As we explore the concepts of meaning making and reflective practice this week, you read about how these are not just solo actions, but are done through our relationships and interactions with others. In “Making Common Sense,” we read about “communities of practice” and how “meaning and community are co-constructed.” Similarly, in “Leadership (Re)Constructed,” the authors propose that “leadership does not reside in a person or in a role, but in the social system,” and therefore the work of leadership occurs in “relational dialogues.”

While our class has been in a sense-making and “relational dialogue” of sorts these past several weeks through our shared discussion space, this week you will get the opportunity to more intentionally practice shared sense-making by working with a smaller “Leadership Learning Team.” Your collective task with your assigned team (Leadership Learning Teams are noted in the ‘People’ tab of the course) is to create a shared definition of leadership.

Here are the steps for you to do this:

1. Share with each other your evolving definitions of leadership you have been crafting through our weekly discussions.
2. As a learning team, reflect and dialogue with each other and collectively sense-make an integrated, co-constructed definition of leadership (Note: You can determine how you want to dialogue with each other… whether that is asynchronously via your shared discussion space, or synchronously via a video conference, and/or any combination thereof. Deciding how to sense-make together is part of the sense-making process!)
3. Collectively write and submit a 2 page double-spaced, Times 12 point font Word document that includes:
   • Your team’s co-constructed definition of leadership
   • A brief description of your collective sense-making process you used to arrive at your shared definition of leadership.
   • Collectively reflecting on your own process, what are 3 – 4 suggestions your team has for others regarding how to collectively reflect and sense-make in a community with others.

   ***Though I know this is a collective assignment, I would like assistance to help give my part on the assignment***