These youth face huge social stigmas .... social networks, and develop a mentoring relationship .... Diaspora, the scatt
UP CLOSE 20 leadership lessons learned in East Africa
the project and investing in the leadership development of hundreds of young women in Ethiopia. My society, surroundings, and culture sometimes still tell me that I am not a leader, but I know that is a lie. I now understand more about myself, how I lead others, and what young women like myself can do for my society. I have a voice. We need to tear down and rebuild our notions of what leadership development is, who it is for, and how it happens. If we don’t search for new ways of developing leaders at all levels, then it means young women like me in places like Ethiopia miss out on something we know has a big impact for individuals, families, and societies.
I am the next big idea.
We need big ideas, big thinkers, and big voices.
I am a young, educated woman who has grown up in Ethiopia’s capital city, Addis Ababa. My family prioritized education over marriage and work, a choice for which I will forever be grateful.
That’s why I’m proud and excited that the social sector innovation hub for CCL based in Ethiopia has put together this list of 20 leadership lessons learned. These are big ideas to challenge our mental models and to get us talking about the future of leadership development.
My confidence and ability to speak my mind comes from my upbringing, a trusting family, and most recently, a long-term mentoring program for young university women facilitated by the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL).
Because the future of leadership development is younger, more diverse, and more accessible. We are the next Big Idea.
I began as a participant, being mentored by a positive female role model not much older than myself. I continued to build my confidence by mentoring other young women in the same program. After an internship, I am now managing
Rahel Assefa Center for Creative Leadership Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
girls + education
THE BEST INVESTMENT EVER. THE END. Girls + Education. The first thing you notice is that Muluberhan’s eyes sparkle. Maybe it’s her name, which in Amharic means “the complete light.” Maybe it’s her henna-dyed hands that make her eyes pop, or maybe it’s something more, an untapped possibility, curiosity, and potential. At 12 years old she’s on the verge of a life changing decision that will not involve her. Depending on her family’s situation she will either stay in school for a few more years or be taken out to help with work at home. If she stays in school her future health, household economics, and ability to make decisions will be greatly
different. If she can not only get an education, but find a supportive female role model to mentor her, she will go even further. When combined with education, contextualized leadership development and mentoring for girls and young women has HUGE economic and societal implications. When 10% more girls go to school, it increases a country’s GDP by 3%. What if girls not only got an education but also developed self-confidence, selfawareness, and a voice - then what would happen to their families, their communities, and the economy?
Technology
Undiluted Solutions. Smartphones are everywhere when you walk through the streets of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Why not use this momentum to develop the next generation of young women leaders? But here’s the thing, we’ve got some constraints: 1) Relationships – leadership development happens best in the context of relationships. 2) Data is slow – we may have a significant number of smartphones here in East Africa but data transfer is slow and prohibitively expensive for many people. This means most people resort to sharing videos, music, and media via Bluetooth transfers. 3) Language and culture barriers – There’s a lot of good leadership content out there, but it’s often Westerncentric and out of touch with someone like a young Ethiopian woman. 4) Training is inaccessible - Not everyone can make it to a 5 -day workshop in a nice hotel. Even with training of trainer models, there is a significant dilution of the content.
Design your life. We’ve recently piloted a series of 10 modular, contextualized, videos that resonate deeply with young university women in Ethiopia. The Design Your Life series is an online video course built on an updated version of our Leadership Essentials content, but includes important new modules specific to young women such as relationships and confidence. Most importantly, it’s not a lecture. Three young Ethiopian women talk through the content together, offering different perspectives, stories, and the application of these modules to their lives. Young women can share these files digitally by Bluetooth or via micro-SD cards. Created for small groups, 3-4 young women together watch each module fill out a portion of the workbook PDF and talk through the questions together. Our curriculum is designed to help young women make lasting changes. When they start to experience a deep sense of meaning it affects their family, friends, and hopefully their community. There is nothing more powerful than a young woman in Africa who is living a meaningful life.
