The aspirations of collective impact and Eastside Pathways are remarkably similar to the principles of Adaptive Community Leadership. And now Eastside Pathways and Leadership Eastside (LE) are integrating these two approaches in new, exciting ways.
What is Adaptive Community Leadership, you may ask?
Adaptive Community Leadership is a framework, a model, for leading people through complex challenges for which there is no pre-determined answer – and doing it in such a way that people thrive in the process. Thriving does not mean it’s easy or conflict-free. In fact, an adaptive challenge, by definition, involves a conflict in values within a system. Leading people through adaptive challenges requires digging deep into issues to discover the often unspoken, unrecognized values and priorities that reinforce the current, undesired outcomes.
LE applies the principles of Adaptive Community Leadership to help people collaborate, innovate, and thrive. LE informs (through forums and reports), equips (through leadership development courses), and connects (through events and media) business, non-profit, and public sector leaders to impact their community for the greater good.
In partnership with Eastside Pathways, LE has developed a certification process to add Adaptive Community Leadership skills to the Eastside Pathways facilitator toolbox. Over the course of eight months, facilitators will learn how to manage and focus their collaboratives’ work in ways that can maximize and accelerate outcomes.
This partnership is unique in the country because of the specificity of the training the facilitators are receiving to leverage the best of Adaptive Leadership in pursuit of collective impact.
LE is proud to be an Eastside Pathways partner and able to participate in the partnership in this way.
Article written by James Whitfield, chief executive at Leadership Eastside