NEW! CORE Experience

Nominate a Leader 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 (innerdevelopmentgoals.org) – Focus on cultivating the skills necessary for sustainable leadership and personal growth. 23 skills across 5 dimensions.

The Practice of Adaptive Leadership (Heifetz, Linsky & Granshow, Harvard) – A systems-thinking approach to navigating complex challenges.

Gracious Space (Center for Ethical Leadership) – Encourages collaborative and inclusive dialogue to foster trust and innovation.

Understanding inequitable, multicultural systems – Equips participants 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 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.

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. “