy runs from 8:30 a.m. to noon on August 14, August 21, August 28, September 11, September 18 and September 25, 2026. Presented by LWRBA in partnership with Game On Nation, the program will be hosted at Nathan Benderson Park, with the final session taking place Friday, September 25.