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CLAL Participates in an International Conference on New Approaches to Leadership

By Judy Epstein, Director of Public Affairs

Earlier this month, CLAL faculty members were invited to participate in the Second Annual International Leadership Association Conference, held in Toronto, Canada. The event, November 3-5, 2000, brought together an international body of leading professionals, academics, community-builders and business people involved in leadership issues. The focus of the program was to explore cutting edge leadership practices and theories. Keynote speakers included the Right Honorable Kim Campbell, Canada's 19th and first female Prime Minister, and Frances Hesselbein, chair of the Board of Governors of the Peter F. Drucker Foundation for Nonprofit Management, recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1998), and former CEO of the Girl Scouts of the U.S.A.

The CLAL workshop, "Creating New Languages for Leadership Across Boundaries," led by Rabbi Tsvi Blanchard, Ph.D., Shari Cohen, Ph.D. and Robert Rabinowitz, Ph.D., offered a new approach incorporating traditional text for use in mediation and leadership development. Integrating leadership theory with selected Talmudic passages, the method gives participants the chance to explore their ideas about leadership in a safe, neutral way. It diffuses conflict and encourages open conversation among many voices - some of which had no common language before.

"Using the inherited wisdom as the starting point, we are able to create inclusive discussions," said Rabbi Blanchard. "Once engaged in the exercise, participants are able to form new associations, moving beyond automatic thinking into a realm that taps into their insight. They discover things they didn't think they knew. This creates the building blocks and boundary crossings necessary to forge new solutions to problems."

Said Dr. Cohen, Director of the Jewish Public Forum at CLAL, "Leaders can no longer address complex problems with conventional approaches. New ways of thinking require translating among a range of voices, with different types of expertise, and different ideological perspectives. But translating among those voices is very tricky. This method gets people to talk to one another in new ways and the process itself opens doors to unexpected collaboration." Dr. Cohen also noted that the work of the Jewish Public Forum operated along similar lines, bringing together a variety of influential thinkers from diverse fields to generate new thinking about the Jewish future.

In the Toronto workshop, the discussion began with a Talmudic passage focusing on the preparation of the high priest for the Day of Atonement. Participants quickly discovered that the text suggested a broad range of leadership issues and themes. These included how leaders need to balance personal and institutional demands, preparing for succession, leadership and individuality, and the role of gender.

"This kind of exercise generates great energy and spirit," said Dr. Robert Rabinowitz, who used this approach in his work with leaders from the environmental and business communities in Boulder, Colorado. "The group is enlivened and a collaboration is formed. By the end, participants are interacting and listening to each other's point of view. The dynamic encourages a fresh start."

The conference offered more than 50 concurrent sessions on strategies for leadership development. Highlights included programs on leadership and the arts, teaching leadership, optimizing leadership potential, global women's leadership, and ethics and the behavior of leaders. Joining the CLAL workshop was David Chrislip of Skillful Means, a Colorado based consulting firm, who also helped organize the session.

A founder of the International Leadership Association and former director of the Center for the Advanced Study of Leadership at University of Maryland, Dr. Barbara Kellerman is an active participant in the work of the Jewish Public Forum at CLAL. She is now the director of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard's Kennedy School.