ML390 Leading from the Center

Leadership. We hold the formal positions and have the titles. Many of us are at the top of our organizations and institutions. But, are we exercising the leadership that is required to create the world we seek for the next generation? How are our definitions or past experiences of leadership helping or hindering our progress? What can we learn by expanding how we define leadershipand by broadening our awareness of ourselves as leaders and our experience with different leadership models?

This course will respond to these questions and others by focusing on leading in these complex and uncertain times. Busting the myth of leader as hero, lone agent or the person born with the "right traits" we will explore leaders as artists, innovators, teachers, coaches and stewards. We will develop ways of seeing and mobilizing our communities to find a new way forward in facing some of our greatest social and organizational challenges.

Through "case-in-point" classroom learning (large and small group) and assigned readings and activities, participants will identify, understand and use or reshape established patterns and tendencies; heretofore "blind spot" preferred styles of leadership; experiences with others at differing levels of formal authority; and individual strengths/weaknesses. Participants in this course will ultimately be asked to discover and define their own leadership paths and will be prepared to exercise leadership in a range of cultural and organizational contexts, with new awareness, practices, competencies and tools.

The course offers the opportunity to see how groups in organizations resonate with different factions and give them insights into approaching these factions differently. It also builds a space where feedback can be sought and given honestly and completely so participants will have the opportunity to see themselves as they are seen.

Course objectives:

• Diagnose complex leadership challenges by seeing the factions, the values and the work and the loss that groups are facing in the midst of rapid and constant change
• Use self as data and recognize opportunities to learn/intervene effectively in real time
• Develop a practice of responding in a way that accounts for the entire system (organization, community, society)
• Lead from a place of center — one's core values, beliefs, aspirations and ambitions
• Give and receive useful and focused feedback
• Build trust in a range of contexts and cultures

Course outcomes:

• See clear distinctions between adaptive and technical work and between authority and leadership, and how these distinctions pave a clearer path for results
• Listen beneath the words — understand the deeper issues that organizations present and how to address them
• Partner effectively across lines of authority in and outside organizations
• Have courageous and effective conversations up, down and across the hierarchical chain in organizations
• Identify and work with dissonant voices — including all team members in forward motion
• Engage new approaches to solving the toughest challenges you and your organizations face

Course participants:

Leaders at every level of organizational life to draw on the well of leadership "successes" and "failures" in the room. Ideally, each course will have a mix of senior NeighborWorks staff, new and experienced Executive Directors, high-level staff in community-based groups and a range of other positions at HQ and in the field. These individuals should have 5 or more years experience.