News from our first cohort of MSc candidates studying Relational Leading

MSc in Relational Leading: Collaborating to Create the Future

What if by some miracle we woke up 2 years from now and realize we'd co-created a circle of relational practitioners that was truly amazing and highly respected? That our work together unfolded gracefully and with purpose? What would be the signs that this had transpired? What steps did we take along the way? What were the attributes we held close to our hearts?

These are a few of the questions emerging from students in the first cohort of the Taos Institute MSc program in Relational Leading launched this semester. In their first Section of the semester students in were invited to co-create a learning community that will inspire, encourage and sustain them through their two-year program. Their questions evoke excitement and possibility as we begin this new learning journey together.

Relational leading is itself an invitation, to examine the aspects of relating that are key to engaging, organizing, sustaining and creating the activities of people working together. We are shifting our lens away from the tradition of viewing leadership as inhering in the traits or activities of single individuals. Our program, rooted in a social construction orientation, examines the processes of coordinated action from which organizational members create meaning, determine value and co-create together. This approach is especially relevant for those working in global, diverse and complex work settings. In our course we are exploring:

• How the collaborative construction of realities, reason and value in the workplace offers insights into ways organizations can more effectively work in a global context of continuous, sometimes radical change.
• How the process of meaning making is central to organization functioning
• How collaborative practices can help strengthen engagement and inspire innovation
• How a systems and process view of the organization informed by complexity theory can support organizational coordination and ethical action
• How as relational leading practitioners we can apply these new insights to everyday organizational challenges in ways that address individual, organizational, community and environmental/global needs.

Our core faculty members (pictured below) are committed to creating a collaborative and relational learning environment that emphasizes application to real work issues.

Dr. Saliha Bava, Dr. Celiane Camargo-Borgias, Dr. Kristin Bodiford and Dr. Ginny Belden-Charles (director)

Our learning methods include partner dialogues, learning journal reflections, online dialogues, joint projects and the development of a reflective learning portfolio.

We draw on a wide range of Taos Institute resources for guest speakers, learning dialogue partners and student advisors. We are also partnering with the Danish company, Ramboll, and their Attractor Courses to offer a Danish entrance into the program for 2015 that will add to the program opportunities for local learning in Danish.

We are excited to be joining the family of programs at PDF.NET