leadership development

The Arab Spring and the massive mobilization of people and resources in the 2008 elections have captured the imagination of leadership development programs impressed by network strategies with the potential to magnify the social impact of individuals and groups.   Many leadership programs are interested in how they might incorporate a network approach to catalyze action among their graduates.  LLC would like to share five lessons from conversations about program design approaches could be at odds with nurturing emergent networks: read more »

• Leadership models introduced in many leadership programs are in conflict with the leadership behaviors that are needed for network leadership.
• Few existing leadership programs are helping participants learn to use social technologies or to gain skills with network strategies that would help to ensure the success of the network.
• The top down, expert driven design of many leadership programs undermines self-organizing and peer learning opportunities that would help nurture an emergent network.
• Leadership program graduates will not automatically connect as a network simply because they have graduated from the same leadership program: there has to be a compelling purpose and the impact of the network could be amplified by being open.
• Supporting a network requires an investment in platforms and network coordination.

The Bush Foundation recently sponsored a learning community meeting of leadership development investors and practitioners in Minnesota, where I had the opportunity to learn about a very interesting community leadership development approach by the Initiative Foundation called the Healthy Community Partnership (HCP) program. Intrigued about the HCP program, I conducted a follow-up interview with Dan Frank, Program Manager for Community Development at the Initiative Foundation, so that we could share their innovative work with all of you. read more »

A year ago, Education Pioneers made the courageous decision to depart from our conventional alumni engagement strategy to an innovative network strategy.  Our new direction employs tactics that build relationships amongst our alumni rather than to our institution.  This reorientation required us to challenge our assumptions about how we develop education leaders capable of transforming education in the 21^st century.

Our fellows hail from the country’s most selective business, education, policy, and law graduate programs that have turned leadership development into a rich social science, but have also built their programs around the navigation of traditional hierarchies and the common scenarios of an institution.  In order to build a professional network of leaders that work across agencies, Education Pioneers is revamping our curriculum to include components that teach emerging leaders how to turn to one another to accelerate change in the field.

As Education Pioneers’ director of network strategy, I reviewed academic literature and boiled the salient findings down to five network leadership competencies that we’re weaving into our curricula at Education Pioneers. 

Read on for a look at practices that you can use to advance your career and deepen your impact as a professional.

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Presenter: Michelle Gislason, CompassPoint Nonprofit Services

Topic: Coaching as a Leadership Development Strategy

Date: Wednesday, December 14th 11:00AM-12:00 Noon PST (2:00PM-3:00PM EST)

Leadership development is on the forefront of grantmaker and capacity builders' minds, particularly as organizations navigate the current realities they face. This interactive session explores coaching as a leadership development strategy. CompassPoint shares what they have learned about how coaching can help nonprofit leaders succeed along with highlights from the Coaching and Philanthropy Project and their own work incorporating coaching into several leadership development programs. Specific topics include: read more »

• Examining the impact coaching has on nonprofit leaders and their organizations and how consultants or MSOs might support leaders in this way.
• Discussing the difference between coaching, consulting, and training.
• Exploring the various types of coaching that can be used in capacity building interventions.

Over the past few years, LLC along with other researchers and practitioners has been calling for a new leadership mindset.  We need to expand our thinking about leadership from focusing on the behavior of individuals influencing others to a more expanded view of leadership as a dynamic process by which many who care about an issue connect their efforts to make change.  Of course, it would follow that if we are trying to support leadership as a process that occurs among people we need to also rethink leadership development delivery strategies. There are three questions we believe we should be exploring: read more »

1. If we are trying to foster leadership as a collaborative process is it counter- productive to select and focus on building the skills of individuals?
2. If leadership is enacted by many people who bring different skills to a collective endeavor, why would we try to cultivate all of the leadership skills in one person?
3. Should we be recruiting and supporting people who want to work on a shared purpose or in a common context to support collective leadership and accelerate action learning?

Evidence-based practice (EBP) is commonly used to inform practice decisions in the fields of medicine, nursing, social work, child welfare, and criminal justice.

These fields have established standards of practice that guide decision-making about what treatments and protocols to use with individual patients, clients, and offenders to ensure the highest possible accountability for producing good results.

How is evidence-based practice being used in the field of leadership development?  read more »

A former LLC Board Member recently mentioned that she was going to be teaching a course this semester on Leadership and Art. read more »