2008 Conference Works in Progress

Improve the odds of acceptance! Submit complete session proposals to ILA's 2008 conference

The “proposals in progress” below are printed as a service to ILA members who are in the process of developing session proposals for the annual meeting and are seeking to add panel members to their session. This does not imply endorsement or acceptance of the proposals by the 2008 Program Committee. If you are interested in working with one of these individuals, you must contact that person directly. The Members who have published abstracts below are solely responsible for following up, in a timely and collegial manner, with each person who contacts them to express an interest in being included in the session, and for indicating whether or not each person who contacts them will be included in his or her final proposal submission. Members who have published a “proposal in progress” below are responsible for submitting their complete proposal via the online submission form during the call for proposals period.

At past conferences, the odds of acceptance of a complete session have been much higher than for the acceptance of individual papers/presentations (with the exception of papers submitted along the refereed scholarship track), which not only need to pass the test of excellence but also must fit with other individual papers/presentations to form a panel with internal coherence. Pre-proposal networking toward the formation of complete sessions circumvents this problem. 

Additional “proposals in progress” will be published on the ILA Web site up to the submission deadline of February 29th.  If you are an ILA member and you wish to submit a "proposal in progress" for the 2008 conference, send tentative session title, 200-word MAX description, and proposer's contact information to ILA@ila-net.org with the subject line "Proposals in Progress."

2008 Proposals in Progress
(in order in which they were received)

Integrative Leadership - Cross Sector Efforts to Solve Critical Problems

This panel discussion session will focus on examples of integrative leadership to solve difficult public problems. Integrative leadership is defined as leadership that “fosters collective action across boundaries of individuals, groups, organizations, sectors, and nations to advance the common good.” An example would be the efforts of African states, pharmaceutical firms and non-governmental public health organizations to help the 25 million people in Africa who were infected with HIV/AIDS. These and other strategic challenges demand a different type of leadership capable of identifying, coordinating, and motivating people and organizations across boundaries. This integrative leadership needs to harmonize financial (for business), political (for government) and social (for non-profits) incentives to get all three into harness working toward a common goal for their common good. This session will include three to four examples of integrative leadership that has occurred or is occurring to meet critical community or societal problems. The moderator will present an example of hospitals in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area that faced a chronic and increasing shortage of skilled and diverse workers beginning in 1998. Neither the local hospitals nor local government nor nonprofits nor local educational institutions could address this challenge alone. It required cooperative, cost- and benefit-sharing integrative leadership.

Two or three other presenters of examples of integrative leadership are requested. Please express your interest before February 25, 2008, and send your presentation proposal to: Jay Kiedrowski Center for Integrative Leadership University of Minnesota kiedr003@umn.edu 612-626-5026

Leadership and the Global Religions

Religious beliefs carry implications for the purposes and practices of leadership. Religious rituals involve priests, imams, pastors, gurus, rabbis, shamans, and teachers whose job is to facilitate the religious community’s devotional practices. But it is the history and myths of founders that have captured the imaginations of those who follow and it is their early doctrines that form the guiding principles for succeeding generations of leaders. In the current clash of civilizations, the global faiths would need to better understand each other. The goal is not the creation of a synthesized religion. The goal is to engage in dialogue. While the religions are unlikely to release their own internal sense of superiority, they can still seek to respectively listen to one another. Such respectful listening begins when leaders set the pace. Understanding the nature of leadership, then, from the perspective of each religion and its founder, is a valuable starting point. The distinctives of religious leadership can help others the motivations, values, objectives, as well as short-comings, of those who lead in the name of their faith. This call is for papers that would offer the best thinking regarding the ideals of religious leadership. A panel will allow each presenter to share a paper followed by conversation amongst presenters and audience. I have a paper emerging on “Christian Leadership” and eager for further collaboration!

Paul Kaak, Azusa Pacific University
Email: pkaak@apu.edu

Workshop: Relationship Building for Mentorship

The relationship building, or “cultivation” phase of mentoring relationships -- a preliminary phase when mentor-mentee pairs come to identify themselves as a dyad focused on achieving agreed-upon development goals -- is key to mentoring effectiveness. It is during this phase that, in order for relationships to be effective, individuals must begin to identify with their counterpart, mutual trust must begin to emerge, and shared understanding of the mentorship must develop. The purpose of this workshop is to present and demonstrate a number of strategies for promoting the cultivation of effective mentoring relationships. Each presenter will describe a method for facilitating cultivation, then lead participants through a short simulation of that method. For example, I will present a “similarity and differences” exercise, in which mentors and mentees independently identify several core values, interests, and personality characteristics, then share these with one another and identify opportunities and threats related to shared and divergent values, interests, and personalities. The goal of this workshop is to provide tools and resources for practitioners striving to enhance the effectiveness of mentoring relationships in their own organizations, scholars seeking to identify predictors of effective mentoring relationships, and individuals looking to enhance their own mentoring relationships.

If you are interested in contributing to this workshop, please express your interest by February 15th 2008 by sending your presentation proposal to Cary F. Kemp, Personnel Research Psychologist, U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Email: cary.kemp@opm.gov; Tel.: 1+202+606+2835.
 

