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Cultivating Shared Leadership

Cultivating Shared Leadership (CSL) is designed to strengthen leadership among conservation, sustainable agriculture and community food systems organizations and university-based institutes. The program seeks to foster and sustain efforts that promote a more localized, healthy and equitable food system and landscape:

• By building capacity of organizations through organizational development;
• By developing individual leaders with new skills and competencies that enhance shared or collaborative leadership; and
• By fostering better understanding and working relationships between non-profit, scientific and academic organizations working on agricultural, conservation and community food system issues.

This multi-faceted program seeks to strengthen leadership and organizations working on agriculture and food systems issues, to assist them in finding sustainable solutions to modern-day conservation and agricultural and food system problems. It also strengthens the dialogue, understanding and collaboration among participants toward a future of sustainable agriculture and landscape.

Program Structure

CSL offers a mix of learning and capacity-building opportunities to participating organizations. We offer Shared Leadership I workshops and Shared Leadership II workshops (both with follow-up coaching), and consulting and facilitation for groups wishing to set up collaborative events, conferences, or special projects.

One of the key facets of our program is collaborative outreach. We are actively recruiting and serving diverse constituent groups including:

• Nonprofit sustainable agriculture and community food system organizations;
• University-based sustainable agriculture institutes; and
• Nonprofit conservation organizations .

Each of these groups brings different knowledge, experience and perspective on food system and community health issues. While many of their needs are similar to one another, their purposes, strategies and structures are very different. We believe each of these constituent groups is poised-with encouragement-to explore the different roles and contributions they can make in affecting the food system, as leaders, as organizations, and as potential collaborators.

Program Goals

• Stronger leadership for community-based food systems.
  Individual leaders improve their understanding of leadership and strengthen their leadership skills, enhancing leadership effectiveness.
  
• Stronger organizations for community-based food systems.
  Leadership teams increase their understanding of organizational assessments and strengthen their ability to lead change. Attitudes, skills and behaviors that can directly impact the organization and improve effectiveness are explored, experienced and applied to your situation.
  
• Increased skill, ability and desire for leaders to enter into dialogue and collaboration.
  The program fosters the capacities needed to see and use differences in world views, sector, or position as a resource for new understanding and finding common ground. The program also supports the development of collaborative cross-constituency programs and projects that lead to broader impacts.

For More Information

View the Workshop details for the following elements of CSL:

• Shared Leadership I
• Shared Leadership II

For more information on these Workshops or the overall CSL program contact Barbara Rusmore at 406-582-1838 ext. 2 or email barbara@icl.org.