National Labor Leadership Initiative Program Structure

Participants must be nominated and sponsored by their organizations. Nominees are in senior elected or staff positions in their organizations, with extensive leadership and oversight responsibilities for major areas of work.

The NLLI curriculum consists of three 5-day intensive retreats spread out over one year, held in different regions of the U.S.

Three thematic concentrations will be repeated throughout all the retreats, though each retreat will focus primarily on one. The three interdependent domains of leadership are

• Personal Qualities of Leadership
• Leading and Transforming Your Organization
• Building an Inclusive and Dynamic Movement

Intensive follow-up with faculty, field application, peer coaching, and network- building will take place continuously between sessions.

Curriculum Outcomes

The NLLI will:

• Expand and deepen participants’ understanding of and appreciation for the principles and practices of effective leadership development which they will apply to themselves, their organizations and the larger labor movement;
• Help participants develop into movement leaders with an increased sense of unity and commitment to building the larger movement and strengthening the bonds, networks and relationships between and among themselves and their organizations;
• Provide a much needed space for leaders to reflect, think creatively and generate fresh ideas about what a 21st century labor movement can and should be to become vital and relevant to workers;
• Challenge and encourage leaders to become more critically self-aware, effective, healthy and resilient in all areas of their leadership practice – in the personal, organizational and movement domains;
• Allow leaders to expand their vision for their own organizations and the larger movement and to articulate a compelling narrative for themselves, their sectors and the society and economy;
• Assist participants in making their own organizations become more diverse, inclusive, democratic, powerful, ethical, effective and dynamic;
• Work with participating organizations to identify their most pressing needs and critical challenges and shape the NLLI so that it adds value, addresses those needs, and helps leaders meet those challenges using active learning, action research, and other approaches;
• Establish an expectation and norm among participating leaders of continuous life-long learning in a safe environment and sustained by mutual support through co-coaching and other means; and,
• Contribute to building a dynamic, powerful and inclusive 21st labor movement that can transform the society and economy so that it works for workers.