A look back offers insight for future leaders

We’ve been at this work since 2007. Long enough, now, to reach this conclusion: We need more people exercising leadership in every community, system, organization and business in Kansas.

When I stop and spend time thinking about the concept of “progress,” from my very specific and unique vantage point at the Kansas Leadership Center, I find myself looking backward.

I look back across four or five generations to 1912, when some Wichita Methodists gathered, very likely in a fellowship hall, very likely with a potluck meal, to ponder what they could do to serve the common good of their community. The conversation, and resulting action taken by our Wichita forebears, led to the creation of what was then Wesley Hospital.

Seventy-three years later, this institution would be sold to create the Kansas Health Foundation, whose mission is to improve the health of all Kansans.

The term “health” doesn’t simply mean the absence of disease. It includes civic health – individuals rallying together in their communities through involvement, volunteerism, and staying informed to make their communities better places for people to live.

A prominent focus on civic health leads to stronger communities, better governance, improvements in economic conditions and education, and a greater commitment to working collaboratively toward a brighter future. In doing this community-based work, leaders of the foundation soon learned that expanding the capacity of the individuals engaged in the actual work led to more and quicker progress.

That core idea led the foundation to create the Kansas Leadership Center. Our reason to exist is to help people, systems and organizations learn effective ways to foster leadership and innovation. The new Kansas Leadership Center & Kansas Health Foundation Conference Center building in downtown Wichita provides the physical space to reach more people, while at the same time genuinely enhancing their experience.

When they get here, our participants gain knowledge, develop skills and – most important – discover new personal insight into how they, as individuals, regardless of where they fall in the flow chart, can lead.

We help people identify what stands between them and progress.

The new building has allowed us to expand our organizational capacity, to grow in scale, serve more people, while remaining open to anyone who cares about doing something more for their community or organization.

That manifests itself in dozens of ways. I’ll name just a few.

Every community leadership initiative in Kansas has an organizational infrastructure that helps facilitate the development of leaders within the community. Whether it’s a chamber of commerce, municipal or county government, community foundation or another group, some sort of backbone entity drives the effort. Through these community-based efforts, many Kansans learn new skills and knowledge to help their community succeed.

But not enough.

The Kansas Leadership Center partners with organizations interested in creating new leadership programs to reach Kansans typically under-represented in leadership training efforts.

Through the new Building Community Leadership effort, we provide an all-encompassing, from-the-ground-up package of support to position community-based organizations to offer a sustainable leadership development initiative under their own direction.

While we work with more than a dozen organizations through this specific effort, two Wichita groups have expanded their capacity to the point where they each will have the ability to reach even more Kansans.

The Kansas Hispanic Education & Development Foundation provides Hispanic students with financial and educational resources to achieve a college education and help Kansas be more competitive. The Wichita Urban Professionals seek to develop a network of rising leaders to improve the quality of life in the urban communities of Wichita.

Think about that for a minute. Two new community leadership programs for young professionals who aren’t routinely identified to take part in a leadership program experience – now reaching even more Kansans.

Since our inception, individuals and groups who have worked with us at the Kansas Leadership Center have recognized that leadership is an activity and that they, personally, can exercise more of it. The very nature of the subject matter and the work has led to significant interest, training and success in the nonprofit universe.

Increasingly, we’re expanding our efforts into the business community in a significant way. We’ve begun exploring capacity-building opportunities through the spectrum of our economic infrastructure, including aerospace, education, hospitals, manufacturing and construction.

In the end, it boils down to the individual. The knowledge, skills and insight gained is tangible and heartening. It would be easy to do some laurel-resting.

But we can’t. Just look around. The data is overwhelming. We need more people exercising leadership at all levels.

When I engage and interact with our participants, when I see the progress they are making on expanding their own individual capacity and the ancillary benefit that will have on their community – however they define it, I find myself looking forward.

This story was originally published February 18, 2015 at 3:08 PM with the headline "A look back offers insight for future leaders."