Strategic Questioning and the Art of Network Leadership

To celebrate the publication of The Leadership Learning Community’s Leadership & Networks: New Ways of Developing Leadership in a Highly Connected World, we are convening Boston area funders, practitioners, and evaluators to explore what it means to lead with a network mindset.

Leading with a network mindset requires skills in creating spaces and conditions that enable diverse groups to find common purpose and come together in ways where diversity enables new possibilities to emerge. We often view leaders as having the answers, yet in networks, effective leadership requires the ability to frame the right questions  questions that inspire, focus, and catalyze the power of a group and the individuals within it.

Please join us this gathering of the Boston Leadership Learning Community as we explore Strategic Questioning, a technique of framing open questions that inspire movement, reflection, and enable people to discover new options and alternatives. Beth Tener, Principal of New Directions Collaborative, will provide a brief primer on strategic questioning and how it can be used in facilitating and convening networks. Then participants will practice using strategic questions in the context of their real-life challenges in leading networks, in a live case-study process and small groups. Maya Townsend of Partnering Resources will help facilitate this gathering.

You will come away with many new strategic questions to inform your work in network leadership and new tools for leading with a network mindset.

NOTE: Coffee, water, bagels & fresh fruit will be provided