Swartz Creek View

‘Willingness to work together’ at heart of successful leadership



 

 

This evening, eight local professionals will graduate from Lead Now, an immersive leadership development program provided by the Flint & Genesee Group. The graduation marks the continuation of a long-standing tradition for our community – the ongoing and continual development of local leaders.

The Flint & Genesee Group first stepped into the leadership development space in 2013 with the Leadership Alliance, an earlier iteration of Lead Now. This wasn’t the first leadership development program for our community. However, it was the first to focus on shared services, or the concept of municipalities and organizations working together for the greater good.

In our research around successful shared service programs, we found they often had some level of training for political and municipal leaders, helping them collaborate and build agreements that worked for everyone.

It makes sense. If you want to work toward something bigger, you need to have trust and willingness to work together with your partners. Often, that’s easier said than done. There are many complexities in that work that range from differing policies to scarcity of resources, and it helps to have leaders in place who know how to navigate those challenges.

The program was initially geared toward those working in the public sector, but the promise of teaching people how to effectively work together drew a diverse group of professionals from the nonprofit and business sectors as well. We quickly learned there could be a bigger outcome here than just municipal contracts.

I was a member of one of the earlier cohorts and remember that we spent a considerable amount of time self-reflecting. It changed the way I thought about how I participated in conversations and discussions. It also taught me to be more thoughtful of how others are experiencing the world and how that might influence their actions and decisions. My experience in the program showed me how to drive change in a way that’s still respectful to my partners.

That was nearly a decade ago, and I continue to use those lessons daily in my work. As I write this, I’m reminded of our community’s shared economic vision of becoming a top five community by 2040. Our success is dependent on many partners working toward the same outcomes, be it higher wages or growing our region’s population.

For our community to thrive, we need to work together. To do that effectively, we need leaders who can work with the people inside and outside of their organizations to accomplish great things. Lead Now is one way to help develop and prepare those leaders. It takes participants into spaces throughout the county and allows them to engage in problem-solving, project-based learning that benefits organizations and people outside of their everyday work. This supports outcomes that are considerate of the entire county.

If this sounds like something you might be interested in learning about, I encourage you to attend an upcoming informational session. For dates and related information, visit FlintandGenesee.org/Lead-Now.

Kristina Johnston is chief operating officer of the Flint & Genesee Group.