Embracing the Future – Leading for Change: Three perspectives.

Our sector, in fact all sectors are experiencing an era of profound change. In many ways, this is a period of great uncertainty. We are seeing new non-profit leaders emerging, and long-term leaders starting to transition out. Community leadership is also evolving and changing. While there are many challenges within this shifting environment, there are also opportunities. History has shown us that times of great change frequently spark new ideas, creative leadership and inspired vision.

Within this context, this year’s theme for our 35th anniversary Annual General Meeting emerged. Our three panellists (Beth Cougler Blom, Mitchell Temkin and Sandra Richardson) gave a brief glimpse toward the future as they each explored leadership and change from different perspectives.

If you were not able to attend our AGM this year, or even if you did, I think you will enjoy reading our presenters’ three perspectives. Links to each speech have been provided below.

Our first panellist, and our Manager of Training and Outreach Beth Cougler Blom, spoke on the recent creation of our Emerging Leaders Network. She shed some light on what local emerging leaders think about sector leadership and the path to get there. You can view her speech and bio here.

Mitchell Temkin, Vice-President of Leadership Victoria’s board, was our second panellist. He addressed the topic of community leadership and highlighted five related aspects of community leadership that he feels will be important in the years to come. You can view his speech and bio here.

Our final panellist, Sandra Richardson, CEO of the Victoria Foundation, provided her insights on sector leadership. She shared her thoughts on the new reality the sector is facing (not just economically, but demographically, technologically and socially) and the impact of emerging trends. You can view her speech and bio here.

We would like to sincerely thank all of our panellists for sharing their time and insights with us. You have given us much ‘food for thought’.

I will close with this one (of many) insightful comments shared by our panel:

In order for non-profits to survive and thrive “we must become futurists – not predicting the future, but being attuned to rapid and continued shifts in the environment, continually evaluating and interpreting how organizations can best adapt. It means experimenting…and a willingness to take risks. We can not afford to rest on our laurels, assuming that the old ways of doing business will continue to serve us in this dramatically new and ever-changing environment… It is our responsibility to envision and shape the future for ourselves, our organizations and thus, our community.”

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Tell us what you think!  Share your thoughts on sector, community and emerging leadership with us.

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