# Design a job shadowing program for future leaders

A structured shadowing program with selection, pairings, activities, reflection, and measures so participants learn how leaders really work.

- Topic: Leadership & Management
- Framework: Few-Shot
- Level: Standard
- Tags: Leadership, Code, Fill-in Template
- Source: https://www.thinkwithprompt.com/prompts/design-a-job-shadowing-program-for-future-leaders

## Prompt

```text
Help me design a leadership shadowing program.

**Department or organization:** [DETAILS, size]
**Who will shadow:** [e.g. high-potential individual contributors, new managers]
**Who they'll shadow:** [leaders' levels and roles]
**Goal:** [e.g. prepare successors, expose people to decision-making, cross-functional understanding]
**Time available:** [e.g. 2 days per quarter, half-day weekly for 6 weeks]
**Constraints:** [confidential meetings, remote or hybrid teams, budget]

Cover:
1. **Selection:** fair, transparent criteria and an application or nomination process; how to avoid only picking people who already have visibility.
2. **Matching:** how to pair participants with leaders (development goals, avoiding their own manager, cross-functional exposure).
3. **What to shadow:** a mix of real activities (decision meetings, 1:1 prep, customer calls, budget reviews, hard conversations) and which to exclude for confidentiality, with a simple confidentiality agreement.
4. **Structure:** before (goals and briefing), during (observation guide with what to notice), after (debrief questions with the leader, written reflection).
5. **Leader guide:** how to narrate their thinking, a debrief script, and time commitment.
6. **Follow-through:** a stretch assignment or project after shadowing so learning is applied.
7. **Measurement:** participant and leader feedback, behavior change, promotion readiness, retention of participants.

Return a program outline, a participant observation template, a leader debrief question list, and a launch timeline. Remind me to check the selection criteria against our equal-opportunity policies and local employment law before launch.
```

## What to fill in

- DETAILS, size
- e.g. high-potential individual contributors, new managers
- leaders' levels and roles
- e.g. 2 days per quarter, half-day weekly for 6 weeks
- confidential meetings, remote or hybrid teams, budget

Free to copy and use. From ThinkWithPrompt (https://www.thinkwithprompt.com/), a library of 2,663 curated AI prompts.