Leaders
Fellowship

FELLOWSHIP PROGRAMS

Ideos’ Leaders Fellowship is designed for Christian leaders looking to become more empathic in their leadership, effective in advancing their missions, and confident in their ability to inspire healing around today's politicized social issues.

In a complex world, being a leader means navigating challenges and emerging social realities that directly impact the missions of our organizations. The people we lead and serve are living in a world of deepening divides and animosities, influencing their ability to thrive and flourish. Without growing in our understanding of how to navigate this reality, we will struggle to cultivate change. And if we do not understand the people we lead, the people we serve, and how to transform conflict, our goals will remain distant and vague. Our leadership must be empathic, adaptive, and incarnational in order to participate in the healing of the world around us and lead communities of impact.

The Ideos Leaders Fellowship is designed to equip Christian leaders to be catalysts for change through the redemptive power of empathy. We invest in these leaders, crafting a learning environment that effectively trains and equips leaders through the empathic wisdom of Christ, and through communities that will help shape and encourage them for the journey ahead. If you are navigating conflict, division, or politicized social issues that directly impact your effectiveness as a leader or the missional success of your organization, this fellowship program is designed for you.

Get to know some of our current and past fellows below.

ABOUT THE PROGRAM

The Ideos Leaders Fellowship is led by a cadre of practitioners and experts who bring decades of experience in organizational leadership, spiritual formation, international conflict transformation, and peace-making. Combing real world experience with extensive academic research, mentors offer fellows a wide range of skills and insights to assist them in their professional growth and the shaping of their work.

The 10-month program brings cohorts of 12 leaders together in a process that equips them with tools to live and lead with Empathic Intelligence. Three in-person gatherings allow fellows to interact with one another, build relationships with mentors, and shape a project or initiative for their organizational context. In addition, virtual gatherings are scheduled between each in person touch point to support the learning process. 

By the end of the program fellows will have gained the skills and knowledge necessary to utilize empathic wisdom in their personal life and leadership; a supportive community of practitioners; and a larger network of mentors, friends, and collaborators who can be a resource and support for their work. From the beginning, these resources and relationships will be utilized in the creation of projects designed to identify the needs of their organization and community, and build solutions to address them.

Fellowship Details

WHY THE IDEOS LEADERS FELLOWSHIP?

Interrupting your life to take part in a fellowship program is a big commitment. For the leaders we work with, this often means taking time away from work and family to travel and be fully present for our gatherings. The time invested is almost a greater cost than the financial ones.

So, why is it worth it? Why would you interrupt your life to make space for this experience?

The challenges of leading, in today’s cultural climate, are immense. Many of us find ourselves navigating situations and antagonisms that we never imagined and weren’t trained for. The cost is high, being felt by leaders on emotional, physical, and spiritual levels. The Ideos Leaders Fellowship is designed to provide space and community that will help leaders identify these challenges, build resiliency, begin to find healing, and learn new ways of leading and learning. We believe the investment is worth it because we are working to do a deep and significant work in and through the lives of our fellows.

Further, the Ideos Leaders Fellowship is customized to the needs of participants, with emphasis on the topics and challenges they are engaging in. Our programs include teaching and training on Ideos’ Empathic Intelligence framework, while also drawing from a community of experts and practitioners for supplemental talks, individual, one-on-one work, and sessions that leverage their areas of expertise and passion.

Every aspect of our fellowship program content is grounded in neuroscience, psychology, and contextual theology, ensuring that participants receive ground-breaking content that can radically transform their leadership and missional impact.

AM I A FIT?

The Ideos Leaders Fellowship is designed for established or emerging Christian leaders who feel called to cultivate healing in their communities and build bridges across cultural divides. Those who find themselves navigating antagonisms in their communal, congregational, or professional contexts as a result of politicized social issues.

