LEAD 529
Transformational Leadership & Organizational Change
Transformational Leadership & Organizational Change
LEAD 529 quickly became one of my favorite courses, as the Change Project invited us to roll up our sleeves and put our leadership skills into real practice. Through frameworks like Appreciative Inquiry, 5D Modeling, and Problem and Opportunity Trees, I learned how to guide transformation with both structure and creativity. My final project—a 48-hour film titled Something There—proved especially meaningful, and its success has led to an invitation to compete at a film festival in Lisbon, Portugal in 2026.
This paper reflects on my experience leading my filmmaking team, 38 Gigabytes, through the 2025 Buffalo 48 Hour Film Project while applying the Appreciative Inquiry (AI) 5D model as a framework for organizational change. Entering our eleventh competition, I sought to address leadership challenges of team cohesion, equitable delegation, shared ownership, and creative growth. By grounding our process in AI’s strengths-based approach, the project deepened team relationships, fostered ownership, and honored Adam’s legacy of collaboration and joy. This reflection demonstrates how applying AI and the 5D model in a creative context can strengthen both the product and the people who make it, offering transferable lessons for leadership in other organizational settings.
I’ll admit I was skeptical of the vision board process—it initially felt a bit too “woo,” like making a birthday wish. Still, I appreciated the meditative exercise of pausing to reflect on what I hope comes next while indulging in some old-fashioned collage-making, one of my favorite pastimes. Even if I’m not fully convinced of its power, I’m curious—and a bit excited—to see what surprises it might bring in the future.