Collaborative Leadership

Our Collaborative Leadership System

Our program success requires an ongoing and thoughtful evaluation of our internal organizational culture. In 2017, Inward Bound Mindfulness adopted a Collaborative Leadership model and began implementing several initiatives to expand our collaborative consciousness and capacity. These policies are one step towards achieving our vision of accountable, transparent, diverse leadership and governance.

Read more about our Collaborative Leadership Transition in a recent issue of Mindful Magazine.

Within our Collaborative Leadership system, decisions are distributed based on each person’s and committee’s roles and responsibilities, willingness, and resources. Designing and implementing internal frameworks rooted in inclusive and shared power paradigms will prepare us to serve more youth from vulnerable communities and to work with more diverse teachers and staff. The five core systems outlined in the Bay Nonviolent Communication Collaboration in the Workplace model include (1) distributed decision making, (2) feedback flow, (3) information flow, (4) resource flow, and (5) conflict engagement.

Since 2017, we have established effective distributed decision making and feedback systems within our office staff. In 2019, we focused on including our Board and field staff (teachers, mentors, and managers) explicitly in these efforts. In 2020, we established more equitable and effective information flow, resource allocation, and conflict resolution protocols. In 2021, we are fully implementing the committee, working group, and board structure outlined in the visual below.

As we continue this work we recognize that, while it might seem new and innovative within our current dominant culture of organizational management, collaborative leadership systems have existed and thrived in many human societies, particularly among Indigenous Peoples. This Medium article by Jessica Prentice provides an important perspective on one of our guiding resources, Reinventing Organizations.

Five Core Systems

Distributed Decision Making

Feedback Flow

Resource Flow

Information Flow

Conflict Engagement

Collaborative Leadership Presentations

Our leaders occasionally present on our Equity and Interdependence and Collaborative Leadership work. Below are two videos from an interview with The Nonprofit Show and a workshop to an international collaborative of retreat centers.

Visual Model of Collaborative Leadership

As we continue to expand our Collaborative Leadership outward to our entire community of staff, teachers, volunteers, participants, parents, and supporters, a visual of the adaptive living system we are creating is coming into focus. Below is a current draft of that visual.

The intention of this system is to represent a more functional and collaborative governance structure that reflects our own best practices and values. While there are parts of the system that we will live into over time, the core of this distributed power and decision making model is true of our organization right now, in the present. This system is highly responsive and supportive to future organizational shifts in the operating model (i.e. transition to autonomous regional centers). Simply put, it’s essential for the health of the system that it changes over time. Thus, collective awareness and assessment are critical ongoing practices.

Learn more about this model.

Inward Bound allowed me to develop very valuable mindful leadership and collaboration skills. The vast amount of wisdom and compassion shared on retreat gave me a spiritual base that grounds my environmental work and activism for which I am incredibly grateful.

– Teen Retreat Alumni