From agrarian roots to complex adaptive systems: Community and rural leadership

ILA boasts a learning community on systems thinking, and at the 2007 conference in Vancouver several attendees gathered into a roundtable to discuss issues of rural leadership. My hope is to bring these two groups together to begin a mutually rewarding dialogue. Toward this end, I started designing a complete session of the following kind. I could see an opening talk on Wendell Berry's vision of community or at least some depiction of the agrarian tradition connecting us with the past. My son, also named Nathan, has been working on issues of community and leadership in present day Indiana, and he will have work done on some of these questions by the time we meet. So his talk could represent the present. Then, more than one of you is a fan of systems thinking and complexity, so you could deliver a talk on community and complexity, signaling the future. As of late November, I had a discussant, too, which brings the total to four, which in turn happens to be the most ILA will permit in 2008.  I have two slots, the first and third. With the deadline looming, I decided to use this method to recruit these additional participants.

Nathan Harter, Purdue University
e-mail: nharter@purdue.edu
telephone: 812-662-8686

“HeadsUp” – Leadership Development for Emerging Academic Leaders

In this interactive session, information about an innovative program at the University of Arizona designed to develop the leadership capacity of Department Heads or Chairs will be shared. Let’s face it, the transition from faculty colleague to departmental administrator is not always seamless! The achievements that get one the recognition that precedes selection to head a Department are not necessarily grounded in the skills and knowledge needed to be successful in this critical leadership role. What is needed to fill the gap?

UA’s “HeadsUp” program has been in place for more than a decade. Discussion and a learning activity will be employed to share lessons learned and to encourage and support other academic institutions that are in the process of, or perhaps just thinking about, creating a Department Head Leadership Development program.

Additional presenters are welcome to participate in shaping the session if your institution is interested, or already involved, in designing a Department Head Leadership Development program.

Please let me know by Friday, February 8th if you are interested in being a co-presenter on this topic. Nancy S. Huber, Faculty Associate for Leadership Development, University of Arizona. Email: nhuber@u.arizona.edu. Phone: 520-621-5430.

Global Learning for a New Model of Excellence in Board Leadership

Board leadership, that is leadership of the board and the leadership that the board provides to the corporation (whatever the corporate entity or sector), is of serious concern around the world. However, leadership practitioners/scholars will recognise that managerial governance, regulation, and best practice codes have dominated the debate internationally; alongside a paucity of attention paid to real board leadership. This proposed session focuses on achieving excellence, that which is effective and ethical, in board leadership. A global scan of current board level best practices immediately highlights that no single model of board leadership prevails. The purposes of this session are to elicit learning from a variety of countries and to propose what would be an ideal model of board leadership in the global economy. Therefore, we seek potential panel members to present pioneering practice, research, and scholarship. Presentation themes may include, but not exclusively: Board leadership process, content, and context; Composition, culture, and development of board leadership teams; Moral (and other leadership) development of directors; Applied leadership ethics at the board level; Intersections and integration of board and strategic leadership; Stakeholder engagement in board leadership processes; Purpose, power, politics, and responsibility in board leadership.

Please express your interest ASAP, and send presentation proposals to all three of us: Sherry Penney – Professor of Leadership, University of Massachusetts Boston, Email:Sherry.Penney@umb.edu Telephone: +1 617 287 3890; John Jacob Gardiner – Professor of Leadership, Seattle University, Email:gardiner@seattleu.edu Telephone: +1 206 296 6171; Kuldip Reyatt – Founder/Director, Strategic Visioning Partners, Email: kuldipreyattsvp@aol.com; Telephone: +44 (0)7866 602062.

Simulative Learning and Transformative Technologies in Strategic Leadership

Strategic leadership entails strategic visioning and encountering of unique and high risk situations that fundamentally affect people’s lives and livelihoods. Globally, people demand that these challenges be navigated effectively and ethically by authentic strategic leaders. Consequently, strategic leadership learning is vital; however, by its very nature, this is difficult to achieve in practice. Simulative learning offers a viable solution; particularly, as simulations enable learning that would otherwise be unfeasible because of high cost, complexity, compound risks, and potential loss of life. Recently, practice and knowledge of simulative learning have advanced rapidly; equally, new technologies are emerging that offer the potential to significantly transform strategic leadership. This proposed session will focus on the intersections of simulative learning and transformative technologies in strategic leadership practice and development. The intricacies of simulative learning and case studies from a variety of organisations, situations, and international contexts will be presented; these may include exemplars from global corporations, government, NGOs, military/security, crisis leadership, etc. A variety of technologies will be interactively demonstrated; for example, strategic leadership simulation, gaming, prototyping, computer generated imagery (CGI), virtual reality and multi-dimensional immersive environments, and others. Furthermore, the advantages/disadvantages and the ethics of applying simulations and transformative technologies will be discussed.

Please express your interest before 31 January 2008, and send your presentation proposal to Kuldip Reyatt, Strategic Visioning Partners, Letchworth Garden City, UK. Web: www.leadership-visioning.co.uk; Email: kuldipreyattsvp@aol.com; Tel.: +44 (0)7866 602062.
 

Conferences : 2008 Works in Progress