Session Type: Workshop Accepted by MIG(s): Development Time Allotted: 75 Description: This session will use a series of engaging exercises to explore the different mindset and skillsets required for leading in today's environment of collaboration and partnerships, and the shift in paradigm from positional to non-positional leadership. The session will be relevant to both practicing leaders seeking to improve their skills at leading collaboratively, as well as leadership developers and educators, who wish to explore ways to help leaders become more successful. Abstract: This session will explore the different mindset and skillsets required for leading in today's environment of collaboration and partnerships with others, or non-positional leadership. The session will first explore the shift in paradigm from positional to non-positional leadership, the competencies required for success in leading collaboration and partnerships, both within and between organizations, and then present a series of engaging exercises for skill-building. The session will be relevant to both practicing leaders seeking to improve their skills at leading collaboratively, as well as leadership developers and educators, who wish to explore ways to help leaders become more successful in future complex organizations, environments, and relationships.
The idea of leader as celebrity has declined over the past decade (Helgesen, 2003). Gardner’s Changing Minds (2004) provides the scholarly psycho-social frame work for the session. Gardner opens his book with a clearly non-positional stance: “Leaders almost by definition are people who change minds” (2004, p. 1). Yet leadership as partnership is not an easy paradigm, as Wheatley (1999) has pointed out. Networks and partnerships wherein talent is broadly distributed better describe the foundation of success in today’s organizations. Moxley and Alexander (2003) build on the idea that leader-as-hero is an ill-suited ideal, noting that “the mantle of leadership is too heavy for one person to bear alone” (p. 74). They offer the image of leader-as-partner, noting like Helgesen (2003), that individuals may be catalysts for innovation.
Participants will actively engage various intelligences to explore the richness of collaboration and non-positional leadership. Learning outcomes will include cognitive appreciation of non-positional leadership and its relevance in modern organizations; practice in positive interpersonal interaction; and heightened self-awareness of non-positional leadership style through reflection and kinesthetic activities.
The 75-minute session will include:
1. Setting the stage: Positional to non-positional paradigm shift (brief facilitator presentation followed by whole group discussion--10-minutes)
2. Influence vs. collaboration: Transition to mutuality and non-positional leadership (small experiential group exercise followed by whole group discussion—20 minutes)
3. As others see us: Accurate self-assessment (individual assessment activity followed by small group discussion—20 minutes)
4. Mutuality in action: Embodiment of partnership (small group kinesthetic exercise followed by large group discussion—15 minutes)
5. Closure (brief facilitator presentation followed by questions and answers—10 minutes)
Elizabeth Jones, Loyola University Maryland
Bio: Dr. Jones is a seasoned leader and manager. She managed an award-winning technical division from 2002 until 2010 for the Department of Defense, where she worked for more than thirty years. She has often been recognized as a powerful organizational leader. Most recently, in 2010 Dr. Jones received the National Security Agency’s Medal for Exceptional Civilian Service, the highest career award given by the Director, NSA, for her creation and sustained leadership of a multi-disciplined organization that provides advanced technological approaches to supply chain assurance of microelectronics components.
Dr. Jones is a dedicated teacher of leadership. She is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Management for the 2010-2011 academic year at the Sellinger School of Business and Management, Loyola University Maryland. She is interested in the interplay between leadership context and leadership expression and is dedicated to facilitating deep understanding of the leader within each person. For the past decade she has taught, on a part-time basis, undergraduate and graduate management and leadership classes for the business department of the College of Notre Dame of Maryland. Melding scholarship with her practical leadership experience, she has written or refined much of the college’s leadership curriculum; several of her courses are key to the school’s new graduate certificate in leadership.
Shelley Robbins, Critical Aspects Consulting; School of Business and Technology, Capella University
Bio: Dr. Shelley Robbins is a Senior Core Faculty member in the School of Business and Technology at Capella University. She has held senior leadership positions in business, education, and consulting. Her interests are helping leaders transform through developing personal leadership practices, and ways in which leaders facilitate organizational transformation. Dr. Robbins received the 2004 Twin Cities Business Journal's Women Changemakers award, given annually to Women who spearhead initiatives and make decisions that have changed their businesses, industries or community. She also co-founded the Personal Side of Leadership program which helps leaders their authentic leadership voice, and consults with and coaches leaders and teams in developing leaders, enabling, organizational change, and creating collaborative teams.
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