Some acknowledgments serve as a destination. Others are, above all, a signpost along the way.
Nova SBE Executive Education was honored with second place in the EBLD Award—the Evidence-Based Leadership Development Award—presented by the League of Leadership. More than just an award, this international recognition highlights the way the school has been conceptualizing, designing, and implementing leadership development: with ambition, depth, and scientific rigor. leadership development: with ambition, depth, and scientific rigor.
The distinguished Horizon Leadership program was recognized at the Academy of Management’s annual conference in Philadelphia, one of the world’s most important academic gatherings in the fields of management and organizational studies. But the true significance of this moment goes beyond the stage where it was announced. It lies in the concept of leadership that gave rise to it.
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Leadership doesn't happen without tension
For a long time, leadership development was viewed as a collection of skills: communicating better, making better decisions, managing teams, inspiring others, delegating, and transforming. All of these remain important. But perhaps they are no longer enough.
Contemporary leadership takes place on shakier ground. Leaders are called upon to choose between speed and inclusion, between control and autonomy, between stability and change, between performance and regeneration. And often, there is no definitive answer that resolves these tensions once and for all.
That is precisely where Horizon Leadership proposes a shift in perspective: leadership is not developed simply by adding tools, but by learning to navigate tensions that do not go away.
Instead of treating these tensions as problems to be eliminated, the program views them as the raw material for development. A leader grows when they learn to remain clear-headed in the face of conflicting forces, when they are able to make decisions under pressure without simplifying complexity, and when they transform ambiguity into clarity and misalignment into momentum.
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A program designed to transform, not just inform
This vision calls for an experience that differs from traditional executive training.
That is why Horizon Leadership is not limited to the classroom setting. The program combines individual assessments, executive coaching, medical and physiological evaluations, multi-day immersive retreats, and peer-led systemic mapping sessions.
The intention is clear: to create the conditions for change to occur not only on an intellectual level, but also in the way leaders observe themselves, regulate their behavior, make decisions, and interact with the systems of which they are a part.
Because leadership isn't just about knowing more. It's about being able to act more thoughtfully when there is pressure, uncertainty, and multiple forces at play.
Since submitting its application for the EBLD Award, the program has already involved more than 400 executives and CEOs, has been implemented within the Nova SBE Executive Education community, and has given rise to a program specifically designed for CEOs and board members.
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International recognition of scientific rigor
The EBLD Award is presented by the League of Leadership, an international community that brings together business schools, universities, and organizations dedicated to raising quality standards in leadership development.
The award recognizes programs that stand out for the strength of their theoretical foundation, their methodological rigor, and evidence of real impact. In this sense, being part of this select group of internationally recognized institutions also speaks to the position that Nova SBE Executive Education has been building.
It’s not just about developing leaders to address the present. It’s about contributing to a new generation of leadership practices—ones that are more mindful, more sustainable, and better prepared to handle the complexity of the coming decade.
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A Goal for 2030
This recognition is in line with Nova SBE Executive Education’s ambition to establish itself as a European leader in leadership development by 2030.
This ambition involves going beyond conventional competency models and exploring more systemic, integrated, and evidence-based approaches. The path is demanding, but it is precisely this less obvious path that the League of Leadership has chosen to champion.
The Horizon Leadership program was developed by Milton de Sousa, Associate Professor and Academic Director of Horizon Leadership; Pedro Brito, CEO and Associate Dean of Nova SBE Executive Education; and Madalena Borges de Sousa, Executive Director of Alumni, Careers & Lifelong Development and Executive Director of Horizon Leadership.
More than just a program, it represents a way of looking at leadership as a living practice: one made up of awareness, tension, choice, and impact.
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As Professor Milton de Sousa summarizes:
“This recognition from the League of Leadership, earned alongside some of the world’s top schools in this field, confirms that Nova SBE Executive Education is building leadership development with the same scientific rigor we demand in any other area of research. It is a starting point, not a destination.”
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At a time when leadership is less and less about controlling answers and more and more about sustaining difficult questions, this recognition confirms a fundamental conviction: the future of leadership does not belong to those who avoid tensions, but to those who learn to transform them into clarity, alignment, and momentum.
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