Student Reflections on Integrative Leadership

By Marlene Nah

Students from the Spring 2010 "Integrative Leadership: From Theory to Practice" course, taught by Professors Jay Kiedrowski and Paul Vaaler, will post their reflections on integrative leadership throughout the course of the semester on the Time to Lead blog.

I have discovered that Integrative leadership more collaboration then cooperation. It is a cross-sector effort in which leaders from government, financial, and nonprofit groups come together across national, organizational and sectoral boundaries and collaborate to reach goals they cannot achieved unilaterally. The formation of such a diverse group of people to recognize they have common goals and work together requires a particular or unique kind of leader with a unique set of skills; a leader who is constantly open to learning. There is an inherent need for this kind of leader to embrace/have a passion, not just accept, the challenge of working in a larger, more complex sphere of influence. A cross-sector path gives integrative leaders the ability to come in contact with a diverse group of people and make possible cooperation between them. When working across sectors, the opportunity gives integrative leaders a distinctive ability to be able to unite people. Given the world we live in and the multitude of challenges faced globally, Integrative Leadership is very essential to solving the problems faced by the 21st Century. Evidently, the nature of the challenges leaves no doubt that integrative leadership may provide the only solution in that collaboration is definitely needed to effectively deal with the challenges societies face.