LEADERSHIP

Goal:

Effective leadership drives transformation. The Leadership Domain assesses the effectiveness of the agency leadership’s processes for understanding, communicating, and implementing the changes necessary for successful culture change and transformation.

Learning Objectives

The Leadership domain will help in gaining a better understanding of Leadership’s role in transforming services to community-based models that offer opportunities for integrated competitive employment:
  • Understanding of and responsibility for agency culture change
  • Identifying and implementing necessary policy changes
  • Implementing two-way communication processes

Audience

Agency Leadership:

  • Executive Team
  • Board of Directors
  • Program Directors

Tools and Processes

Group Discussion Exercise – Leadership

The following group discussion exercise is structured to help the agency gain a better understanding of Leadership’s role in the transformation/change process, the strength and effectiveness of Leadership in setting the direction for transformation, and to identify areas for improvement and steps the agency may take to move forward. The steps leading up to the discussion may take multiple pathways: 

1.

Get a sense of the agency’s baseline score by completing the Mini ESTA.

2.

This brief podcast defines the “Leadership Domain” and why the questions in the full self-assessment are important.

3.

Complete the ESTA  or move to the next step.

4.

Assemble a group of your agency’s Leadership stakeholders; minimally include Executive Leadership (e.g. CEO, CFO, HR, COO), Board of Directors and Program Directors. For a more expansive group include external participants (individuals and families, community partners, etc.).

A.) Note: This process may also be conducted using multiple groups with each group comprised of discrete stakeholders (e.g. Board members only; Executive Team only)​.

5.

6.
Review the self-assessment of Leadership from the Mini ESTA (or ESTA if completed).

A.) By reviewing the rating/score from the assessment, the agency will see where they fall on the continuum of progress towards transformation in the Leadership Domain. Keep in mind the responses to the individual items in the assessment during discussion.
Continue discussion using the prompts below. During discussion, consider potential actions that may be undertaken to make further progress in the transformation process. 
​Approximate Time for Exercise:
​60-90 minutes
A). Strong and effective leadership is essential to the success of any transformation/change process. Provide examples of the characteristics of strong/effective leadership in your agency, why these qualities are important and how Leadership has used these characteristics to take actions with transformation.

B.) Agency Leadership is responsible for communicating and facilitating the agency-wide response to a culture change toward employment and community integration. How is Leadership driving the agency’s response to these challenges in a way that aligns with the current Mission, Vision, and Values?
C.) Describe the steps that the agency has taken towards transformation, both in terms of creating new opportunities as well as in discontinuing certain services and supports and how Leadership has brought about these changes (e.g. process used, leadership style, etc.).

D.) Describe the challenges that the Agency Leadership is facing and potential ways to overcome these challenges.
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