Session Type: Panel Discussion Accepted by MIG(s): Public Time Allotted: 75 Description: Using the scholarship of arts education, creative writing, and visual analogy, the presenters will explain methods to defuse negative emotions and substitute peacemaking paradigms to pave new courses of action for 21st century leaders. They will then lead participants in groups to hone these skills in their own daily encounters. Abstract: The leader’s role is based on persuasion, leading a set of participants to find common ground among competing interests; in this way the mediator and leader share strategies and approaches to organizations and systems defined by complexity, diversity, and interdependence. A true mediator often has little formal authority to direct or decide, but uses leadership skills to hold conversations, arrange group interactions, and gather data in the search for a just and fair resolution. With new technologies making communication and miscommunication rapid, with the knowledge explosion increasing in all sectors of society, and in rough economic times, new questions of mediation emerge in all fields: How does one guide leaders in any conflict situation to take actions they have never had to take before, such as surviving massive budget cuts, erosion of infrastructure, increased public skepticism and despair? How does one maneuver through the ethical issues involved in decisions, for example, about protecting one’s own standard of living and family needs versus saving the jobs of other teachers or avoiding classes of 40 or more students? How does a school principal mediate among competing value systems in school decisions and among competing or paradoxical perspectives: diverse cultures, high stakes testing, cutting edge curriculum, dwindling state and federal funding. How does an organization continue its mission and accountability in downsizing? What does a political leader do who is responsible for outcomes on behalf of all the people, when people are divided? When crisis occurs, and people are vulnerable, fearful, and angry, and the causes are multiple, internal, external, and unknown, how does a leader help to analyze the problem, strategize short-term and long-term solutions, and inspire a sense of common cause?
Using interactive and case method approaches, panelists will help participants understand and develop skills important for the leader as mediator or peacemaker. Using a multidisciplinary approach from the scholarship of arts education, creative writing, and the precepts of facilitative mediation, panelists will present an interactive session in which participants will develop insights toward a multidisciplinary approach to problem solving to pave new courses of action for 21st century leaders.
Presenter 1
The Sonnet of Leadership
Is it a coincidence that Shakespeare devotes the majority of his plays to leadership throughout history and culture? If only his bedeviled but noble-minded (sometimes) kings had had Shakespeare as a consultant, or had studied him in King School! Knowledge of literature and practice with creative writing are intrinsic to leadership conundrums/problem solving, even for people who do not see themselves as in the literary arts. Even more fundamental to civil society and any organization in which conflict and confusion are everyday dark matter, is the challenge of forgiveness and healing. The qualities that help people and organizations come to solutions, and even a sustainable peace, are rooted in creativity. In dire times, literature/creative writing can energize and transform a leadership nexus across disciplines and fields through analysis of competing forces. We will explore the role of creativity and imagination in conflict resolution: how writing a sonnet can open up possibilities and encouragement of new paradigms with which to go forward, even in impossible situations, and how literary models stimulate a long term, global approach to systemic problem-solving at the heart of leadership the world needs now.
Presenter 2
Leader as Creative Listener: Noise as Knowledge
Abiding listening is critical in the current cultural leadership environment, not the noise of individual need and greed, but sensitivity to every note, with varying volumes at different times. Similar to the chamber group who performed at ILA in Prague 2009, each musician is important and must lead now, follow next, all working together to produce the whole sound of harmony, trusting each to strive individually in ways that support the harmony of all: this is the goal of the mediator (or any peace-maker). Before the leader reaches harmony, she may have to create discord and blaring volume to get attention, to stop non-productive personal attacks, to make people “shut up and think.” That's part of problem solving, too. In this session, I will involve the audience as participants in listening exercises, discuss the listening skills used and practiced, and link the knowledge of the performing arts and arts education to the theory and practice of leader as mediator, the importance of a leader developing a musician's ear.
