To celebrate our 25th anniversary, LLC is hosting a special series of conversations with our friends and colleagues. These interviews honor our journey, lift up the essence of who we are, and reflect on the meaningful relationships and work that have shaped LLC over the past 25 years.
Alexandra Urdaneta: Please tell us a bit about yourself and your involvement with Leadership Learning Community.
Deborah Meehan: I was a graduate of the Kellogg leadership program. Having worked in the nonprofit sector for over 20 years, I felt that, as a sector, we were too separated and competitive. I began to see leadership as a means to start breaking down some of those divides and creating change in the sector.
A key question in the genesis of LLC was what it would take to connect the thousands of people who have been through leadership programs to leverage their energy and respective areas of work to tackle systemic problems. Leadership program staff, alumni, and funders began developing a vision for a learning community where we could build common knowledge about how to better develop leadership and experiment with a new way of being in relationship with each other that would start to shift the competitive scarcity mindset in the sector that limited our own learning and collaboration. This was the beginning of LLC, over 25 years ago.
Alexandra Urdaneta: I love that from the very beginning, it was about organizing a network of leaders to both learn and take action. It’s no surprise that we continue to say leadership is an essential pathway to transformation.
Deborah Meehan: Yeah. It brought together a diverse group of people from various sectors who were drawn to leadership as a means to drive change, and always with a strong social justice focus.
Alexandra Urdaneta: What have you learned from LLC?
Deborah Meehan: I think a really important moment for me was the first Creating Space. It began as an experiment—could people truly come together in a different way, leading with our values? What moved me most was witnessing the joy as people connected and began learning from one another. It was clear that, at their core, people deeply longed for authentic connection and meaningful collaboration.
"For me, liberatory leadership is a place of anchoring our values, but also really stretching ourselves to think about applying our values to new systems of democratic organization that are creating the scaffolding for a liberatory future."
- Deborah Meehan
Alexandra Urdaneta: What do you see as the most significant shift or evolution in LLC’s focus?
Deborah Meehan: We began to realize that elevating best practices does not exist outside of context and that we needed to engage around the question of the leadership that was needed to take on systemic problems like systemic racism, economic inequality, and environmental degradation. During this shift about fifteen years ago, we began working to bring a race-conscious lens to leadership development work, understanding that without a racial equity lens, we reinforce structural racism. We challenged ourselves and the field to do better.
One of the things I loved about being part of LLC is that it is creative, responsive, always listening and paying attention to what’s happening, using an emergent approach and not a top-down strategy. It is that kind of creative energy that brings so many people and their perspectives together to keep pushing our understanding and practice forward. I have great hopes for the leadership that LLC will be providing in this moment around democracy and how we resist and build for an equitable future.
Alexandra Urdaneta: Yes, 100%. One of the things I value most is the learning space and creativity we share, along with the opportunity to connect with others. I deeply appreciate the spaces we create to engage in meaningful conversations and explore leadership together.
Alexandra Urdaneta: Can you share a moment, or program, or a relationship from your timeline and LLC that has stayed with you?
Deborah Meehan: There are so many! The chance to work alongside Ericka as co-directors was a joy. Seeing LLC take up liberatory leadership and create BIPOC-centered space under Ericka and Nikki’s leadership affirms that LLC has the leadership required to meet this critical moment for all of us leading social and racial justice work.
Alexandra Urdaneta: What does liberatory leadership mean to you, and how do you see it in action?
Deborah Meehan: If I had to point to somebody who’s been incredibly influential in my life and thinking, it would be Paolo Ferreri. He wrote Pedagogy of the Oppressed, and I got to spend a week with him and others talking about liberation. (A highlight of my Kellogg fellowship). He reminded us that we don’t have models for how to create systems and societies that aren’t based on the oppression of one group over another. It means we have to create and imagine a different kind of future and begin to embody the values of that future in the work we do now. For me, liberatory leadership is a place of anchoring our values, but also really stretching ourselves to think about applying our values to new systems of democratic organization that are creating the scaffolding for a liberatory future.
Alexandra Urdaneta: What hopes or dreams do you have for LLC?
Deborah Meehan: LLC is providing a place for building resilience through the culture, values, community, and care. My hope for LLC continues to provide support and connect people, because I think the way in which LLC builds the ecosystem of justice-seeking leadership is how we’re gonna win. I believe LLC will be able to support people’s resilience in the fight, and also hold space for love and creativity, reminding people that even though we have to resist and fight fascism, we can’t lose sight of what we’re fighting for, and our belief in the future we are trying to birth together.
