Leadership Time Out: The Power and Purpose of Structured Reflective Practice

Does your organization have a leadership growth plan? Are you and your organization thinking purposefully about how to cultivate leadership development in service to organizational capacity building? Having a clear intention, some guidance, and the right resources in place will not only help you reach your desired outcome faster, but also ease the stress along the way. Knowing what you want and where you want to go is just the first step; charting a course to get you there lays down the path to follow and allows you and your organization to support leadership resilience by implementing innovative development strategies.

Two years ago Michelle Baldwin, Pillar’s Executive Director started to consider the possibility of a fellowship that would allow her to step outside her Executive Director role for several months and document the origin stories of Pillar Nonprofit Network, Innovation Works, and VERGE Capital. From March to August of 2019 Michelle engaged in a Reflective Practice and Research Fellowship of her own design.

You might read this and think, “There is no way I could step away from my organization,” or, ‘We can’t all take those kinds of risks in the nonprofit sector.” This workshop is an opportunity to explore what is possible. Michelle’s experience is just one example of what conscious and strategic leadership development can look like. What could it look like for you? 

Join Michelle Baldwin, Executive Director of Pillar Nonprofit Network, and Janet Frood, Founder & President of Horizon Leadership, to explore leadership growth, succession planning, and reflective practices. Connect with nonprofit sector senior leaders and explore ideas and opportunities to help sustain leaders in their roles, particularly for those who have  led an organization for an extended period of time.

During this conversation you will learn:

• How senior leaders can build reflection and learning into their roles
• How senior leaders can step outside of their role and preserve space to reflect in order to serve their organizations in new and different ways
• The steps and supports you need in order to consider these kinds of opportunities - what worked, what challenges arose, and what is possible for you in your leadership development
• How organizations can support senior leaders so they flourish in their roles, while also proactively doing succession planning by developing emerging leaders
• How nature-based reflective practices can help you grow as a leader  

NOTE: This workshop involves time spent engaging with nature. Come prepared to go outside, rain or shine.