From 1991 to 2011, Superintendent Nancy Grasmick oversaw all the public schools in the state of Maryland and, for five consecutive years during that span, they ranked top in the nation. Yet when she retired, the Baltimore native, now 85, still had a gnawing feeling that she could have done more. That’s the thing about real leadership. It always strives to better itself.

To that end, three years ago, she founded the Dr. Nancy Grasmick Leadership Institute at her alma mater, Towson University, with the goal of nurturing competent, ethical, and civic-minded leadership across a variety of industries. It has since welcomed about 2,700 participants—from organizations like Under Armour, the nonprofit ShareBaby, and the Maryland Department of General Services—to its programs, which range from one-day events to months-long workshops.

Why did you want to start the institute?
When I decided to leave as state superintendent, even though our schools were top-notch in the nation, I felt that if I had the opportunity to really dig into my own leadership—exploring where I felt strong, where I felt vulnerable—I could have been better than I was. I also had an opportunity to observe leadership not just in education, but business, nonprofits, and government. When I retired, I found that we had a lagging group of leaders in many ways, and it wasn’t necessarily their fault. You can see leaders who are just sort of stuck, there’s no creativity, and when I looked at government, I was also concerned about the ethical dimension.

What’s unique about your programming?
No two leaders are exactly the same, because we’re different people. We have a cascade of programs…You decide what’s right for your company, or as an aspiring or current leader. We don’t want people to leave saying we’re just a facilitator of some of the tried-and-true philosophies about leadership. We want them to say, “Wow, that was really fantastic.”

What are the challenges leaders face today?
There are some ethical ones. Part of it is, if you work with people who are unethical, it influences you. Often, if you are not in the lead position, there’s an expectation that you’ll buy into unethical behavior. How do you deal with that? If we don’t have ethics as a core, I don’t think we have anything. The other thing is people don’t think they have the clout to make changes if they’re not at the top. How do you get your thoughts heard? What’s persuasive? [The answer is] presenting yourself as knowledgeable and confident and deeply believing in something. We had someone from Under Armour. For her capstone project with us, she looked at family-leave policies. As a result of her having the confidence to be bold and suggest changes, they’ve changed their program.

It’s not easy being a leader today. Like in classrooms, we see teacher shortages. How do you address that idea?
Well, first you acknowledge that it is difficult…Things are changing rapidly. Look at how AI is influencing every profession. But you find ways of coping, overcoming, and turning what’s been negative to a positive.