Varieties of Leadership Training and Development

by Elmer S. Soriano

Civika Leadership Institute has the opportunity of working with leaders in various organizational settings and currently has a number of approaches to help leaders grow.

In partnership with the Asian Institute of Management, Johns Hopkins University (JHU), Campaigns and Grey, and USAID, the Communications for Communicators School (www.c4cschool.com) is an in-service communications fellowship that combines the JHU P Framework for health communications, with AIM's Bridging Leadership and development management courses. Some 80 mid-career practitioners in the health sector enroll in a 6-month course which includes three classroom workshops with practicum work and coaching in between. Each C4C Fellow works on a health communications campaign and completes the P Framework cycle. Started by Yoly Ong, the C4C aims to scale up world-class in-service leadership training within the bureaucracy.

Also in the health sector, Civika Institute works with the Zuellig Family Foundation in implementing the Health Leadership and Governance Program covering over 600 LGUs. Interventions include training, coaching, program data management and facilitating development of the local social networks that support maternal health. This program draws heavily from the work of MIT's Otto Scharmer, Amartya Sen, and Ernesto Garilao's Bridging Leadership. There must be around 100 mayors who have already finished the course and over 500 staff of the Department of Health of the Philippines. 

In the broader field of local governance, we had the wonderful opportunity to launch the Governance Innovation Lab with the Galing Pook Foundation. Galing Pook has been an award-giving body for the past 20 years, Galing Pook Foundation now aims to catalyze the replication of innovative practices. Dr.Eddie Dorotan, it's Executive Director, has wisely invested in developing a TV series on innovations on local governance which can now serve as the material for various courses in governance.

We also had the opportunity of co-convening the Digital Strategies for Development Summit in October of 2014. With five thematic streams and over 300 participants, it was a well-attended summit that served as an ASEAN platform for knowledge-sharing on technology-enabled development.

Our most recent offering now is the Resiliency Leadership Innovations Fellowship which combines Scharmer's U-Lab course on EdX with the knowledge on resiliency leadership. Starting with 10 Fellows, we aim to deepen our offerings in the resiliency leadership and governance space.