Harry Dellane of Acumen Fund and Lyndon Rego of CCL conducted a three-day leadership development program for the new 2009 cohort of Acumen Fund Fellows. The Fellows hail from six different countries and will be assigned to work with Acumen Fund investees in India, Pakistan, and Kenya.
The leadership program was designed to help develop essential skills the Fellows will need in their 9-month field placements drawing on research CCL had conducted into competencies embodied by social entrepreneurs. The program, built on the core Leadership Essentials model, incorporated additional modules on 360-degree feedback, life journey mapping, innovation, active listening, resilience, and collaborating across boundaries. This content was received well by the Fellows who described the program as “one of the richest learning experiences” and found the content focused on self-reflection and interpersonal interactions to be “eye-opening.” A Fellow commented that the program “had the more introspection than I’ve had my whole life. I’ve understood things I’ve never understood before.”
The program layered leadership frameworks with assessments and activities. Group dialogue was interspersed with peer feedback and coaching sessions building self-knowledge and social awareness as well as a deeper appreciation of leadership dynamics. The program began with an exploration of the life journeys that had brought the Fellows to this point. “Experience and identity is a circular process,” observed a Fellow in response to the exercise, while another observed that reflection enables us to see how “the dots connect backwards.” The Images of Leadership exercise prompted observations about looking beyond — “leaders must see what doesn’t exist” — and being empathetic — “leaders prompt people to take off their shoes and walk in someone else’s shoes.” The conversations circled around the tradeoff between collective and individual action. This came into focus in an exercise titled Traffic Jam, where one Fellow noted “You can be an effective leader by following” and the Integrated Thinking activity that prompted the reflection: “You need to see others perspective and yet hold onto your own perspective.” The arc of exploration closed in on dealing with difference. The Fellows reflected that the need is not to “dwell on differences” but to find “common ground.” A framework based on the GLOBE study titled 7 Dimensions of Global Leadership prompted a rich discussion on cultural differences and how expectations can shift across geographies. A theme in navigating new challenges was relying on others. The need, said one of the Fellows, is to have a “guiding angel to help you.” Guiding angels, we observed in the peer-coaching session, exist all around.
The Acumen program sponsors noted the need to extend leadership development more broadly in the social sector and take a development orientation to build “patient human capital.” Our hope is that this program which folds together leadership and innovation skills for social sector audiences will offer a stepping stone in that direction.
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October 19th, 2009 at 4:14 am
Lyndon and Harry, this is very encouraging to read what you did and how the Fellows responded. Great job in creating an environment of safe learning and in collecting the Fellows insights to substantiate the process. The relationship between Acumen & LBB is having rippling affects with all the lives it touches. Thank you, thank them and thank us!