LD717
leading change
*This is a stand-alone, 4 unit course for Year 4 cohort students. Personalized track students may also register for this course as an elective.*
In a rapidly changing world, the primary task of leadership is to energize a community of people toward their own transformation in order to meet the challenges of the uncharted terrain before them. It is what Ronald Heifetz calls “adaptive leadership” and defines as “the practice of mobilizing people to tackle tough challenges and thrive.” Transformational Leadership is the product of a leader’s own personal competency, relational congruence, and adaptive capacity.
In Year 4 of this cohort, the focus is on engaging in the contextualized theological reflection that enables the student to lead a change process that is both rooted in an organization’s core theological convictions and missional rationale and suggests new innovative experiments that is ideologically continuous and theologically consistent.
This course teaches students to use Practical Theology methodology to investigate, understand, communicate, and utilize the congregation or organization’s spoken or unspoken theological commitments to inspire and shape a change leadership initiative.
Tod Bolsinger, MDiv, PhD is Senior Congregational Strategist, Executive Director of the De Pree Center Church Leadership Institute, a Senior Fellow of the De Pree Center for Leadership, and Associate Professor of Leadership Formation at Fuller Theological Seminary. He was the founder of the Fuller Leadership Platform, an innovative approach to online formation and leadership development, and served as a Vice President of Fuller Seminary for six years.
Prior to his educational career, he served as a pastor for 27 years.
Tod is the author of five books, including the Outreach Magazine Resource of the Year in pastoral leadership, Canoeing the Mountains: Christian Leadership in Uncharted Territory, and the Christian Book Award Finalist, Tempered Resilience: How Leaders are Formed in the Crucible of Change.
Tod is also the co-owner and principal of AE Sloan Leadership, Inc, an executive coaching and consulting firm that works with church, non-profit, and marketplace leaders in leading change. He is married to Beth, an executive coach, consultant and professional artist. They have two adult children, Brooks and Ali, and a son-in-law, Ben. An avid outdoor lover, if he hadn’t taken biology after lunch in high school, Tod would have been a National Park Ranger. When he retires, he is going to do hiking trail maintenance, trout rescue, and be a ski host who makes sure there are four people on every quad chair lift.
He can be reached at bolsinger@fuller.edu