The objective of this research was to interview other program directors and department chairs about their challenges and the strategies they used to overcome issues encountered while preparing for the program accreditation. The primary purpose of this research qualitative phenomenological study was to explore program directors' and department chairs' real lived experiences in leading their programs through the accreditation process. This will allow them the opportunity to increase their knowledge regarding the challenges of the accreditation standards related to the various components as the curriculum, faculty, policies and procedures, and student outcomes. This study used the phenomenology research design to explore program directors' and department chairs' real lived experiences in the program accreditation process through interviews. This qualitative research used themes and codes to analyze and organize the data. The coding was done by using the NVivo qualitative statistical package. The data was collected from a sample of five interviews. The researcher followed the interview protocol and participants responded to a list of open-ended questions. The recommendations from this research study remain ongoing to assist anyone in a leadership role when preparing for a program accreditation. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]