For community leaders looking to expand their skill sets and take their leadership to the next level, an upcoming program might be a valuable next step to take.
The LEAD program, put on by Leadership Indianapolis, will take emerging and experienced civic leaders through four days of training throughout June.
“We are cultivating the pipeline for civic leadership. What we are doing here is building the bench for who’s going in next,” said Adrienne Slash, LEAD’s program director.
Slash said the LEAD program differs in focus from most other leadership training programs.
“Our overall goal is for participants to leave with a better understanding and a fully stocked toolbox of tools for collaborative leadership,” Slash said. “When it comes to leading people from different backgrounds and having them all somehow get on one board or work together for a common good can be a little bit difficult, because everyone comes with a different perspective. That’s where LEAD separates itself from other programs.”
The program, scheduled for each Friday in June, brings participants from diverse backgrounds together to share their own experiences with one another, while also learning from local case studies and taking time for self-reflection.
Seana Murphy, assistant vice president for admissions and enrollment management at Ivy Tech, said LEAD’s curriculum is what prompted her to join the program.
“It was a very structured, sequential curriculum that really spoke to the aspects of leadership development that I wanted to work on for myself and understand about others,” Murphy said.
Murphy said she left not only with a greater understanding of her own leadership abilities and shortcomings, but also with a new outlook on her colleagues’ work.
“I have a greater appreciation for the things that the leaders I work for have to weigh and process before they make decisions around assigning tasks and following up with people,” she said. “I’ve spent more time talking with people, doing some preliminary work before pulling together a whole group, just so I have a better understanding of what individuals are looking for and whether or not the meeting is the appropriate forum to meet those needs. And if it’s not, I have a better understanding of strategies to make sure those needs are met, so people don’t feel excluded.”
Murphy has also taken her LEAD lessons beyond her professional life.
“I’m now on the board of trustees at my church and looking for volunteer opportunities out in the community for myself and my son,” she said. “I’d been pretty much a slacker. Part of the reason I got involved with LEAD is because I wanted to find out what other people are doing and how they made decisions around where they were putting their time. I wanted to be thoughtful about that.”
Slash said the program is ideal for people already serving the community — whether as a board member, organizer, affinity group within a company or any number of other civic leadership positions — who want to become more effective in their roles. People who run neighborhood associations, Slash said, would be especially likely to benefit from LEAD.
The program is local, so it’s tailored specifically to Indianapolis and focuses on skills that are relevant in the city.
“If you’re serious about being involved in the city of Indianapolis, you have to know what’s already happening here,” Slash said. “The case studies we use in this program to teach collaborative leadership are all based off of people who are already in the community doing the work and real-life situations that have occurred.”
Bringing the Super Bowl to Indianapolis, and all of the collaborative work that went into that endeavor, is one initiative Slash mentioned as a potential case study for the program.
As of Recorder press time, a few spots remained for the June LEAD session. The cost to enroll is $1,000. Slash said the program, and inclusion in Leadership Indianapolis’ alumni network, are worth the investment.
“For a person who’s really serious about community leadership or civic leadership, this is the program that will give them the confidence to lead and manage conflict and be able to take their leadership to the next level.”
For more information or to enroll in LEAD, visit leadershipindianapolis.com/LEADprogram.
