Leadership Academy

Shared Leadership Academy: A Three Day Intensive Workshop

Overview:
Shared Leadership is a collaborative approach for building capacity in communities and organizations to meet today’s challenges. The Shared Leadership program is based on the assumption that groups have capacity to organize for positive community change that is rarely fully realized because of a variety of constraints and inappropriate models of leadership.
The overall goal of Shared Leadership is to facilitate movement from traditional hierarchical models of leadership where the leader is an individual to a more inclusive relational model where there is more of a balance of power. The Shared Leadership model calls forth and multiplies collective talents, skills, and leadership potential as committed people work together. The Shared Leadership program is designed as a three-day (24 hour) interactive workshop using experiential learning techniques and field experience.

What is the need?
Extension Professional and Community organisations across the state and region face fundamental challenges in their capacity to effectively and efficiently address rapid changes that impact their ability to problem solve. This is the recurring finding from Extension experiences through its leadership training programs and research, including research conducted by ISU Sociologists.

Capacity gaps are often reflected in organizations as:
· A lack of strategic focus on collective leadership;
· A perception that the organization is working hard but not from a common vision or common goals;
· Over-dependence on one or a few key persons;
· An inability to attract and retain organizational leaders or volunteers;
· Inability to develop and maintain innovative and effective teams

Purpose:
The shared leadership Academy will provide a three day workshop aimed to address gaps in core areas of organizational capacity in order to strengthen organizations and communities in Iowa addressing quality of life issues.

Strategy:
The workshop targets extension professionals and others working in and with community groups toward change. These include persons interested in acting, or in a position to act, as key change agents to transfer knowledge and skills and to facilitate processes of development towards capacity building within their organizations.
The workshop will be participatory and interactive and use a combination of techniques, including innovative teams, panel discussion and reflective discussions. It will include scenarios/case study material and practical exercises that apply learning to participants’ own situations.

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