Teaching Collaborative Leadership: Ideas and Lessons for the Field

This article describes and analyzes a new approach to teaching collaborative leadership to masters of public administration students at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University. The 3-year-old course teaches students how to design a collaborative network with the necessary players at the table; structure governance for a collaborative group; negotiate ethically to best leverage resources; facilitate meetings of a network; manage conflict among network members; effectively engage the public, including designing and sequencing civic engagement to make effective use of public knowledge; design useful systems for evaluating the outcomes of collaboration; and operate within the legal constraints on collaborative public agency action. The theoretical and pedagogical underpinnings of the course are explained. Ideas and lessons for the field are offered.