Presenter 3
Leader as Mediator
This panelist will contribute her facilitative mediation practices centering on mending and nurturing relationships rather than settling issues. This change in point of view does not occur quickly or easily; it requires relinquishing familiar defined roles such as leader or follower. It is necessary to defuse irrational emotional thinking, to hone questions to cause those at impasse to think in new ways, and to encourage reflecting and deep thinking to reach difficult agreements that would have been unacceptable in the past.
A visual analogy will be employed, one of a beautiful lake and forest in the summer in a solid, beautiful unity of greens with a few flowers in a pleasant environment in which to work. That's mediation or peace-making in ordinary times. Another picture is the same forest in winter with many types and sizes of trees all shivering in their cold forlorn existence and a lake dangerous in its partially frozen state. That's mediation now. The bigger trees are the leaders, surrounded by smaller ones, their constituents. It is obvious that there are many interests (all the trees), all struggling to survive in a harsh world, which must be merged for survival of our institutions. Barbara Mossberg, California State University Monterey Bay
Bio: President Emerita of Goddard College, and Director and Professor of Integrated Studies at California State University Monterey Bay, Dr. Mossberg incorporates roles of poet, actor, public lecturer and activist of arts education into her leadership practice and scholarship. Interdisciplinary vision frames her academic experience, from her B.A. in English and History at UCLA to her Ph.D. in literature from Indiana University and post-doctoral work in chaos and dynamic whole systems theories applied to leadership and creative problem-solving for global paradigms of change. She has given lectures, workshops, and courses on the intersections of arts, humanities, ancient and classic knowledge, emergent science, and public policy, with special emphasis on the unlikely and essential role of creative arts in strategic planning, conflict resolution, assessment, resource management, crisis management, and problem-solving for long-term and global outcomes. Dr. Mossberg's interdisciplinary advocacy over thirty years is seen in roles as Distinguished Senior Fulbright Lecturer, Scholar in Residence for the U.S. Information Agency and Union Institute and University, keynote speaker, board president and member of arts organizations, and in academic roles including university dean (graduate school, University of Oregon, arts and sciences, National University, arts, humanities, and social sciences, California State University) and program head (American Studies, University of Oregon, Integrated Studies, CSU). For organizations such as the Mt. Vernon Institute, Fetzer Institute, Lilly Conference on College and University Teaching, Foreign Service Institute, American Council on Education (Senior Fellow), Aspen Institute (Moderator, Resource Fellow, Mellon Fellow), Mossberg integrates creativity and paradigms of power. In two related works in progress, she explores the role of literary arts in public policy for civil and human rights, environmental legislation, and war and peace, including a drama musical, on the power of poetry to change the world. She has written on the relation between leadership and literature, the subject of her next book.
JoAnn Barbour, Texas Woman's University
Bio: JoAnn Danelo Barbour is a Professor of Leadership and Administration at Texas Woman’s University. An educator for over 35 years, she earned a Ph.D. in Administration and Policy Analysis and an A.M. in Anthropology from Stanford University. JoAnn’s research interests are in a multidisciplinary approach to studying leadership and developing leaders, creativity and cultural aspects of leadership, understanding one’s world view through values and language use, and pedagogical practices of leadership. Recent past Chief Editor of Academic Exchange Quarterly journal, as well as its Feature Editor for the Leadership issue, JoAnn is also past-chair of the Leadership Education MIG of ILA. The author of several journal articles and book chapters on leadership or teaching leadership, she has recently co-edited two volumes of ILA’s Building Leadership Bridges.
Abstract: Carolyn Roper, Purdue University North Central
Bio: Carolyn D. Roper is Assistant Professor of Organizational Leadership and Supervision at Purdue University North Central in Indiana where she teaches applied leadership, change management, conflict management, and negotiations and mediates teacher-school board contract disputes as a consultant for the Indiana Education Employment Relations Board. Her Ph.D. is in higher education administration. Before joining the university, she held directing and managing positions in the public and private sectors for thirty years, including bargaining spokesperson in PK-12 contract impasses and designing customized training in the manufacturing setting. Chair: Carolyn Roper, Purdue University North Central Return to complete program |
