Leadership in a Time of Paradox
This year competing demands have become even more pronounced as individuals and public service organizations grapple with meeting today's needs while working toward a vision for change. In such a context, dealing with paradox is the work of leadership. RCLA’s work with 90 social change organizations over seven years and scholarship on complexity theory shed new light on leadership in paradox and innovation at the edge of chaos.
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» Read a new chapter on paradox in coalition-building
RCLA Faculty Director Helps Design UN Conference on Government Evaluation
Based on her research on systems to monitor and evaluate public management, RCLA Faculty Director Sonia Ospina is assisting the United Nations Development Program in preparations for the 2009 International Conference on National Evaluation Capacities in Morocco from December 14-18, 2009. The conference reflects UNDP’s mission to promote national evaluation capacity in developing countries as a means of managing for development results, improving public accountability and learning.
Practical Tools for Facilitating Interactive Events and Learning Processes
Amidst an historic economic crisis, record unemployment and rampant home foreclosures, grassroots leaders came together at a Social Change Leadership Network learning session to learn how to build and wield power to create change through community organizing. The workshop highlighted key elements of successful organizing – from the importance of a constituent-led agenda, to the need for strategic public action and the value of building strong relationships. Organizers from Community Voices Heard and Domestic Workers United also shared strategies and real-time examples of campaign victories.
» Access the Practice Notes
Save the Date: Health Care Reset
RCLA is partnering with Cambridge Leadership Associates to present an intensive two-day workshop to help health care professionals navigate the instabilities of the current system, advance innovation and collaboraton, and develop networks of support. The workshop will be held at NYU Wagner in Spring 2010.
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RCLA Executive Director Bethany Godsoe recently delivered a teleconference on Building Personal and Organizational Resilience for the Big Brothers Big Sisters of America Large Agency Alliance. The call was designed to support agency leaders in fostering resilient leadership in this turbulent environment. The presentation built from work RCLA did in partnership with CFAR (Center for Applied Research) for the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation last summer.
In The Chronicle of Philanthropy, RCLA Senior Fellow Shifra Bronznick and Didi Goldenhar write, “Flexibility and More Mentors Will Expand the Number of Female Nonprofit CEO’s.”
Shifra Bronznick also co-authored an article with White House Project President Marie Wilson on the Huffington Post, “Add Women and Prosper.”
In early December, RCLA is hosting a series of Systemic Action Research events with Visiting Scholar Danny Burns, professor of Social and Organizational Learning at the University of the West of England and director of Social and Organizational Learning as Action Research (SOLAR). Events include trainings and a discussion with action researchers in New York City.
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RCLA affiliated faculty member Dennis Smith recently attended a conference hosted by the IBM Center for The Business of Government on a public management research agenda for the federal government. The program focused on the performance measurement and management agenda of the Obama Administration, and included presentations by both the chief performance officer and the deputy chief performance officer in the Office of the President.
In November, RCLA and Accenture's second meeting of the Performance Measurement and Management Working Group for New York City government featured Michael J. Farrell, deputy commissioner for Strategic Initiatives of the New York Police Department, who discussed efforts to maintain data integrity.
