Courage to Lead Leader Circle
Participants:
All current Courage to Lead participants are invited to be part of a Leader Circle, meeting monthly between retreats either in-person or on the phone. The purpose of the Leader Circles are to continue the work we are doing in our CTL retreats, and to find more ways to support each other in our professional and personal journeys. Each Leader Circle will have 4 to 6 members in it, and Kim Stokely will form the memberships of each circle.
We ask that you make your Leader Circle participation a high priority through the end of the retreat series. Please confirm your participation by December 13, 2019 (you can opt-out on the form if you feel you can’t participate), and let us know if you would prefer to meet in person or on the phone. We will provide a Leader Circle training to the entire cohort at our July CTL Retreat.
Meetings/Calls:
The Leader Circles will meet once each month between retreats either in person or on the phone. If they meet on the phone, participants can utilize startmeeting.com or freeconferencecall.com to arrange a conference line or use Zoom to have a video call. Each session will run for two hours or so. If social time is planned, that should be scheduled either before or after the two-hour Leader Circle session.
Structure:
The sessions will be scheduled for two hours at maximum, but will likely go a little bit shorter (except in the groups where there are 6 participants). Each of the participants will have a 15-minute time slot (with one minute of silence in between), unless they choose not to share an issue for that call. (As with all of our programming, sharing an issue in Leader circle is invitational.)
Participants should each come to Leader Circle sessions with a question, challenge, or priority about which they would like to receive honest, open questions, resource sharing, or stories during their 15 minute time slot.
The Opening of each Leader Circle will take up to 20 minutes, and will include a check-in of less than 10 minutes (target 1 minute per person) that will include a very brief explanation of the question or challenge each person brings to the session, and also a brief personal/professional check-in updating the group about something in their life or on their mind that they want to share. And there will be a 10-15 minute Closing, where learnings are captured before a brief closing circle.
Preparation:
As noted above, in advance of each session, participants should note their issue, challenge, or priority for the session on the top half of their Monthly Session Participant Form (a sample of which can be found at the end of this document).
You should also come with a plan for how you want to get support from your fellow circle members, choosing from one or more of the following:
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- Open Honest Questions – helps you tap into your own resourcefulness and gain clarity.
- Resource Sharing – helps you discover other resources to support you in expanding your possibilities. Sharing resources typically takes the form of either brainstorming or the sharing of teaching stories. Brainstorming – helps the presenter surface other ideas and approaches, without judgment. Sharing teaching stories helps the presenter hear the wisdom of others who have experience in similar situations. Sharing resources also gives us a chance to share specific resources that might be helpful.
Note: At each Leader Circle, presenters can specify whether they would welcome follow-up communications regarding their issue such as further resource sharing.
Facilitation:
All Leader Circle participants will be trained to facilitate a session. Everyone in the group takes responsibility for making the Leader Circle work as intended, but each month one participant will volunteer to be the Facilitator for that session. The Facilitator responsibility includes:
- Reminding participants of the time, date and venue (or conference call number) for the upcoming Leader Circle.
- Initiating the 2-hour Leader Circle session, and keeping it running on time.
- Making sure the group has a time, date and venue (or conference call number) for the next session before they leave the current one.
- Complete the Leader Circle Debrief Form (sample linked below) and email it to Kim Stokely (kim@kimstokely.org) within 2 days of your Leader Circle session.