PROPOSAL TO INITIATE AN ILA LEARNING COMMUNITY

October, 2007

1. Leaders(s) and their contact info

Ira Chaleff, with the assistance of Elisabeth Higgins Null, will assume initial leadership responsibility. We will invite other ILA members who might be interested in forming a leadership steering group to do so.

2. What will be the name of this Learning Community?

Our initial name is “The Followership Exchange.” We will review this when the nucleus of the Learning Community forms.

3. How long are you willing to commit to providing leadership to this particular Learning Community?

 I am willing to commit to providing leadership to the Followership Exchange for a year at which point this can be reviewed.

4. What question or questions will be the focus of your collective learning?

The initial questions that I propose the Followership Exchange focus on are:

•    What are the needs of the community of practitioners and researchers who are interested in Followership and how can the Followership Exchange serve these?

•    How can we begin to do what Robert Kelley calls for in the forthcoming book, The Art of Followership (edited by Ron Riggio, Jean Lipman-Blumen and Ira Chaleff): create a comprehensive curriculum for teaching the skills needed for acts of “courageous conscience” in follower-leader and follower-group relationships? Is this an effort in which community members would like to engage or do they prefer initially to collaborate on smaller endeavors related to their own current work?

•    How do we create the disciplinary linkages for introducing new, complementary models of responsible followership into all of the key culture-shaping activities that now focus on leadership development, including all levels of education, citizenship, government service, moral/religious training, security forces training, etc.?

Inevitably the questions will evolve and sharpen as the community forms and engages in dialogue around these.

5. What is your strategy for recruiting participants into your Learning Community?

Two important publishing events on Followership will occur towards the end of this year: the release of The Art of Followership: How Great Followers Create Great Leaders and Great Organizations, which grew out of the 2006 “Rethinking Followership” conference at Claremont University, and Followership by Barbara Kellerman. We envision tying the launch of this Learning Community to these events. We will notify ILA members of the creation of the Followership Exchange as a resource for the further exploration of Followership and invite those with an active research or practitioner interest to participate as community members.

We will also mail to the “Rethinking Followership” conference attendee list an invitation to use the forum as a resource, with an encouragement to join ILA if not already a member and become a full participant in the Followership Exchange Learning Community.

6. What expectations do you have of participants in the Learning Community?

The initial vision is of a fluid community. At an entry level, those with curiosity about Followership can explore the subject in whatever depth they choose through conversation threads and links to resources posted by Followership Exchange members. At a more active level, we envision a committed membership where individuals assume facilitative responsibility for different questions the community is exploring, and perhaps also use these interactions as their own laboratories for exploring the leader and follower roles. Members will probably move between these levels of participation as their interests and circumstances permit.

7. Once initiated, will the Learning Community be closed or remain open to new participants?

Open.

8. How will the participants of the Learning Community be engaged in a collective learning process (e.g. face-to-face meetings, teleconference, Skype, virtually, etc.) and with what frequency?

The main vehicle we will use to create a communal space will be a WIKI similar to the one on Education that has already been established under ILA’s aegis. This will allow participation in asynchronous time and at whatever level of intensity is appropriate for members on given topics at given times. As subgroups form to investigate different questions or collaborate on different projects they will choose complementary communication vehicles and schedules as needed.

9. What kind of support do you hope to receive from the ILA?

In terms of the “infrastructure” of the virtual learning community, we would anticipate receiving technical support from whatever WIKI host and design team is responsible for other ILA sponsored WIKIS. If there is precedence for ILA absorbing the fee charged by the WIKI host (currently $9.95/month from PB), we would appreciate extension of that support to the Followership Exchange Learning Community.

 From a communications and networking perspective, we would anticipate being included on the ILA website and any other appropriate ILA news outlets, with updates as warranted. We also assume we would have the right to link to other pertinent sites within and outside of academic circles as deemed appropriate by those administering the WIKI.

10. How will the learning be documented and shared with the broader ILA community?

As most of the Followership Exchange Learning Community’s interaction will occur on the WIKI, or on related discussion vehicles, it is probable that the knowledge generated and compiled through the community will be available in real time to other ILA members. One of the tasks of the Followership Learning Community will be to create the means to organize and access the accrued knowledge. Initially, Elisabeth Higgins Null, a trained academic and research librarian, will help create the protocols for this with whatever technical assistance can be provided by the WIKI host. Eventually we hope to create an archived, permanent, searchable record of shared exchanges and posted documents and links by members of the Leadership Exchange Learning Community that is available to all ILA members and, as ILA policy permits, to a wider audience of researchers and practitioners.

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