Since 2013, the FSA Leadership Institute has offered a unique, in-depth experiential learning opportunity for current and emerging senior leaders to deepen their understanding of leading in organizations that embrace Quaker values.
Participants meet in person as a group three separate times, for several days at a time. In between sessions, the group will continue to connect and process what they are learning. Staff of FSA member organizations and select partners are invited to participate. We suggest that each organization select one participant per year; more than one person will be considered on a case-by-case basis.
Program Design:
This intensive, cohort-style experience is designed to promote leadership practices that will resonate in organizations that embrace the Quaker values of Presence, Connection, Listening—and where leaders actively and intentionally live these values to shape and nourish the culture of their organizations.
In short, the experience is designed to give leaders ways of thinking and practicing—frameworks and tools—that are congruent with Quaker values.
We do our work together in the Institute in the spirit of continuous revelation. This supports the assumption that we are always learning, we can hold our opinions lightly, and we can change our minds.
Outcomes:
- Reflection: Increase self-awareness by using reflection to continually evolve a leadership stance and by identifying strengths to leverage and learning edges to explore and develop.
- Foundations of Trust and Relationship Building: Hone skills of listening and asking questions in ways that build trust, enhance coaching and building the capacity of others, and contribute to a respectful, generative environment.
- Building Community and Engaging Stakeholders: Experience and utilize tools for participatory meeting design, group facilitation, and shared decision making and understand how to use them to create the conditions for collaboration.
Values in Action:
Speakers and materials will focus on various models and system frameworks that reflect values in action. Examples include:
- peer coaching
- Quaker model of decision making
- appreciative inquiry
- creating collaborative meetings
For more information, contact Marsha Wesley Coleman.
"(The FSA Leadership Institute) was an invaluable experience that I highly recommend. It transformed my way of thinking about leadership."