Cultural Leadership
What is Cultural Leadership?
Cultural leadership is a leadership proxy that is rooted in community, family, and cultural identity.
Mason & Rutgers students out in the community
To explore culturally influenced leadership means exploring:
Cultural leadership is creative leadership. It utilizes the arts and various other assessable forms of creative public scholarship and open community spaces to educate and raise awareness. Cultural leaders are rooted in the community and committed to social justice. They are raw leaders with thick skin, unflinching determination, and a love for people that allows them to take the blows that may come even from the communities that they seek to help. They are social change agents and social servants. They understand that a leader is first a servant. But more than that, they are reflective, wise, and holistic leaders who understand that the collective of their life experiences-in the classroom or on the block, in college or in church, through professional networks or through dysfunctional family trees-have made them who they are.
Five years ago, Dr. Jenkins developed a Cultural Leadership Course that educates college students on the intersections of culture, grass roots leadership,and community engagement. It is a major component of Jenkins' larger work examining the influence of culture on community leadership orientation. The experience includes regular course meetings, a Community Leadership Exchange with Rutgers University in Newark, NJ and cultural engagement in and throughout the DMV area. Students specifically explore their cultural heritage, learn various leadership theories, explore the philosophies of past under‐represented leaders, study critical contemporary issues, and engage in meaningful dialogue with local communities. The students that participate represent the incredible potential of our society's next generation of leaders.
Cultural leadership is a leadership proxy that is rooted in community, family, and cultural identity.
Mason & Rutgers students out in the community
To explore culturally influenced leadership means exploring:
- The full spectrum of a leader's familial and neighborhood experiences;
- The various forms of non-traditional knowledge that has taught a leader how to succeed and how to make a difference
- The core values, traditions, politics of survival, and inherited folkways that guide a leader's sense of purpose and that teach a leader how to navigate society.
Cultural leadership is creative leadership. It utilizes the arts and various other assessable forms of creative public scholarship and open community spaces to educate and raise awareness. Cultural leaders are rooted in the community and committed to social justice. They are raw leaders with thick skin, unflinching determination, and a love for people that allows them to take the blows that may come even from the communities that they seek to help. They are social change agents and social servants. They understand that a leader is first a servant. But more than that, they are reflective, wise, and holistic leaders who understand that the collective of their life experiences-in the classroom or on the block, in college or in church, through professional networks or through dysfunctional family trees-have made them who they are.
Five years ago, Dr. Jenkins developed a Cultural Leadership Course that educates college students on the intersections of culture, grass roots leadership,and community engagement. It is a major component of Jenkins' larger work examining the influence of culture on community leadership orientation. The experience includes regular course meetings, a Community Leadership Exchange with Rutgers University in Newark, NJ and cultural engagement in and throughout the DMV area. Students specifically explore their cultural heritage, learn various leadership theories, explore the philosophies of past under‐represented leaders, study critical contemporary issues, and engage in meaningful dialogue with local communities. The students that participate represent the incredible potential of our society's next generation of leaders.
