In designing its new leadership formation program, CHHSM is practicing lesson number one: Build upon strength. That means leveraging the successes of the association’s history of leadership education.
In the past 13 years, nearly 200 people have graduated from CHHSM leadership training programs and have gone on to impact their communities as faithful leaders dedicated to service.
In 1998, CHHSM launched the popular Transformational Leadership Program (TLP) and began preparing Diakonal ministers to become servant leaders. Susan Sinderson, a 2002 TLP graduate and vice president of housing for Consecra Housing in Oak Brook, Ill., says the program taught her how to go beyond speaking of good things and actually do them.
"The experience taught me that the calling we receive is shaped by the purpose God has for each of us, the path is never as straight as we believe, and what we need to learn as leaders is how to walk our path without losing our faith and hope and to never let fear distort our vision," says Sinderson.
Following the TLP, CHHSM's Faith-Based Leadership Institute (FBLI) graduated more than 100 leaders from 2004 to 2009 and paved the way for the Nollau Institute to debut in the fall.
The new yearlong institute will share the same objective as TLP and FBLI — to help leaders integrate professional excellence with faith-based purpose. But Nollau will go further by emphasizing interactive, peer learning in the context of a community of practice that offers mentoring and accountability.
“Nollau will differ from TLP and FBLI in its focus on leadership formation as a lifelong process that occurs best in community,” says CHHSM President and CEO Bryan Sickbert.
Sandy Brien has experienced firsthand the impact of leadership training in community. All of her peers on the management team at Havenwood-Heritage Heights in Concord, N.H., completed training through CHHSM. Brien, who is the organization’s vice president of human resources, graduated from FBLI in 2007.
“We have an implied covenant,” she says of herself and her colleagues, who deepened the level of respect and dignity in their workplace following the CHHSM programs. “We have to take care of each other."
The shared experienced continues to frame the organization’s decision-making processes and relationship-building process. “It’s been interpreted in different ways,” Brien says, "but we can all go back to those fundamentals. We look for the good in each other. That’s the biggest value.”
The Nollau Institute develops the same type of leadership modeled by its namesake, Louis Edward Nollau, a 19th century missionary, preacher and founder of several St. Louis-area CHHSM ministries.
Recruitment is underway for the first class, which will convene in St. Louis with a retreat at the Mercy Center on Sept. 13-14. The institute will conclude in July 2012. Class size is limited to 20 individuals, and the deadline for nominations is July 1.
Learn more about the Nollau Institute and submit an application here.
