Skip to content

Leadership Learning

These are interwoven competencies that result from our ability to first identify those who are in alignment with the vision, have both the motivation and ability to actualize, and can engage in partnerships to impact societal results.

Grounding Ourselves

Grounding is key—knowing what it is that you know and believe about leadership. What is the story that has developed within and around you about what it means to lead. The focus is on reviewing existing limits and possibilities, experiences, and examples. The outcome is a heightened awareness of what you bring to the activities of your own leadership.

Topics and activities:

  • Understanding the frame of your story, your leadership
  • Knowing your skills, limits, strengths, and competencies through realistic self-appraisal
  • Self-regulating and control; the ability to “live in the response, not the stimulus”
  • Practicing effective time and energy management
  • Monitoring and regulating self-efficacy
  • Pushing the boundary of comfort and capacity
  • Managing your hunger

Addressing The Gap

The Gap* is the space between the aspirations you have and the concerns you hold—between the current reality to a new, better reality. This is where leadership begins with dissatisfaction. The Gap did not magically occur but evolved. In fact, often The Gap is the result of previous attempts to resolve issues. To make deep, profound change requires an understanding of context, culture, and dynamics. The current system supports The Gap. To jump The Gap, you need allies and collaborators.

Topics and activities:

  • Addressing The Gap (concerns and aspirations)
  • Identifying allies and collaborators
  • Listening and developing voice
  • Developing improvisational skills
  • Engaging in difficult conversations
  • Leading as convener and facilitator
  • Influencing and connecting with others
*Read more about The Gap in When Everyone Leads by Ed O’Malley and Julia Fabris McBride

Intervening Skillfully

Intervention skills are the true measure of leadership. To intervene skillfully is to do so consciously and purposefully. Building upon our knowledge of ourselves and of the awareness of The Gap, we will more specifically look at how to manage the conflict by bringing it into the open. We will focus on Systems Leadership that transcends organizational boundaries and supports movement toward strategies and channels for implementing change.

Topics and activities:

  • Adopting a bigger vision of impact
  • Learning from others’ experience and leveraging that into new solutions
  • Building capacity to map, analyze, and enhance networks
  • Willingness to share information and resources without expectation of reciprocity
  • Fostering joint action for specific outcomes
  • Aligning people to create and grow collective identity and action
  • Understanding technical versus adaptive challenges
  • Developing a common vision and alignment
  • Galvanizing for collective action