This dinner series was created by Prof. Lawrence Susskind at the request of a group of students in MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP) who felt the need for a graduate-level leadership course that would be attuned specifically to the needs of public sector professionals.
The four-part series was intended to create an informal classroom setting at MIT where Prof. Susskind could (1) briefly present key concepts and ideas from the theory and practice of facilitative leadership, (2) ask students to puzzle out how they might apply these concepts and ideas in several realistic hypothetical public sector situations, (3) offer them an introduction to the most important skills that facilitative leaders must master (e.g., stakeholder needs assessment, group consensus-building, value-creation in conflict situations, and relationship building), and (4) ask them to each reflect on their personal theory of leadership as well as their sense of their own capacity to be a facilitative leader.
