The Time is Now for Sustainable Leadership

 In closed mechanical systems, sustainability is the prolongation of useful life, designed for low maintenance, easy repair, or replacement of components. In living systems, sustainability has more to do with feeding the system, nurturing, protecting, and ensuring fitness and well-being, maintaining identity and integrity. The former requires good engineering; the latter requires leadership. Such leadership may depend ultimately on the flair of a single individual but, at the same time, needs to be diffused throughout the system so that everyone shares responsibility for sustaining the whole.
- John Varney, Leadership & Creativity Expert

With over 100 elected official seats up for grabs in Marin, there is no better time than now to adapt the concepts of sustainability to our approach to leadership development. But what is sustainable leadership? Sustainable leadership is a concept that advocates for a system that a) identifies and recruits new leaders, b) nurtures and supports an enduring leadership vision, c) promotes leadership succession, and d) gives responsibility of leadership to all community members. With this concept, leaders are not seen as individuals in charge of followers, but as members of a community who practice leadership together.

Leadership training and development programs play a vital role in developing a pool of potential leaders who have the necessary knowledge and leadership skills. In sustainable leadership, it is important to grow this pool of candidates so that the community is appropriately represented as existing leaders move in and out of the system. Preparation becomes a key factor in leadership succession.

Responsibility is another key element of sustainable leadership. When the community is involved in leadership, the entire community benefits. Our task, as community members, is to meld everything we learn from leadership training with our own experiences and to develop a sense of personal leadership, organizational leadership and finally leadership in the community. Leadership principles acknowledge our own values, experience and skills, and forge them into a strong leadership vision.

Graduates of the San Rafael Leadership Institute leave with the skills to develop their own leadership vision, an essential component to leadership development.

Understanding the issues and how the system works are really the first steps to leadership. The San Rafael Leadership Institute sponsored by the San Rafael Chamber of Commerce offers a singular opportunity to learn about current issues in local government, transportation, education, law enforcement, community diversity, the arts, the environment, health and human services, and to develop leadership and team-building skills. The Chamber is proud to announce that the next session of the Leadership Institute commences in October and represents our 23rd year of the Institute.

The Institute meets once a month from October through June. Each monthly session is held at a different location in and around San Rafael and Marin, exposing participants to local businesses, community centers and government facilities. Each month offers a program designed with Leadership Institute graduates, and addresses current events and issues. Participants are actively engaged throughout the program, as they respond and debate with local leaders about cutting edge topics for San Rafael and Marin County.

At the heart of the program is the opportunity to experience a group of dynamic, diverse individuals from many industries and disciplines. Team-building is a critical component of the Institutes leadership development philosophy. The skills achieved in this group setting, which include leadership vision, facilitated debate and conflict resolution, are geared to assist future leaders in mastering collaboration and collective problem-solving. These skill sets help develop a sense of personal leadership, organizational leadership and finally leadership in the community.

~Cecilia Zamora, is a San Anselmo resident and chaired the Leadership Institute for 10 years. She is the Executive Director of the Latino Council of Marin and serves on the San Rafael Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors and is President of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Marin.