On Collective Leadership: From People Who Are Doing It.

It’s important to learn about collective leadership from people who are doing it.  Over a year ago the Leadership Learning Community held a two day Learning Lab, “Learning about Collective Leadership” with 30 community activists who were part of the Kellogg Fellows for Community Change.  The KFCC program focused on building collective leadership capacity within communities. The group came from rural and urban regions all over the US.  We have attached the summary of work done by this group that describes lessons and questions that emerged over the two days and demonstrates the ways in which many of the tips that we have shared over the past several months were put to use to stimulate a high level of collective learning.

As the group discussed what we were learning from our experiences, coming at collective leadership from a number of different angles, several themes kept emerging.  We have highlighted them for you.  As you read the summary of work from the learning lab you will find suggestions and lessons related to:

• Personal Work:  The deep reflective work that an individual must do to contribute positively to collective leadership.
• Power: How to redefine power in order to claim our positive individual and collective power, to model new power relationships and deal with oppressive power relationships.
• Processes:  The approaches, processes, tools, competencies and systems that build alignment around vision and support collective leadership.
• Relationships:  The qualities of interaction and behaviors of people who are in a collective leadership relationships with each other and with those they are trying to engage.
• Learning:  The personal and collective commitment to reflection and strategies that support ongoing learning about the practice of collective leadership.

Do any of the themes resonate with your experience? Please share your thoughts!