About The Fellows Program
For over thirty years, ALF has carefully curated a diverse cross-sector cohort of up to twenty-five senior leaders for an intense one-of-a-kind leadership development experience.
Through the ALF Fellows Program, leaders reach outside of their professional training and networks to explore stories and strategies that raise our collective human consciousness, deepen empathy and expand our ability to see, feel and lead in this new paradigm.
The American Leadership Forum (ALF) is a national non-profit organization, with nine autonomous chapters nationwide (5,000+ graduates) whose mission is to join and strengthen a community of diverse leaders to better serve the public good. ALF was originally founded in Houston in 1981 by attorney Joseph Jaworski who left his successful law practice to address what he increasingly saw as a crisis of leadership taking place throughout the country. Jaworski’s vision was to establish a national organization dedicated to bringing together diverse leaders from various sectors in communities across the country to develop their leadership skills and capacity and to strengthen their commitment to work together on community issues.
ALF Tacoma/Pierce County was formed by local leaders in 1989 because they recognized that building leadership and collaboration is an ongoing need, both nationally and in in our community. Although other leadership programs exist locally and regionally, these programs are primarily focused on training leaders in business skills or other areas and do not focus on cross-sector, diverse, adaptive leadership development.
“We need a language that brings us together about the deepest things we care about rather than pushing us apart.”
– Joseph Jaworski, Founder American Leadership Forum
ALF invites influential leaders from all vocations, traditions and perspectives to commit to spending a year together, to share their diversity and to face and overcome challenges together. During the process, those on the margin are brought to the center, capacities for leading are enhanced and strengthened, and new networks for positive community change are created. Participants earn each other’s trust, find common ground, and through the deeper connections and broader awareness this experience forges, they expand their potential as responsive community leaders. From this shared experience, participants find a common responsibility to serve and lead for the wellbeing of Pierce County.
Individuals are selected who will stimulate, challenge and inspire each other. They are chosen because they have demonstrated a commitment to community engagement and service. They are respected, recognized and influential leaders within their respective spheres. From the pool of nominees submitted by Senior Fellows, each class is created to reflect and represent the diversity within our community: religious, philosophical, cultural, racial, ethnic, gender identity, sexual orientation, political, age and economic diversity. These leaders are active in the following sectors in the community; arts, corporate, education, community activist, entrepreneur, labor, media, non-profit, politics/government, professional, and religion.
ALF recognizes that leadership development is not only about teaching leadership skills as it is about creating an environment for individual learning, dialogue and insight. ALF convenes a diverse group, provides the container in which they come together, and sets up some experiences and parameters that help to build trust and a willingness of participants to move out of their comfort zones. Much of the learning that participants gain comes largely from others in the program via experiential learning.
This centerpiece of the ALF program is a week-long retreat combining the tools of leadership theory with hands-on experiences in collaborative leadership and problem solving. The week allows space for challenging and meaningful explorations of differences, practicing and embodying leadership skills needed for effective partnerships across difference, identifying new options for interrupting systemic advantage, and creating ways of building community on a broader level. Participants develop the courage to stay in dialogue while navigating systemic inequities, discovering how these operate as systemic advantage in their workplaces, community and personal lives. Participants are encouraged to be challenged and challenging. Strong relationships based on trust and celebrations of difference are built during this week.
While the year-long leadership experience can be life-changing for the participants, the true value of the program is the building of a critical mass of leaders who have learned the dynamics of collaborative and servant leadership and who are committed to serving the Pierce County community. ALF graduates hold critical roles in many of the civic projects and organizations that have shaped Tacoma/Pierce County’s economic and social development.