This course will be taught remotely in real-time. Details here. 

Professional development for decision-makers—including administrators, directors, board and committee members, and faculty chairs—working in Waldorf schools or other workplace settings.

In this highly-useful course, our focus is on the practical work of being a leader and decision-maker. Through a process imbued with the anthroposophical understanding of the human being, and successfully applied in organizations from multi-million dollar nationals to Waldorf schools, Collaborative Leadership will help you learn how to improve your effectiveness as a member of your leadership team.

Each participant is asked to bring their own organizational question, project, or challenge. Using your real-life cases, we will apply these four core models for collaborative leadership:

• Three main leadership tasks: Maintaining and creating identity / Creating space for healthy, stable relationships / Assuring professional results
• Diagnostic and planning tools: How to look at an organization as a whole and understand the dynamics of intersecting segments
• How to create processes toward healthy decision-making
• The balance between power and trust

Your course takeaway will be an individualized action plan for the question, project, or challenge you have brought with you, along with an understanding of the necessary skill set with which to execute it.

BONUS: Ongoing coaching support! To support you as you implement throughout the year what you have learned and practiced during the summer, this course includes conference calls facilitated by co-instructor Jessica Heffernan Ziegler scheduled from October through May. In these coaching conversations, you and your classmates will continue to hone your collaborative leadership skills, addressing and supporting one another’s progress and challenges—and so gain further insights, understanding, and expertise.

Instructors

Joachim Ziegler, PhD, has been working in the fields of organizational development and human resources development since 1994. A partner in MIRA Companions for Development, an international consulting group, Joachim’s current list of American and international clients encompasses the banking, pharmaceutical, retail, and manufacturing sectors, as well as anthroposophical institutions and Waldorf schools. Joachim is a member of the College of Social Sciences Section at the Goetheanum and the international Association for Social Development and has taught at the University of Muenster and at Germany’s first private university in Herdecke. He holds an MA in adult education and a PhD in medical education.

Jessica Heffernan Ziegler has been the executive director of Sunbridge Institute since 2008; previously, she taught collaboration and group dynamics in Sunbridge College’s Administration, Biography, and Elementary Teacher Education programs. Jessica has worked as an executive coach and organizational development consultant for Waldorf school administrators and teachers, as well as other professionals, in diverse institutions and schools in both the US and Germany. She served as the first administrator and as a board member at a Waldorf school she co-founded in Everswinkel, Germany; is a partner in MIRA Companions for Development, an international consulting group; and sits on the boards of Manhattan’s Rudolf Steiner School and the Otto Specht School in Chestnut Ridge, NY. Jessica who holds a BS in business management, did her biography training with Karl-Heinz Finke and her executive coach training with SECA International. Her professional focus on leadership skills, governance issues, and personnel development are utilized in both her executive director position and in her work as co-instructor of Collaborative Leadership and its related workshops.

For more than a decade, Collaborative Leadership has helped individuals with leadership responsibilities in their school, business, or organization improve their planning and problem-solving processes. Here’s what Summer Series 2020 Collaborative Leadership participants had to say about their experience:

• The quality of the course was outstanding. Jessica and Joachim really made the information come alive and explained it in a way that was easy to digest, I really enjoyed when we had the opportunity to break out into smaller groups as it made for a more personal connection.
• Jessica and Joachim just emanate warmth and knowledge in a space that is supportive, inclusive and cares about our continued success. The charts and written materials provided in concert with the lectures and experiential work created a good depth and breadth with which to digest the information.

• I love how practical the information is. There are plenty of actionable models and steps I can take within my own school. The portion I’ve enjoyed most was the one-on-one time I had with my talking partner (which) gave me the opportunity to delve deeper into a relationship with someone I found to be so helpful with her advice and perspectives.

• The content has been very useful. As a school leader with a background in public education and passion for personal development, I appreciated the weaving of Waldorf values partnered with practicality. I was able to apply the teachings in a faculty meeting the Thursday of our program and it went well, the difference was felt and experienced by all.

• Very high quality. I found the lectures to be particularly helpful and insightful, especially when paired with colleague Q&As.

• I found the pace and timing of each session – each a bit more intensive and deeper investigation of the collaborative leadership process – to be not only comfortable for my learning but also enlightening to me. It seemed like each day a new and brighter light shone on a concept I had experienced but never really seen before. Interspersing the break-out discussions in between each lecture was particularly satisfying to me because I find it helpful to learn in community, dialoguing is a way to construct new meanings with others.

• I was extremely impressed with the intentions set to feel like a collaborative and connected classroom, even in a virtual world.

• Excellent quality, creative facilitators, great tools

Your course also includes sessions on DEIJ work with Meggan Gill and in social eurythmy with Kirsten Grams.

Schedule

This course takes place July 18-23 in a synchronous online classroom

Sunday evening: 7-7:30pm technical check-in; first class starts promptly at 7:30 and ends at 9
Monday-Thursday: About 4.25 hours of formal instruction delivered between 10-4:30
Friday morning: Last session runs 10-12
NOTE: Additional (optional) sessions/forums will take place late afternoons/evenings
ALL TIMES LISTED ARE EASTERN (NY) TIME ZONE

Cost
$625 includes all materials, follow-up coaching calls, and a $25 non-refundable deposit. See main summer page for discount options.

Questions?
Please contact Barbara Vitale, admissions and summer coordinator, at [email protected] or 845-425-0055 x20

Sunbridge reserves the right to make faculty substitutions when necessary. See registration form for refund policy.