Get your shoes dirty with human-centered design... Sitting is the new smoking. We’re way too comfortable in our office cubes, climate controlled temperatures, and ergonomic office chairs. How can we possibly understand the needs of our clients at a deep level if we don’t get out of our comfort zone and experience a piece of their story? This is our challenge here in Africa, too, although our clients are of a different demographic. We work with large NGOs who directly try to shape and improve the lives of thousands of rural families. In order to create innovative designs we first go out in the field (literally) and start listening to people we’re designing for. Trying it out, starting with a beginners’ mindset, and asking “dumb” questions
allow us as designers of leadership development solutions to build deep empathy. Observations and experiences lead to a collection of stories from where key themes, challenges and insights arise. A balanced team of age and sex is great for this exercise, as is a team with a healthy mix of experts, non-experts, people from different fields and cultures. With a diverse group we’re able to tap into creative abilities that are often discounted by our normal patterns of problem-solving. The process of human-centered design is inspired by people, their behavior, and their natural context. For us, it is a method to enable our team to inspire desirable solutions from difficult challenges. We believe that good design, inspired by people, can lead to innovative breakthroughs in leadership development, especially when we start in a farmer’s field.
Immersion
story
A sense-making device for clarity. Coffee is a slow, meaningful, experience here in Ethiopia. Beans are washed then roasted slowly over hot coals, allowing everyone in the room to take in the aroma. The grinding takes place by hand, followed by the boiling of water and grounds together in a clay jebena pot. It’s the point in the day where people come together creating space for conversation, with the best of these sessions centered on an artfully told story. Stories do more than entertain over coffee, though. One of our goals is to help people understand and identify with a complicated concept, so it becomes easier when we tell a story about it. Telling a story helps with those “light-bulb” moments in a person’s brain allowing them to suddenly understand what we’re trying to say, whether it’s in a training, a mentoring conversation, or coaching. As such, those who can tell good stories will create faster, stronger connections with others.
Here’s why we use stories in our work: 1) Clarity - Good stories don’t happen by accident. They are formed and edited so they are clean and clutter free. The best stories are not the most exciting, but the ones that “stick” with us and provide clarity. 2) Relevance – A complicated concept such as Social Identity becomes easily identifiable in a clearly told story, especially when contextualized to the intended audience 3) Replicable – stories can be easily told and re-told. Because they follow a simple structure of events a clearly articulated story goes a long ways. Want to give it a try? Grab some coffee, and use it to tell a great story.
INCLUSION Reducing barriers for personal development Life is pretty difficult for girls and young women in a place like Ethiopia. However, if you are a young woman or girl with functional limitations, life is exponentially more challenging. The stats are quite depressing, really. Youth, and especially girls with differing abilities, are often excluded from their rightful access to health care services, education, and social services. These youth face huge social stigmas and discrimination. When providing leadership development solutions for youth like mentoring, training, and curriculum, we need to intentionally figure out how to include youth with differing abilities. It’s both a design challenge and an opportunity to lead.
Through our work as the youth leadership provider for a large US government-funded grant, we will reach at least 20,000 youth in Ethiopia. We have to be intentional in our inclusion of girls with differing abilities - all youth deserve the opportunity to reach their full potential. To reach this goal, we’ve modified our approach to promote inclusion of girls with differing abilities in all aspects of life, rather than one that focuses on their impairments. Disability comes from the interaction between people with a health condition and their environment (people, beliefs, social structures, physical, etc). If intentional inclusion of girls in personal development and mentoring can help remove environmental barriers, then we’re one step closer to empowering leadership that can change a society.
Train where you can (like under a mango tree). A pipe stand, an old barrel, and a mango tree...when combined with the right conversation making tools, these are the makings of a great training environment. Really. Too often we’re stuck thinking that we need a spacious classroom, comfy chairs, and air conditioning so cold you need a jacket during July. What people really desire is meaning making, constructive dialogue, and participatory methods that get them on their feet and wrapped up in an issue they can relate to. When we do resort to a training or workshop for leadership development (more on that later) we want to focus on what really matters most – content, methodology, and conversations. By using the environment available we make the approach inclusive rather than exclusive. Here’s what we mean:
Exclusive – Leadership development focuses on a narrow band of high potentials, usually managerial level, with a relatively high education. English is used as opposed to people’s daily vernacular. Trainings must happen in a comfortable classroom setting. Inclusive – Leadership development is contextualized, using local language, stories, and without ‘insider talk.’ The space available is the space used, making it more accessible to those that might not normally be considered for leadership development – in our context this means youth and women with low education. So be flexible (and more inclusive) by using the environment available. Because meeting people where they are is a game changer. Plus, if it’s mango season you’ve got snacks for everyone!
