ignite! Feb: Introducing CORE Experience

For 20 years, Leadership Eastside has been building leadership capacity in East King County through our Adaptive Leadership program. Last year, we held a listening tour of stakeholders to learn more about their past experiences with Leadership Eastside, and what they want from us going forward. We learned that some employers and potential candidates would prefer a shorter program, it can be difficult to make a two-year commitment. With these findings, we turned to our amazing Curriculum Committee—who have deep experience in adult education, curriculum design, Adaptive Leadership and organizational development—and we asked them to redesign our flagship Adaptive Leadership program to better meet the needs of today’s leaders.

The Committee focused on designing a shorter program, while still delivering the core learning objectives our students, partners and alumni want from the Leadership Eastside experience. The Committee also stepped back to look at what was happening globally to address complex challenges and considered multiple frameworks to build a program that is better designed to meet the complex needs of communities and companies.

We are excited to announce the first in a series of new programs: CORE Experience. A 10-month collaborative learning experience that will expand your capacity to show up with the necessary tools in moments of challenge and change, whether at work or in the community. CORE Experience will replace our two-year Adaptive Leadership program.

CORE Experience is grounded in the Inner Development Goals (IDG) Framework, which helps us better integrate the skills needed for sustainable development, along with The Practice of Adaptive Leadership (Heifetz, Linsky & Granshow; Harvard), which takes a systems-thinking approach to complex challenges. This unique program layers the IDG Framework and Adaptive Leadership with Gracious Space (Center for Ethical Leadership), a deep understanding of inequitable, multicultural systems, and collaboratively creating change that addresses the needs of all impacted by those systems.

The addition of the IDG Framework will further strengthen the new-and-improved program. The Framework was developed by an international collaboration to build the leadership capacity needed to address the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals. It is a set of research-backed, science-based skills and qualities that help us to live purposeful, sustainable, and productive lives. The Committee landed on the IDG Framework because it works well locally and invites us to engage in conversations focused on global solutions.

In addition to new frameworks, we will use a flipped classroom model, in which students will learn new content in a two-hour virtual-classroom session prior to each monthly interactive, experiential leader days. This model has proven successful and will also address requests from students for more time in conversation with each other.

In addition to new frameworks, we will use a flipped classroom model, in which students will learn new content in a two-hour virtual-classroom session prior to each monthly interactive, experiential leader days. This model has proven successful and will also address requests from students for more time in conversation with each other.

In CORE Experience, students will grow their 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 drive 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 to enable change through courage, creativity, purpose and perseverance.

We are excited about CORE Experience and can’t wait to begin with our cohort starting September 2025. If you’re interested in learning more about CORE Experience, visit our website or join us at an upcoming LE101 event.

Nominations are now open for CORE Experience. Please nominate a leader from your network today.

Next month, we will announce our new vision, mission and values. Don’t miss an issue of ignite! as we continue to share more announcements.