The six Civic Leadership Competencies are a critical component of our comprehensive leadership development model. Developed in partnership with Deloitte Consulting, they represent an effort to adapt best practices from the corporate world to simultaneously empower corps members to achieve ambitious service impact goals while also preparing corps members to thrive in any career after graduation.
Here are the competencies that you’ll develop as a City Year corps member:
1) Communication
You will learn how to clearly articulate thoughts and ideas orally and in writing, demonstrate active listening skills, and inspire diverse audiences through compelling tailored messaging and storytelling.
2) Team Collaboration & Leadership
You will learn how to collaborate with others for results, value individual perspectives, and encourage sharing of information and ideas. You’ll also learn how to provide inspirational leadership that mobilizes diverse groups towards achieving goals, and how to resolve team conflict in constructive ways.
3) Successful Relationship Development
You will learn how to build trust in critical partner relationships (internal and external to City Year), establish interpersonal understanding, and demonstrates cultural competence while working with diverse colleagues. You’ll also learn how to use interpersonal interactions to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes and advance City Year’s mission while demonstrating personal presence and confidence when dealing with partners.
4) Problem Solving and Decision Making
You will learn how to apply broad knowledge, experience, creativity and critical thinking to solving challenges. You’ll also learn how to look beyond the obvious for answers, and use sound judgment to make well-informed ethical decisions.
5) Executes to Results
You will learn how to accomplish tasks accurately, without sacrificing quality and timeliness, and drive for results. You’ll also learn how to prioritize work, multitask effectively, accept accountability and take initiative.
6) Civic Knowledge and Fluency in Education Practice & Reform
You will understand the National Service and Education environment in which City Year operates, and demonstrate an understanding of how local and national policy and reform affects City Year’s service and outcomes. You’ll learn how to apply industry insight to strengthen partner interactions, enhance outcomes and create insightful work products. You’ll emerge from your City Year with knowledge of district, policy, politics and procedures.
Leadership Development Model
City Year believes that what we do is influenced by what we know, what we know is influenced by who we are, and all three of these dimensions are influenced by the culture in which we are immersed. As a result, in the journey to developing these civic competencies, we ask each corps member to grapple with three key questions:
1) Who do I want to BE?
2) What do I need to KNOW?
3) What can I DO to effect change?
Recognizing that these questions challenge our corps members to develop simultaneously in multiple ways, we have created our own unique framework, The Flame of Idealism leadership development model, to clearly express how all the elements fit together.
To learn more about The Flame of Idealism, click here.