flexibility
gamification Leveraging the tremendous potential of games for leadership development... PAC-Man, Frogger, Space Invaders - games from the 80’s are trending right now. We wish we could tell you that Space Invaders could help people develop better EQ, but we can’t. We shouldn’t, however, discount games entirely. Gamification is the process of using game-design on non-game applications to make it more fun and engaging. But what does that have to do with Leadership? Games that emphasize collaboration, building a team, dealing with transition, and negotiation all have significant leadership development opportunities. When debriefed to allow space for dialogue and meaning making, games can be powerful learning tools. Using games among younger populations helps reinforce learning among
a demographic that is completely new to leadership development. To tap into these new solutions, we’ve partnered with Tesla, a US –based game company, to contextualize their Co-Opoly board game. The game helps players build cooperatives and focuses on collaboration, a key skill needed for youth here in Africa and across the world. Additionally, our work with Desert Rose, a local design-thinking consulting group, has led to the co-creation of games to help people build empathy and understanding of poverty. It’s important to understand that games are not the silver bullet solution. What we’re really after is a layering of information to allow the user to experience the same content or learning objective but in a new, hopefully engaging way. Bring on the aliens!
safe spaces Creating safe environments for young women leaders is critical. It’s amazing what happens when you remove the men and boys, giving young women some space to be themselves. Young women, particularly in Ethiopia, are less willing to try out new roles and skills if they feel threatened or judged. Safe spaces - environments conducive for learning, trying new roles, and building community, are essential in leadership development programs for women. This has been a primary focus of our Leadership and Debate Clubs held weekly in the city of Addis Ababa across 7 university campuses. Helping a young
woman in East Africa find her voice is not an easy task, but it becomes much easier if we can remove some of the barriers that normally prevent her from speaking up and practicing new leadership skills. Weekly club meetings for these young women (in their first or second year of university) can provide a safe space for candid discussions on the challenges of being a woman in a highly male dominated environment like universities. Here they develop skills, build friendships, receive peer support, increase their social networks, and develop a mentoring relationship with a trusted adult. It’s not just a nice gesture; it’s a critical element in reducing dropouts and promoting economic empowerment. So back up and give these young women some space!
mentoring
Goats (and mentoring) can build livelihoods; while livelihoods (and leadership training) can build self-reliance. Goats = Tails up. Sheep = Tails down. In case you didn’t know, that’s an easy way to tell the difference between a goat and a sheep. Goats are great assets and add income to rural households in East Africa. What could this possibly have to do with leadership? Well, it’s all about livelihoods. In East Africa, better livelihoods mean an improved standard of living. If people (and especially women and youth here in Africa) are able to improve their household economy, it not only makes them more likely to get an education and access to healthcare, it also strengthens their ability to set their own direction and have a voice. In practical terms, we combine leadership development (and mentoring) with livelihoods by
working through partners (government, NGOs, UN). We take what we know about leadership and combine this with their work in poverty reduction. This combination, the outcomes of leadership development (greater self-awareness, agency, ability to deal with change and transition) and outcomes of improved livelihoods (better farming practices, adoption of new behaviors) have a multiplying effect. Think about it. If a young woman farmer has more confidence and self-awareness from ongoing mentoring, she’s going to be more open to using a new farming practice such as irrigation. If the risk pays off she’s going to have more confidence. If the risk doesn’t work out, she’s still able to learn from the failure and bounce back with the support of her mentor.
dialog Creative abrasion: Putting something in the middle to create positive discourse. We love good problems. Good problems give us an opportunity to co-create sustainable solutions that meet the need of the user and our client. We often avoid arguments at great lengths, but sometimes some structured, heated discussions help us refine our ideas. Getting designers (anyone from participants, clients, community) to create positive discourse and discussion helps us narrow down our broad range of
stories and insights. This “creative abrasion” ensures that designers are not complacent with safe answers. We continue to refine these insights until we have the most substantial challenges that lead to the creation of viable solutions. Ranking, scoring, sorting and grouping ideas are a great way to highlight what insights lead to key game-changers. Creating viable outcomes happens best when we work collaboratively with our clients to focus first on the problem, second on the user, and finally, third, on the solution. The end result is an innovative product, process, or policy that not only fits the needs of the user but also is robust enough to survive the market.
co-location
Co-locating for creativity We’re a small team in our Ethiopia office. Starting up, we chose to share an office with 2 other small companies, each with a unique skillset that complemented our focus on leadership development. Desert Rose Consulting is a local innovation and design firm that fuses a deep cultural knowledge of East Africa with creative problem solving. The second company, a spin-off of Desert Rose, is a local language publishing company that focuses on creating contextualized literature for indigenous languages. Through this unique partnership of the 3 companies, and an intense focus on building inter-company collaboration, we allow for innovation to flourish. We’ve broken down the steep hierarchies that exist in the culture and have engendered an egalitarian workspace where employees are unusually happy to come to work.
