The onPrinciple Leading Change Learning Cohort is a twelve-month leadership formation experience followed by a six-month leadership experiment designed to equip YMCA CEOs and senior leaders to allow Christian principles reflected in the YMCA mission to shape leadership practice and strengthen their capacity to lead change. Rooted in the YMCA's Christian heritage and open to leaders of all faith traditions and those open to exploring matters of faith, participants explore twelve core Christian principles central to the YMCA mission while journeying alongside a trusted community of peers.

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Leaders participate in Triads or Quads, learning with two or three senior colleagues from their YMCA through virtual learning, guided reflection, experiential learning, and practical application. Anchored in Canoeing the Mountains by Tod Bolsinger, the cohort develops the adaptive leadership capacity needed to navigate complexity, uncertainty, and change while remaining rooted in the YMCA's historic mission and purpose.

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A defining feature of the experience is a ten-day Jerusalem immersion, where participants learn directly from leaders of the Jerusalem International YMCA and other Bible Land YMCAs while exploring what it means to put Christian principles into practice within diverse communities and complex cultural contexts. Through shared experiences, dialogue, and site visits, participants encounter one of the world's most compelling contemporary expressions of leadership rooted in Christian principles amid diversity, tension, uncertainty, and hope.

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Throughout the cohort, participants engage in virtual learning, guided reflection, and practical application within their own YMCA context. During the final six months, each Triad or Quad designs and implements a contextual leadership experiment that addresses a real organizational opportunity or challenge. The experience culminates in a virtual shared learning session where participants reflect on their experiments, celebrate growth, and discern how adaptive leadership can continue to strengthen faithful, mission centered leadership within their associations.

 

The cohort experience includes:

• A launch gathering at a YMCA Camp and Conference Center 

• Monthly virtual learning sessions 

• A 10-day Holy Land immersion 

• A symposium where participants share insights, learning, and begin ideation of an innovation or experiment to be designed a conducted over 6 months

 

Participants will:

• Allow Christian principles reflected in the YMCA’s historic mission to shape leadership practice 

• Strengthen their capacity to lead adaptive change 

• Develop practical skills for leading in complex and uncertain environments 

• Build trusted relationships with peer leaders across the YMCA movement 

• Apply learning through contextual leadership experiments 

• Learn from YMCA leaders serving in diverse and complex cultural contexts 

• Strengthen mission-centered leadership within their YMCA