NEW! CORE Experience

Nominate or Apply Today!

Registration is open, next cohort begins September 2025.

CORE Experience

For 20 years, Leadership Eastside has been building leadership capacity in East King County to address complex challenges. Our CORE Experience integrates key frameworks to develop effective and adaptive leadership skills.

Inner Development Goals Framework (innerdevelopmentgoals.org) – Cultivate the inner skills necessary for sustainable leadership, personal growth, and systemic and multidimensional change.

Adaptive Leadership (Heifetz, Linsky & Granshow, Harvard) – Learn how to recognize systems, identify stakeholders, leverage conflict, and mobilize teams toward a shared vision.

Gracious Space (Center for Ethical Leadership) – Expand your ability to work better together by creating inclusive, collaborative spaces that foster trust and innovation to facilitate tough conversations.

Understanding inequitable, multicultural systems – Equip yourself with the knowledge and awareness to identify systemic disparities and work across sectors and differences to co-design inclusive solutions.

You will grow your leadership skills and capacity to address complex challenges in the following areas:

BEING - Exercise leadership by anchoring yourself in the present and learn to understand and regulate your reactions in challenging moments. 

THINKING - Recognize and hold multiple perspectives, differentiate between technical and adaptive challenges, and explore with curiosity the systems that sustain those challenges. 

RELATING - Build collective empathy and capacity for change by recognizing interconnectedness, shared values, loyalties and losses. 

COLLABORATING - Mobilize others by expanding your co-creation skills with emphasis on an inclusive mindset, intercultural engagement and trust building. 

ACTING - Experiment and iterate with courage, creativity, purpose, and perseverance to enable change. 

Adaptive Leadership

Adaptive Leadership offers skills to lead people through complex challenges using a systems-thinking approach. Adaptive change involves an honest examination of current roles, norms, values and priorities, how they maintain the status quo and how they need to evolve to catalyze equitable change.

3 Systems: Self, Team, Organization/Community

  • Competencies

    • Systems thinking

    • Leadership and management of self

    • Identifying adaptive challenges

    • Adaptive campaigns - Scope, Diagnose, Mobilize, Evaluate

    • Thrival

Time Commitment

September 2025 – June 2026

  • 1-day in-person class per month

  • 2-hour virtual class per month

  • 2-day off-site retreat in October

  • 3-5 hours a month outside-of-class work

Cost: $5,000

  • $500 early application discount, ends Apr. 15

  • Partial scholarships available

  • Applications and scholarship requests received by April 30 given priority

Learn More @ LE 101

Attend a free LE 101 event where you’ll learn more about the program, learning outcomes, cost, timeline and hear a few alumni stories.

FAQs

Who will be in my Cohort?

Forty leaders from Eastside communities, representing the private, public, and non-profit sectors, including business leaders, elected officials and community leaders. Attaining the best combination of class members from diverse backgrounds ensures the most receptive environment for individual leadership growth and skill building, while creating a powerful and influential network. Leadership Eastside is committed to age, gender, racial and ethnic diversity, reflective of our Eastside communities. The common thread among all class participants is a high level of leadership competency and a commitment to serving their Eastside community. Leadership

Do I need to be nominated?

We encourage nominations and we are happy to have you nominate yourself. When you submit your application we will ask for a couple of references who can tell us about the roles you have played in the community or your organization.

Which communities does Leadership Eastside serve?

Leadership Eastside is based in East King County and classes are typically in Bellevue, WA. We invite all who are interested in the program and able to attend classes in person to apply. While classes are based in East King County, the learnings apply to leadership everywhere.

Who believes in Leadership Eastside’s programs?

A wide range of Eastside organizations from corporate, nonprofit, and public service have and, continue to, send their leaders through our programs:

City Staff, Fire and Police from: Bellevue, Redmond, Issaquah, Kirkland, Snoqualmie, Bothell, Kenmore, Sammamish

4Tomorrow

AAA Washington

Abhyas Consulting

Acres of Diamonds

Africans on the Eastside

Amazon

AT&T

Bellden Cafe

Bellevue Arts Museum

Bellevue Chamber of Commerce

Bellevue College

Boeing

Boys & Girls Clubs of Bellevue

Cascade Water Alliance

Cascadia College

Co-Rippling

Delivery Express

DigiPen

Eastrail Partners

Eastside Fire & Rescue

Eastside For All

Eastside Pathways

Eckerhaus Consulting

EvergreenHealth

Expedia

Friends of Youth

Futurewise

Global Innovation Exchange - UW

GLY Construction

Group Health/Kaiser Permanente

HealthPoint

Hopelink

Human Tracker

Imagine Housing

Issaquah Food & Clothing Bank

KidsQuest Children’s Museum

King County

King County Councilmember Claudia Balducci

King County Housing Authority

King County Library System

King County Regional Homelessness Authority

King County Regional Housing Authority

Lake Washington Institute of Technology

Lane Powell

Langton Spieth

March of Dimes

Mercer Island Chamber of Commerce

Meydenbauer

Microsoft

Move Redmond

Northwest Marine Trade Association

Overlake Hospital

Phenix Physical Therapy & Personal Wellness

Plymouth Housing

PorchLight

Port of Seattle

Pride Across the Bridge

Puget Sound Energy

Rainier Athletes

Republic Services

Safeco Insurance

Seattle Children’s - Bellevue

Seattle Children's Hospital

Sophia Way

Studio East

Symetra

The Seattle Foundation

Together Center

United Way

University of Washington

Village Parent Support

Visit Bellevue

Wa. Multifamily Housing Association

Washington Trust Bank

Whole Foods Market

Wright Runstad

YMCA - Bellevue

YMCA – Greater Seattle

Robin Callahan LE’ 14

“LE transformed my leadership skills--providing me with tools, a shared vocabulary and deep insight into how to be a more effective leader. LE's two year Adaptive Community Leadership Program and Executive Insight  provided me with a rich personal and professional growth opportunity and lasting relationships with a network of community leaders who I continue to collaborate with 10 years later. “