Following Jenny Abbott’s departure from her role as Executive Director last month, ALC has decided to pilot a co-leadership model in lieu of conducting a traditional Executive Director search. With enthusiastic support from both ALC’s Board and staff, we are so excited to launch this approach – and even more so to collaborate with our community partners in this new capacity.
If you’re not familiar, the co-leadership model includes two or more leaders sharing equal responsibility, decision-making authority, and accountability for the direction and success of an organization, rather than a single individual holding all of these responsibilities. Studies have shown that concentration of power in a single individual can lead to a higher risk of burnout, an unintended silo effect among staff, and many other challenges. In addition to mitigating these risks, co-leadership provides numerous benefits, including providing stability and continuity during leadership changes, creating equitable decision making, incorporative diverse perspectives in leadership, and being extremely cost effective, among other great benefits.
ALC’s co-leadership team – which we’re referring to as the Executive Leadership Team (ELT) – comprises the four ALC Directors. Each will continue their current role and responsibilities while also taking on the title and work of Co–Executive Director. The ELT includes (clockwise from top left):
- Kristen King, Operations & Advancement Director
- Tim Best, Homelessness Services Director
- Lori Tully, Advocacy Director
- Val D’Angiolini Landis, Community Programs Director
ALC’s co-leadership approach aims to embody trauma-informed principles by putting transparency, empowerment, and collaboration at the forefront of everything we do – not only in our work with our clients, but also with staff and community partners. This approach will help flatten power hierarchies that can interfere with transparency and accountability by distributing rather than concentrating power; take a more creative and strategic approach to problem solving; and allow for greater engagement and ownership among ALC’s leadership and staff. While these are a few of our internal goals, this approach will very much drive our work outside of the organization, too.
We’ve established a single point of contact for the entire ELT: exec@advocatesoflakecounty.org. Any messages sent here will automatically go to all members of the ELT; this allows us to quickly triage requests and inquiries so no one has to guess which is the “right” co-director to contact.
We are absolutely thrilled to explore this collaborative approach – with ALC’s Board and staff, and also with the Lake County community and our partners near and far. Please do not hesitate to reach out with any questions. We cannot wait to further our work together to make Lake County a place of safety, dignity, and hope for all.