Leadership Springfield values, engages and includes the rich diversity of constituents in our community with an intentional focus on both the demographic diversity of our community and fostering a culture that provides the opportunity to thrive and succeed as community leaders.

Leadership Springfield believes…

Everyone is a leader. 

We recognize the influence we have on each other. Our organization mission is to inspire, develop, and connect the leaders in our community to work together to create the best possible impact. 

Diversity makes us stronger.

We value a healthy public discourse that embraces diverse opinions and builds respect for each other. No one person or group has all the answers, but together we can align our common goal to make Springfield the best place to live for all of us.  

The community needs you to lead.
We need your voice and your perspective, experience, and wisdom at the table.  Strong communities are built from networks of leaders who embrace and welcome the diversity inherent in our community. 

Leadership is influence. 

We are committed to growing and equipping leaders who influence others for the good. Some leadership is positive and some is negative. Some leadership is effective and some is ineffective. Effective, positive leadership can transform a community for the better.

Racism and discrimination cannot be tolerated.  

We welcome and encourage input from people with diverse backgrounds, experiences, and opinions. We understand there is still work to be done in our community to address diversity, equity, inclusion (DEI), and unconscious bias.  As leaders, we must stand up, step up, and speak out against racism and discrimination. As a leadership organization we will work with community partners to lead efforts against racism and discrimination in our community. 

Leadership Springfield is committed to taking action through implementation of Dr. Damon A. William’s Inclusive Excellence Model from the National Inclusive Excellence Leadership Academy^TM. We will focus on continuous improvement in the following areas:

• Access, Success and Equity
  • Increase access to programs through scholarships opportunities, developing outreach practices that bridge relationships with underrepresented groups, offering hybrid program delivery options, and increasing disability accommodations.
  • Increase diversity in staff, leadership positions, board, committees, volunteers, program participants and partners.
  • Increase equity by removing barriers to programs and participation, including updating program language, increasing collaboration, and creating pathways for individual engagement.
• Learning and Development
  • Communicate inclusive excellence expectations to staff and board to provide a welcoming organizational culture.
  • Provide ongoing professional development for staff and board, including training in cultural consciousness, diversity, equity, inclusion, and inclusive excellence.
  • Assess staff’s awareness, knowledge and skills related to diversity, equity and inclusion during annual performance appraisal.
• Business/Organizational Climate
  • Assess organizational climate related to welcoming, supporting, respecting and valuing differing perspectives and experiences within staff, board and program participants through annual High Involvement Planning process.
  • Identify barriers to engagement with local industries and businesses and intentionally create pathways to access and collaboration.
  • Listen, and hold a brave space for our program participants, alumni and the community at large to have dialogue about diversity, equity and inclusion in order to learn from each other and address issues in a collaborative way.
  • Create content and opportunities to assist program participants, alumni, board and staff to not only examine their own internal inclusive excellence, but also provide ways to continue to address DEI in their respective organizations.
• Organizational Commitment
  • Post organizational statement of commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion on website and social media platforms and share this commitment with all program participants.
  • Develop relationships with community partners who represent historically underrepresented groups and strive to create pathways to engagement and eliminate barriers to collaboration.
  • Review policies and standard operating procedures annually to determine impact on historically underserved populations and revise as needed.