To achieve the highest educational award of Distinguished Toastmaster (DTM) members must complete a High Performance Leadership (HPL) project and the HPL Chairperson acts as a personal guide for success.

An HPL program helps breakdown a large task or event into manageable parts. It is a five-project curriculum that offers instruction and practice in such vital leadership skills and activities as developing a mission and vision, goal-setting and planning, identifying values and building a team.

HPL projects are frequently not related to Toastmasters and have revolved around varied events like wine tastings, book launches, seminars and group vacation activities.