Applications of Transformative Leadership

Transformative Leadership was developed at Nur University in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. In the last 25 years, it has been used in more than 40 countries throughout the world in the fields of education, youth empowerment, and public health, among others. Regardless of the culture and context, participants in the program have responded enthusiastically, commenting on the positive changes generated in their personal lives and institutions.

Transformative Leadership has been incorporated into several long-term academic programs and social action projects.  The main concepts have also been presented in shorter 2- to 5-day workshops or as a series of 2-hour weekly seminar sessions.

You can read more about where and how Transformative Leadership has been used in diverse contexts below.

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Teacher Training

The first use of Transformative Leadership was in the field of teacher training in South America, reaching approximately 1000 teachers in Bolivia, 1000 in Ecuador and 300 in Argentina, among others.  In each of these programs, Transformative Leadership was the first of a series of modules in a 3-semester program. However, the concepts related to Transformative Leadership were constantly referred to in other modules, in which the 18 capabilities of Transformative Leadership were interspersed.

One of the teachers who participated in the first program in Bolivia commented on the following change in his approach to teaching:

“Moral Leadership has helped me to understand the essential nobility of the human being. To see my students as beings with an essential nobility and latent potential has helped me to focus not only on academic contents but also on developing their values and latent capabilities, identifying their potential and tending to it in order to achieve their integral formation as human beings.”

Another teacher, who participated in only one workshop, replicated by a teacher in the program, recounted the following anecdote:  

“What had the greatest impact on me was the concept of the essential nobility of each human being.  I had a girl in my class, who seemed incapable of learning, and I had basically given up on her. After the workshop, I began looking for her hidden potential and considered getting through to her as a personal challenge.  After my attitude toward her changed, her learning gradually improved.“

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Various initiatives around the world have contextualized Transformative Leadership to the reality of youth, helping them explore its fundamental concepts. Usually implemented at the secondary/high school level, Youth Leadership projects empower youth to become active in service to their immediate community, within or around their school.

Empowering youth

Youth Are The Change!

Young people are faced with many challenges that call for a new framework for action to effect a positive change. As youth practice the elements of Transformative Leadership, they are motivated to develop their capabilities for personal and social transformation.

Acts of service in the wider community are an organic outcome of youth arising to become leaders of community. Service oriented leadership reinforces their understanding of the concepts of Transformative Leadership and assists them while navigating challenges of today as they develop into adulthood. By realizing the value of team-based, concerted action, youth are able to value diversity, inclusiveness and effect true change. Transformative Leadership for Youth materials provide the tools for youth to build individual and collective capacity in the transformative leadership process.

Health organizations

A fundamental human right is access to high-quality affordable health care regardless of one’s ability to pay. It is sadly in the most vulnerable regions of the world where the burden of disease and disability are the most urgent that health services are least available. Simply training doctors and building clinics in these regions is inadequate to address the problem. While health care infrastructure and competent personnel are important, they are not able to address the challenges unless they can see from a larger perspective. The way we think, assumptions we make, our attitudes, our intention, and our motives affect how we deliver our professional services, treat disease, and promote wellness.

The traditional charitable interventions where experts travel to areas of need in order to treat disease, while helpful in times of crisis, cannot begin to address the overwhelming complexity of health problems in the world. These inter-connected flaws in our systems have given rise to worldwide poverty, disease, and disability – problems that are steadily getting worse despite the trillions of dollars that are spent in social and economic development initiatives by both governments and non-governmental organizations. Any intervention that does not critically question the assumptions upon which we construct our work is doomed to repeat the same patterns. Therefore, the journey has to begin with ourselves – how we think, who we are, and what is our purpose. Once we see ourselves as embedded in the problems we are trying to tackle, we may have a chance to undertake transformation. This is the journey of transformative leadership – remaking ourselves in order to remake our work, our communities, and the world.

While working to improve eye care systems in underserved areas of the world, it became clear to us that true capacity building had a spiritual dimension that had to be addressed alongside the necessary academic and technical capacities. We assisted our partners to find those universal values within their own spiritual heritage and consciously embrace those values so that they could provide guidance for their professional work. Repeatedly they told us that they found this helpful, particularly when making difficult decisions and in times of crisis. Lacking a conceptual framework that had been consciously embraced, it was easy to slide back into self-serving habits.

Following is one example of system transformation shared by a colleague in Mongolia:

“This training was totally different from others as we had had only technical assistance from different NGOs. We always talked about academic knowledge, clinical and surgical training, but the importance of changing attitudes and behaviors in order to achieve something had not been considered. So the [transformative leadership] training made many people think about who we are, what we are doing and where we want to be… I think the most important impact of the training was that people started to express their views. Before, it was rare to hear anyone share what they truly felt in the larger group. There was a fear to talk about the real situation. But after the training, we felt like we got new eyes to see things around us. Now, at the different meetings, those who participated were not afraid to express how they really feel… Now we make decisions through consultation within the group and try to include all the doctors. We are working hard to learn how to make decisions as a group and use rules for effective consultation and decision-making…. After the second training, 10 ophthalmologists from different hospitals in Ulaanbaatar decided to meet regularly to solve problems and make decisions using a tool from the training called ‘the learning cycle’.”

Community organizations

Transformative Leadership concerns itself with the discovery of the hidden dimensions of leadership that are found within individuals, organizations, and communities – the three integral protagonists of social change in our society.

When these protagonists of social, economic and cultural transformation experience deep attitudinal and behavioral changes through innovative adult training and leadership education, their innate powers and capabilities surface and flourish 

The practice of Transformative Leadership in community organizations catalyzes positive change and improves performance within these organizations that directly influence social and economic development. 

In brief, Transformative Leadership takes on its full meaning when a grassroots community reflects on its contents and uses them to rethink how it works, strengthens relationships among its members, and consults on actions to take for its development.

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