IGNITE

The Ignite Leadership program focuses on skills necessary for effective group and organization development. Students who participate can expect to develop skill in leading change initiatives, learn about systems thinking, and coalition building. At Ignite, students will learn about organizational successes of past Illinois students, and work to develop a plan for their own change initiative. 

INCLUSION

The Inclusion Leadership program focuses on concepts such as equity, equality, diversity, inclusion, and bias. Students who participate will recognize the values of others, and identify differing social identities in relation to leadership. 

INNOVATION

The Innovation Leadership program focuses on skills related to innovation, creativity, and diversity of idea in problem solving. Students who participate in Innovation will develop skills in these areas and also an understanding of their dominant problem solving style and its impact on organizations and people.

The organization competencies make up the third level of practice of the leadership competencies. Significant accomplishments achieved within organizations are the result of teams interacting together.  Leaders must navigate systems and influence people when they do not have interpersonal relationships with all others. But what are the skills needed to influence at the organizational level? How do you successfully manage change or create an innovative environment? What are the steps you can take to become a diversity advocate in your organization? And how do you learn to change your perspective in order to view your entire organization at the systemic level? 

 The resources in this guide will not only give a detailed explanation of what each competency is, but also give practical advice on how to implement them in your everyday life, at work, school, and even at home. Explore this guide to find books, videos, articles, ILC programs, and other resources that focus on effective leading at the organizational level.

Tom Wujec’s Ted Talk highlights many of the leadership competencies that can be found on the organization level of the Illinois Leadership Center’s Leadership Competencies. Wujec uses a simple exercise, creating a drawing of how to make toast, as a way to get people in organizations to collaborate on thinking up solutions for difficult problems. By turning the individual drawing exercise into a group exercise, people were able to more clearly and concisely complete this exercise.

Using the same principles from the toast exercise, people can learn from each other’s perspectives, work together to examine a  problem systemically, and devise innovative solutions to those difficult problems.