From its earliest days in the 1990s, our nonprofit sponsor, the Wisconsin Leadership Institute (WLI), has enjoyed a supportive and productive relationship with Camp Manito-wish YMCA of Boulder Junction, Wisconsin. Manito-wish is a YMCA camp, founded in 1919, featuring a substantial emphasis on collaborative leadership behaviors. In 2008, when the WLI published its curriculum for schools and youth groups (Leading Together: Foundations of Collaborative Leadership), Manito-wish people contributed to the research, the writing, and the testing of all the exercises and games. The team was led by Laurie Frank, a Manito-wish mainstay and lead author of the curriculum.
The curriculum itself featured a reference to the “Seven Qualities of a Manito-wish Collaborative Leader:”
- Builds a shared vision with those they lead.
- Builds models: tries it . . . changes it . . . tries it again.
- Shares a common space with others.
- Lets others amplify their abilities.
- Remembers that followership and leadership go hand-in-hand.
- Doesn’t collaborate to turn out the lights.
- Celebrates successful collaborations.
We will have more to say about all seven of these qualities, but let this post speak out for quality number seven: “celebrates successful collaborations.” The twenty-plus-year collaboration between the WLI and Manito-wish calls for substantial celebration, but an even more substantial occasion for boisterous cheering is the 100th anniversary of Manito-wish itself in 2018. So here are three cheers from the WLI and Our Better Angels:
Hooray! Hooray! Hooray! for Camp Manito-wish YMCA and all the good work that all its good people have done for 100 years. Please check out their website.