Why has this worked for us? We worked hard to get the recipe right and focused on the aligning values, co-proposing, and creative agility.
Values – Surprisingly, we don’t have a formal MOU between the 3 companies. We decided that by aligning our values, and actively living out these values, we were able to create a strong sense of community between the 3 companies. We eat lunch together, we celebrate together, we work through problems together.
Co-proposing – We’re much better together, so much so that we often go after projects together. Our clients see us almost as one organization and have come to rely on the unique competencies we each bring to the table.
Creative Agility – There’s a lot of creative energy because we co-locate. Our ability to test and experiment through quick pursuit, reflection, and adjustment – something we call creative agility – allows us to bounce ideas off each other and quickly get to the prototype stage.
Putting learning in the hands of the user People are smart. If given the right tools and support, they can drive their own learning. We too often think of the leadership development experience as something that only happens when you have a really good facilitator with a nice mix of easy to remember leadership sayings and good stories. But that mental model is preventing us from reaching thousands, maybe millions, that don’t have access to our traditional format of developing leadership. Enter the toolkit - a loose term we use to describe highly contextualized and user-specific curriculum that is packaged together. Here’s a look at just some of our toolkits: Girls Club Toolkit: We’ve developed a girl-run, modular, toolkit that can be dropped into a group of 14-17 year old girls. Girls take turns facilitating and debriefing the content, building their own confidence in the
process. Modules can be dropped in depending on the situation and range from Leadership to Healthy Relationships to Community Service. Boys Club Toolkit: Similar to the one above, the Boys Club Toolkit focuses on leadership, entrepreneurship, and several other topics. A big theme in this one is getting boys to empathize and build respect for girls and women. Audio toolkit: Designed for low-literacy groups, we’ve made women’s and early leadership development an audio experience. Initially using solar powered radios, we are now moving more towards mobile phone based players because of their explosion across East Africa. Our audio toolkits use a radio drama format to engage listeners in a story and then debrief through a narrator. We often combine the audio component with a picture based guide to ‘put something in the middle’ for meaning making with small listener groups.
Toolkits
Possibilities for reconciliation Two big questions to think about: 1) How might we leverage leadership development to convene those affected by conflict? 2) How might better leadership be used to strengthen peace? Diaspora, the scattered people of a common origin, might be one possible solution. Even in a place like Greensboro, North Carolina, there is a sizeable population of South Sudanese diaspora. When first arriving in the US as refugees nearly 20-30 years ago many of the South Sudanese stuck together, forming a close knit community, one based on a solidarity from their war-torn country. Looking past major tribal lines; Dinka and Nuer shared a common heritage by developing strong community, eating together, even singing in the same choir together. But tribal tension in the new nation of South Sudan plunged the country back into war in 2013.
Moses Wawich, a CCL Leadership Beyond Boundaries Fellow from South Sudan, saw the ripple effect of the conflict. By bringing together nearly 30 South Sudanese diaspora he wanted to know if we could possibly create meaning and dialogue through the convening of people still very emotionally connected to South Sudan. In the session with CCL, many of the former refugees mentioned how they used to be close, but after the conflict started again in South Sudan, and even though they were thousands of miles away, they became divided themselves. They had stopped singing in the same choir, stopped building community. They wanted peace and wanted community, but were not clear on how to rebuild it. The 1-day session may have brought the South Sudanese community a bit closer, but it didn’t solve the issue. The problem is much bigger than a short workshop, but it was an opportunity to help people talk. More importantly it gave us helpful insights on how better leadership might be used effectively in the future (in the right context, and over a longer duration) to build reconciliation and hopefully peace.
diaspora for peace
LEADERSHIP
D DIRECTION
A
simplicity
C COMMITMENT
ALIGNMENT
In simplicity, we find meaning. If you can distill an idea down to its essence, the purest form possible, then the idea can spread without being corrupted so easily. We need our ideas and theories in leadership to spread. Proven concepts like Direction – Alignment – Commitment (DAC), Social Identity, Growth Mindset, EQ, Mental Models, Boundary Spanning, and many others have been distilled to their simplest form. In their purest state, these Leadership Essentials can be drawn in the sand during a community meeting, easily articulated on a flip chart paper, or presented in a corporate boardroom. We can gather around an image of a 3-legged stool and talk infinitely of where we’re failing in direction, what we’re going to do differently to align ourselves, and why we’re gaining commitment across our team.
