Welcome to the Collaborative Leaders Network! Our mission is to help people learn how  Collaborative Leaders seek, identify and manifest the future they desire. 

What Is Collaborative Leading?

Collaborative Leading is a way of learning and working together that includes all of our levels of being - physical, mental, emotional, spiritual and social - in a shared search for meaning, to help manage the complex issues of our time. Collaborative Leading is a process that leverages people, time and ideas to discover solutions to complex challenges. It is a way of consciously relating that brings out the greatness in ourselves and others.

Why Do We Need Collaborative Leading?

We are here at this time in the evolution of humanity when there are a series of issues that we cannot manage in the way we used to. The issues can be best understood through collaborative leading, through inclusion and diversity, through different people with different backgrounds, beliefs, attitudes and skill sets coming together in respect and care to put together the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that will show us how to create solutions. Each of us has to participate with our particular piece of the puzzle and be willing to understand the paradigms and thoughts of the others. In this way the pieces can fit together harmoniously to create answers and actions for the greater good of all.

Collaborative leading requires the skills of:

• Knowledge of the new science and medicine, which gives us beliefs that support.
• The ability to connect through our living experience of spirit.

History of The Network

Early Years: "The Fearless Five"

The Collaborative Leaders Network began with a series of individual friendships, some going back as far as the 1970's, that gradually evolved into a group of people that met and communicated regularly in and around Toronto, Canada during 1990 through 1993.   They included Christine DeGrow, Lynn Donohue, Jennifer Hilton, Ian Johnson and Karen Scraba. All of us have other occupations, and our association is maintained on a voluntary and informal basis for support and enjoyment. We spent 1995 designing our first "Gateway to the Future" conference, which was held in Toronto in October of that year. The conference was built around the Scenario process described by Peter Schwartz. It was a tremendous success, and was profoundly transformational for all involved. Although Ian relocated to Vancouver and Christine moved away from Toronto for a period of time,  the association continued via regular conference calls and occasional meetings. In October of 1997 we all attended a weekend retreat, and decided that one of our initiatives would be to establish a "Collaborative Leaders Foundation" based on the interests, skills and experiences of "The Fearless Five".

Ian Johnson set up the Collaborative Leaders Network web site in 1996, and this is part of the platform being used to establish the Foundation. The usual disclaimers are necessary for the web site: although it is based in large part on the material processed by "The Fearless Five", one person (Ian) is responsible for any errors or omissions, and the content does not necessarily represent the views of other members of the Collaborative Leaders Network.

Our book, How To Lead and Still Have a Life!, was written by virtual collaboration over a period of three years that began after the 1997 meeting and continued until January 2001.

What Do We Do?

Rosabeth Moss Kanter states that "the infrastructure for collaboration consists of the pathways by which people and organizations come together to exchange ideas, solve problems, or form partnerships." We are building the infrastructures for collaboration. Just as the railroads were built to provide the infrastructure for expansion across North Ameroica, the infrastructures of collaboration will provide the means for exploring  the vast unknown spaces of the Third Millennium. 

Meetings of The Collaborative Leaders Network

From September 2004 until June 2005, meetings were held in Richmond, BC. 

In January 2016, after many twists and turns, our community resumed meeting as The Developmental Trauma Research Group