AGM 2016 ICA Canada turns 40 this year and YOU are invited to help us celebrate during the Annual General Meeting on June 16th at ICA Canada’s office from 6pm to 9pm. We wish to bring our staff, board, volunteers, supporters, members and new course grads together to contemplate 40 year’s building leadership across communities across Canada and in the wide wide world. Light refreshments will be served. Please RSVP to ica@icacan.org. If you can not attend but would like to send in your questions or comments please follow us at https://twitter.com/ICA_Canada?lang=en

The Courage To Lead As many of us know, leadership is the number one factor in an organization’s success or failure. According to a Gallup study, only 13% of employees worldwide are engaged at work. No doubt, leaders greatly influence employee engagement. In fact, researchshows that people leave managers, not companies. In the words of Kofi Annan, “the world is experiencing a crisis of leadership, not a crisis of knowledge”. Have you ever considered what the concept of leadership means to you? Have you ever thought about what motivates you to lead? Have you ever thought about what it takes to affect positive change? If some of these questions have ever crossed your mind, this course will certainly have great insights to offer. Starting on Thursday, March 31st to Thursday, May 19th, from 6:00 – 9:00 p.m ICA Canada will be offering an eight-week Leadership series titled The Courage to Lead. This non-traditional leadership program has an emphasis on personal growth and reflection and will be of interest to anyone seeking to develop themselves as leaders in all walks of life. ICA Canada continues to do great transformative work with the

Register Now For The Courage To Lead SPRING 2016 This Spring is ICA CANADA’s first public offering of the Courage to Lead study series in five years and you are invited to . The course dates are March 31st to May 19th. That’s 8 Thursdays in a row, meeting from 6 to 9 pm at ICA CANADA’s training room 409 at 401 Richmond St. W. in downtown Toronto from 6 pm to 9pm.

Irene Wright Has The Courage To Lead On an unseasonably warm evening in November, ICA Canada and its affiliates gathered at Markham House in Mirvish Village to launch our fundraising season and celebrate Irene Wright as this year’s winner of the Courage to Lead (CTL) Award. As usual with an ICA event, we quickly moved into an in-depth exploration of the leadership challenges we are each experiencing, and a focused conversation (led by ICA Board member Ekta Bromley) leading to new insights and ideas for moving forward. Violence in communities, efficiency in project management, guidance to children in families, and lean collaboration were some of the topics raised, and at least two of the changes people wanted to see were: empowerment to see leadership without having or requiring a title shrink the problem: focus on positivity These ambitions were served by emerging insights, including: Watch out for any assumptions you may be making Take a comprehensive perspective of the situation (see #4 on the leadership compass below); look at all aspects and contributors Being a “follower” allows for critical thinking and insight into leadership

Behind A Boring Headline In the 40th year of ICA Canada, we’re taking a look back at where we’ve focused our energy and attention, and acknowledging the results of our efforts as we plan for our future. The value of our interventions didn’t always make for a catchy headline either, as Bill Staples explains in a 1993 issue of Edges: New Planetary Patterns magazine (an ICA publication): “The following event has happened dozens of times. A town meeting is held to discuss what to do about a plant that will soon close in a small town. If ICA does not lead the meeting, the newspaper next day may run the headline “Mass Layoffs Anger Mayor.” Anger is genuine and sometimes such events just can’t be turned around. However, if the town meeting is facilitated by ICA, the residents will spend their time deciding what alternatives they have for the future. When ICA leads the town meeting, the result is often consensus and a new sense of direction in which everyone participates. The next day the city newspaper would have to write, “New Consensus Might Work.” You have probably never seen

Beyond Academics: An “A” for Courageous Leadership Beyond Academics homework club was started by Cyleta Gibson-Sealy and has been enhancing education potential for Toronto kids for several years.  Gibson-Sealy credits the United Way and Action for Neighbourhood Change with inspiring her to develop the program to have the impact it’s having today.  Read more about Gibson-Sealy’s courageous leadership here.