It means exploring leadership is now accessible. But why focus on simplicity? We believe the way an idea is communicated highly influences its utilization: Simple ideas dumbed down to fit on a poster are simplistic and potentially dangerous because they make us believe there are easy solutions to complex problems. Complex ideas are often where knowledge resides, but can include a huge amount of detail that obscures the real issues. In contrast, simplicity embeds a great deal of complexity in understandable language and allows for expansion of a concept, based on the context. It offers the chance to take ownership of the concepts and apply them.
positive deviants
Using “Leader Mothers” to save newborn lives... Let’s be honest. It’s hard to change our own behavior. We’re very good at conforming to social norms, following the rest of the group. At some evolutionary level this probably keeps us from being eaten by a bear, but nowadays this social pressure dictates how we dress, what we eat, and how we raise a family. However, there are occasionally individuals that are doing certain things, often unintentionally, that are out of step with the rest of their peers - and sometimes it’s having a positive impact on them or their family. We call these people positive deviants. If the positive deviants can learn to identify what they’re doing differently, and then can learn to influence others in their community, then behavior can be changed for the better. For a place like Karamoja in Uganda where a neglected healthcare system and high maternal and child mortality exists, this influence of behavior through active mentoring
can make big changes. This can often be lifesaving changes in how a newborn is cared for; ensuring the baby gets the right nutrition and if needed, the right medical treatment. For this project we co-created a mentoring process with an NGO partner, a process that modeled behavior change, using positive deviants called Leader Mothers as the change agents. CCL is not a healthcare provider; rather we focus on strengthening the people side of the equation to make what our partners are doing more effective. Since the process is culturally relevant, health messages are easily transferable through stories, good facilitation and examples. It’s relationship based, using respected mentors to reinforce positive health behaviors and ensure accountability. Leader Mothers in Karamoja have now reached over 35,000 women and their families with life saving health practices. Our part was small on this project, but the idea to use mentoring to effectively model and promote healthy behaviors is big.
Channeling youthful energy for good design (Designed by her, for her): Meet Bitsimariam. Everyone calls her Amy. Amy is an amazingly talented intern. But much more than just an intern, Amy has been transformed into a designer of leadership solutions for girls and young women. As a student at Truman State University, Amy gracefully bridges two very different countries, with one foot firmly in US culture and one foot in Ethiopian culture. Because of her knowledge of both cultures, Amy is an ideal person to take our ideas and CCL’s content and mold it into something that works in the Ethiopian context. More importantly, she’s closer to
the age of our target audience, giving her a unique perspective of what works and what will fall flat. So why is this a big idea? Because organizations that want to reach groups like Millennials need to start hiring young talented people and give them latitude and autonomy to come up with solutions. A younger generation will not be satisfied with something that worked for their parents. They want a unique experience, they want meaning, and they’re happy to use some small boutique provider to give it to them. If we’re thinking about the future then we need to start leveraging smart, talented young people like Amy to create solutions that Amy herself would use.
millennials
FAMILY LEADERS Advocates and family leaders This is Debo, age 4, from Arsi, Ethiopia. She’s a bundle of energy. Debo’s father is the headmaster and teacher in a rural school and her mother stays at home with Debo and her younger brother. Whether they know it or not, Debo’s parents are leaders and advocates in her life. Her parents advocate for her well-being, and grow as leaders as Debo and her brother grow, and as they develop as parents. They manage multiple responsibilities, solve problems, set rules for Debo, balance competing needs of the family, and make decisions that impact the group. These family leaders use and develop resources and align available services to strengthen their family. So the big idea here is that if these family leaders are
strengthened and developed, then it means that Debo can have better access to regular health checkups, early childhood education, and the proper nutrition she needs. Strengthened family leadership can also help engage older children in dialogue and decisionmaking, enabling them to have more agency in their lives, in a time when modeling effective leadership critical for youth as they leave their homes in search of work. In the early years of Debo’s life, having her mother and father as advocates and leaders sets her up for success, but it also impacts the community. Family leaders can act as mentors for youth, share skills with other parents, and organize others to work effectively toward a common goal in their community. Debo needs this family leadership so that one day she can go on to be a great leader, mentor, and mother.
