What does “flat leadership” look like? A new approach to nonprofit leadership
In response to my recap of the YNPN National Conference on what young nonprofit professionals need to do in order to lead, Melinda Lewis offered compelling insight:
As part of owning one’s own experience, there’s a need to create organizational cultures that value different kinds of experience as equally legitimate–that means, in some cases, recognizing that social service agency clients have greater expertise about a given problem, from having lived it, than the professional with the degree…and it means honoring the life experiences of older generations whose ways of approaching problems may be different than younger ones. We need a flatter, broader understanding of what leadership is, and looks like, and does, not just for younger leaders in a nonprofit setting, but for the pursuit of more just social relationships everywhere (as lofty as that may sound!).
Are our definitions of leadership making it harder for us to lead?
We’ve had these conversations before about moving towards a broader more just definition of leadership. However, I’m really interested in what this looks like. I would love to hear from all of you examples, practices, resources, and challenges you have seen or experienced when it comes to redefining leadership on an organizational level. This goes beyond what we experience at our jobs to how we connect and share different voices in our discussions about justice.
Are organizations moving towards more inclusive leadership? What does that mean? What does it look like?
Be sure to check out the newest issue of OnlyUp, where writers tackle new visions of leadership.
What does “flat leadership” look like? A new approach to nonprofit leadership – by @ajlovesya #nmba http://bit.ly/eNZxeE
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Many Women’s Funds have been attempting and implementing ‘flatter’ leadership models for many years… just a couple of quick examples:
Women’s Funding Network: http://www.womensfundingnetwork.org/impact
and
http://www.wfnet.org/sites/wfnet.org/files/WFNStrategicPlan2009-2019.pdf (see page 4- Assumptions)
Mama Cash: http://bit.ly/gh84MA
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When we say "inclusive leadership" what do we mean? What does it look like? Any best practices/models? Share them here: http://ow.ly/4pZbv
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Hi Allison,
Thanks for writing this post and bringing up this question. Leadership for a New Era, a research project launched by Leadership Learning Collaborative, is all about understanding leadership as something “more networked, inclusive, and collective.” They released a report recently called “Leadership and Race: How to Develop and Support Leadership that Contributes to Racial Justice” and are doing some really interesting work around rethinking leadership, working with organizations/companies around some of these issues, etc.
I had the privilege of interviewing Founder/Exec. Dir. of LLC Deborah Meehan for an interview with NPi this past fall as well. Hope these resources are helpful, and I highly recommend checking out their work/website.
Best,
Lex
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RT @ajlovesya: When we say "inclusive leadership" what do we mean? What does it look like? Any best practices/models? Share them here: http://ow.ly/4pZbv
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Best teams I’ve met in NP orgs employ this style.| What does "flat leadership" look like? A new approach to nonprofit… http://t.co/6aI5lqR
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What does “flat leadership” look like? A new approach to nonprofit leadership http://bit.ly/eDm5Z5 via Allison Jones #leadership
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RT @rjleaman: What does “flat leadership” look like? A new approach to nonprofit leadership http://bit.ly/g8hV9e via @ajlovesya
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I’m so glad that you’re probing at this–it’s something that is a lot easier to talk about than to integrate into a nonprofit system. I’ll do some digging to find specific examples, but I know that more NPOs are going to co-CEO or even team CEO models, in an effort to bring in different people’s respective strengths, and there are certainly some models of strong constituent representation on Boards of Directors…not totally related to what you’re looking for, I know, but I’m really intrigued by a practice in the UK that has users of social services play a role in designing curriculum and setting graduation standards for those who will be professionals in the nonprofits that serve them–a way of going far beyond token or nominal sharing of leadership. I hope you share some of the examples that folks are funneling to you, and your further reflections on what they might mean, for young professionals and for everyone.
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