Facilitative Leadership for Social Change

Lead in a way that inspires, invites participation, and builds commitment

If you are committed to creating conditions in which you and others can act together and make change, moving together from vision to action in extraordinary new ways, then Facilitative Leadership for Social Change is for you.

Facilitative Leadership for Social Change develops practical collaborative skills and tools for tapping our individual and collective creativity and experience as social change agents. At the heart of the workshop are powerful leadership practices that make it easy for all of us — regardless of race, class, gender, ability, sexuality, and other identities and experiences — to offer our perspectives and talents, speak up when we have problems, take initiative, make decisions, work with others, and share responsibility for the health of the team, organization, or network. 

IISC defines leadership broadly, regardless of formal or positional authority; participants from a variety of organizational and network structures and hierarchies find value in Facilitative Leadership for Social Change. You will, as well. Register now.

Learn the Practices of Facilitative Leadership for Social Change
Facilitative Leaders model key practices that make it easier for principled, self-empowered collaborators to communicate, decide, and act together. The following list of these practices represents what you will learn in our standard seven-session online workshop or our two-day in-person workshops to engage your own and your collaborators’ skills, wisdom, and energy towards your shared goals. 

Introduction to Facilitative Leadership & Building Liberatory Power Equitably
Throughout this workshop series, as we offer you tools that you can bring to your work and community, it’s crucial that we ground these practices in a commitment to build power with, not power over, in service of liberation, not domination. Through IISC’s Collaborative Social Change Lens of love, power, and networks, we’ll explore the concepts of power-over and power-with, our own relationships with power, and our individual and collective commitments to a more just and equitable world.  We’ll also introduce the concept of “attunement.” A key characteristic of Facilitative Leaders is being attuned to, or aware of, our bodies, emotions, and spirit, as well as each other and the natural world. This practice of expanding our attunement allows us to create and inspire the conditions for sharing power and responsibility, trust, and collaboration. 

Focus on Results, Process, Relationships
Facilitative Leaders build a path for performance and satisfaction by balancing our focus on three dimensions of success: results, process, and relationship, and by inviting others to help attend to that balance. Rather than focusing exclusively on outcomes (results), Facilitative Leaders also encourage continuous improvement in how the work gets done (process) and how people connect with and treat one another (relationship). Learning to balance our focus in these ways enables us to sustain effective, collaborative processes and build a supportive work environment for our teams and networks.

Discover Shared Meaning
Through skillful communication, Facilitative Leaders gather and share information with our collaborators, strive to understand one another and expand our collective understanding of any situation, in order to create the conditions for better decisions, collaborative action, and desired results. The workshop offers ways to understand how we and others make sense of our experiences, intentionally and unintentionally, and how we can be more deliberate in our thought processes. 

See Systems
Facilitative Leaders recognize our work exists within a broader, systemic context and that there is much to be gained from understanding what is hidden beneath the immediate, visible surface of any challenging situation. In this workshop, we learn how to make sense of complexity by involving others in understanding how the visible and invisible levels of complex systems are connected and mutually reinforcing. Together we uncover more innovative and creative strategies that can be leveraged for transformational change.

Seek Maximum Appropriate Involvement
Facilitative Leaders make conscious choices about when and how people can best participate in making decisions that affect their lives. The workshop offers concrete skills and tools for acting as stewards of decision-making processes. We learn how to be intentional, inclusive, and transparent in the decision-making process as we seek to leverage the interest and talent of those around us by including them appropriately in the decision-making process. And we see the many advantages of doing so: better-informed decisions, increased commitment to action, and higher levels of trust.

Design and Facilitate Meetings
Facilitative Leaders model behaviors – and invite others to do so, as well – that create an environment for participation and shared responsibility. They are process powerhouses: leveraging simple, intentional processes and tools to facilitate effective group conversations; preparing for the necessary and possible conversations; and pivoting as needed as conditions change. Facilitative Leaders see meetings as seeds of possibility for the changes we need in our organizations, society, and world. We learn how to design each meeting thoughtfully, which allows us to bring together all of the facilitative leadership practices – balancing different dimensions of success, stewarding effective decision making, and more – in thoughtfully designing meetings for successful collaboration.

Please note: There are two additional practices of FL4SC – Build Collaborative Change and Inspired a Shared Vision – that can be included by special arrangement. 

What you can expect from this learning experience
The Facilitative Leadership for Social Change workshop includes small group time to practice and grow your understanding, and individual reflection to help integrate the practices into your life and work. We prioritize connection between the program participants because the group’s collective wisdom is precious, and we try to give it space to grow and spread. 

IISC is pleased to have a team of brilliantly skilled trainers – some of the best in the movement. All are fully steeped in the practices of FL4SC and also bring their own unique facilitation magic as they deliver IISC’s workshops grounded in our lens of love, power, and networks. You can look forward to a joyful and inspirational experience that is highly interactive and may include music, poetry, somatic practices.

Online Workshop Pricing – for individual enrollment
$525/per person Grassroots | $1,050/per person Nonprofit | $1,325/per person Foundation | $1,575/per person For-Profit/Social Venture

Facilitative Leadership for Social Change is available – both online and in-person – as an offering for participants from one organization or network. Details and pricing can be found here.

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