networks
Understanding social connections to build community... There’s a dynamic web of connections that influence the way we interact and react to each other, make decisions, take risks, and live out our lives. There are people, social structures, and even environmental factors that create an ever changing network of influence. Our big idea is that network analysis can be done in situ, among groups, to enable women to gain agency and increased decision-making. How does it work? In situ network analysis – This is a simple and powerful tool we use with groups at many levels to help them understand the connections (or lack of connections) that exist in their network that act as a barrier to their own leadership development. This can be done on a piece of flip-chart paper in a field, as in the picture, or can even be done with stones, sticks, and other items representing different people or social resources. Because of the flexibility in facilitating this activity the emphasis can either
focus on a “name generator” approach where actual names are given, or by using a “position generator.” The position generator (an approach adapted from sociology) measures social capital or structural positions in the community or society allowing the women in the group to understand their where they are in relation to everything else. Things that might get mapped include: • • • • •
Health facilities Relationships (positive and negative) Community layout Water resources Conflicts (interpersonal, clan, etc)
The innovation in this approach lies in helping a disenfranchised group understand the entire network of their community and how it’s connected. Women that go through the process are able to better understand the types of people they are connected to, or what social services exist but they feel they cannot access. It’s not just about understanding an individual’s network, rather, it’s how that network influences their ability to thrive as an woman, a mother, a community member, or entrepreneur.
PARTNERSHIP Leadership as a lever for
.
We’re better together. We’re also much better if we have partners to work with. Clients are great, but partnership means that there is something special, that we’re in it together for the long haul. We know that CCL’s expertise in leadership development is the ideal partner not just for organizations, but also their areas/sectors/initiatives that propel them forward, that bring meaning to what they do. We think of leadership as a lever for . Here’s what we mean.
Leadership can be a lever for: economic development livelihoods maternal and child health women’s empowerment education for girls access to clean water food security HIV prevention better elections That’s why we need partners, because it’s not just about delivering a service for an organization engaged in , it’s about co-creating solutions that make easier to attain. Now it doesn’t mean that it’s easy. It’s a relationship, one built on trust, with the understanding that we both bring something to the table, that when combined we are better than the sum of our parts.
agency
True empowerment for women Not everyone believes that they have control over their future.
If a girl in Africa has the opportunity to choose school over work, each additional year of primary schooling boosts her average future wages by 10 to 20%.
The ability to make decisions and act on them – agency - is a critical component of women’s leadership, but it’s often lacking among uneducated women in the developing world.
Choosing to stay and complete basic education, rather than being pulled out by her family for work, makes her three times less likely to contract HIV/ AIDs.
This is truly a big idea, that if we enable women to increase their voice and increase their agency that we’ll see big changes. But we’re not just talking about individual benefits, strengthening a woman’s agency in Africa can save lives, engender accountability in governance, and transform economies. Here are some quick facts:
Enhanced agency is a key reason why children of better educated women are less likely to be stunted or malnourished; educated mothers have greater autonomy in making decisions and more power to act for their children’s benefit.
A child’s probability of survival is increased by 20% when household income is controlled by the mother rather than the father. When women and girls earn income, they reinvest 90% of it into their families, compared with only 30-40% for men.
Building agency and amplifying the voices of women has broad development payouts for men and boys, families, and communities. Developing women’s agency is critical in helping them embrace different, more positive ways of living and working as well as helping them identify and act on priorities. This is where leadership development becomes more tangible, real, and something with enormous potential.
We did it! We’ve now shared all 20 of our Leadership Lessons Learned in East Africa. We hope these big ideas can help you and your community in your leadership development journey! Continue the conversation online, share with your friends, and add your own big ideas: insights.ccl.org/20-lessons-learned
About the Author Aaron White has worked in Ethiopia since 2005, developing, managing, and directing humanitarian, development, and innovation programs. For the last 4 years, Aaron has worked with the Center for Creative Leadership as Deputy Director, where he worked to integrate accessible and contextualized leadership development initiatives into large-scale development programs. Aaron worked on innovative projects in Ethiopia and East Africa in health, agriculture, and youth employment that leveraged CCL’s unique understanding of leadership development.
Prior to coming on board with CCL, Aaron worked with several international development organizations on large-scale projects that impacted thousands of people with a HIV prevention, emergency response, water resource development, and livelihoods enhancement. Aaron has a unique skill set that encompasses detailed technical writing, understanding of international donors and funding mechanisms, and creativity, and design. He has piloted and developed grant programs for leadership as a lever for peace, food security, youth mentoring, and HIV and health programming.
We believe that developing leadership and human capacity can enhance the human condition. Through our societal advancement efforts, CCL works directly with youth, women, and under-served populations, and builds the capacity of organizations that serve these groups. We partner with other institutions to co-create knowledge and solutions that use the lever of leadership to create a better world.
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