Dr. Leslie Blanchard is an internationally recognized leadership and workforce development specialist with more than 30 years of experience in coaching, training, counseling, advising, teaching, and developing future leaders. The latest chapter of her story started in June as the fulltime President and CEO of TeachLeading LLC.

Dr. Blanchard served as the first executive director of the LSU Leadership Development Institute. She directed her efforts toward strengthening leadership and workforce effectiveness, reducing burnout and turnover in hard-to-staff agencies, and increasing retention and stress management through improving leadership at all levels of organizations. Dr. Blanchard’s research focuses on leadership development and evaluation across all workforce areas, and she is the author and creator of the LADDER framework. Dr. Blanchard has developed and taught leadership courses at the undergraduate and graduate level for the past ten years, influencing thousands of students and one Heisman trophy-winning National Championship quarterback who completed three of her leadership courses. Her passion is to “develop the people that develop people,” and she hopes that her efforts to cultivate great leaders in the workforce will have a positive lasting impact on the country and the world. She retired from LSU in June 2026, and is embracing this next season as a consultant and speaker.