04/20/2021
So proud to support this great program
At yesterday’s virtual Adaptive Leadership Fellowship Colloquium, the 25 MSW students in our sixth cohort of fellows celebrated their accomplishments and shared the Adaptive Leadership concepts that resonated most strongly as they tackled adaptive challenges in their field placements and communities.
Co-Directed by Clinical Associate Professor Dr. Linda Lausell Bryant and Adjunct Lecturer Mark Manashil with funding from the B. Robert Williamson Jr. Foundation, Katherine and Howard Aibel Foundation, and The New York Community Trust, the fellowship features intensive weekend seminars on Adaptive Leadership as well as coaching and guidance to help the fellows directly apply what they have learned to prompt their organizations to confront challenges they have been unable to face and bring stakeholders together to achieve progress.
Among the adaptive leadership concepts cited by the 15 fellows from NYU Silver and 10 from CUNY College of Staten Island were the fact that anyone can embody leadership regardless of whether they hold a position of authority; one must view the organization from both the dance floor and the balcony ‒ that is from within the midst of the work and from a higher-level system perspective; it is important to diagnose the system rather than simply patching obvious problems; naming elephants in the room and challenging the status quo should be the norm; change is not something that one makes happen by themselves ‒ it requires building relationships and partnering with confidants and allies; it is essential to identify stakeholder values and loyalties as well as losses that will come with change; one should ‘give the work back,’ to the wider group of stakeholders to solve instead of directing the solution; and one should see themselves as a system as well, and apply constant self-reflection on skills, strengths, and areas for growth.
“What really stood out to me,” said Dr. Lausell Bryant after the fellows shared their reflections “is that you all captured the connection between the ‘me’ and the ‘we.’ As any one of us individually goes, so go all of us, and as we all go, it affects each of us individually as well. The times we are living in particularly showcase how damaging it can be if we miss that connection." She concluded, “I am heartened by how that has exploded inside each and every one of you and I’m encouraged for what you are going to do and what we’re going to do collectively.”