This fellowship is especially ideal if you are a leader:

  • seeking new insights to help them be more effective in their achieving their missional goals;

  • struggling to find tools to make sense of and engage effectively with divisions and animosity;

  • longing for a community of fellow practitioners to learn from and with;

  • desiring to learn from mentors who have extensive experience and a heart to serve leaders; and,

  • with a strong sense of personal calling and vision for how to engage this work in your organization, missional strategy, or the communities you serve.

We intentionally work to cultivate a generative community by bringing together a diverse cohort of organizational leaders. As such, we encourage applicants from underrepresented groups, including women, racial and ethnic minorities (including those from native/indigenous communities), and those from or serving economically marginalized communities.

If you are wondering if you are an ideal candidate, we would love to hear from you. Or if are interested in discerning if this program is right for you, we are more than happy to engage in that discernment process with you. Contact us at fellowships@ideosinstitute.org.

WHAT YOU WILL GAIN

You will grow in your leadership. Over the course of the 10-month program, you will have opportunities to interact with mentors and advisors who bring a diversity of expertise and experience on engaging empathic wisdom in your personal, professional, and spiritual life. As a result, you’ll gain insight into new models of leadership that will help you cultivate change and effectively lead in your context.

You will grow in your empathic intelligence. As an Ideos Fellow you will gain in wisdom and insight into how to effectively and faithfully navigate changing cultural and social contexts, and access new ways of engaging with diverse perspectives and experiences. Moreover, you'll improve your emotional, spiritual, and physical well-being, and enhance your ability to engage constructively with others.

You will join a growing movement of empathic change. As an Ideos fellow, you immediately become a part of a diverse network of transformed and transformative peers — all motivated by a desire to create empathy-driven change in the world.

Finally, you will become a life-long member of the Ideos Institute family with opportunities to connect with fellows from other cohorts as well as participants from some of our other programs at Ideos-hosted national and regional gatherings.

 

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION


DATES & LOCATION

In-person gatherings will largely take place at Hilltop Renewal Center in Idyllwild, CA.

  • 1st Cohort Gathering - October 27-30, 2024

  • 2nd Cohort Gathering - January 26-29, 2025

  • 3rd Cohort Gathering  - April 27-30, 2025


PROGRAM COSTS

Participation in the Ideos Leaders Fellowship includes program materials, food and accommodation-related costs at all in-person events. Participants are responsible for covering their travel costs to and from the venue outside of Los Angeles, CA. Transportation to and from Los Angeles International Airport will be provided.


DEADLINES

  • Applications for the 2024-2025 Leaders Fellowship are closed. .

APPLICATION INFORMATION

REQUIREMENTS

  • A completed application submitted by the designated deadline (links to the program application and nomination forms are below)

  • Two letters of recommendation


EXPECTATIONS FOR PARTICIPATION

  • Participants will be able to attend in-person for each of the three cohort gatherings. 

  • Participants will engage in pre- and post-fellowship evaluations to help us measure the impact and effectiveness of the cohort

  • Participants will come ready to engage in a community of practice!

“Being able to walk this work out with other believers who come from different backgrounds and vocations, life stages and denominations, has been a huge encouragement and healthy challenge to my own pursuit of becoming more Christ-like. The sessions ask a lot from us cognitively and emotionally, but I find myself processing and gleaning from our sessions weeks/months after our gatherings, both actively and subconsciously.“

Jason Fujikuni, 2024 Fellow
Associate Creative Director, The New York Times

“I have been thinking a lot about how little I really understand about others experiences. I have become more curious about others through this fellowship. I have also been so encouraged by the space Ideos has provided to reflect on Christs’ empathy towards me (not just others). I needed to spend time reflecting on that in this season of my life and work and being reminded that he is my ultimate example of how to do this work.”

Chelsea Neal, 2023 Fellow
Director of Healthy Relationships Program, Avail NYC

”There has been a sense of connection and camaraderie within the cohort that has surpassed my expectations. Despite coming from various backgrounds and faith traditions, there is a profound sense of unity and mutual respect among us. This sense of belonging has provided an environment where vulnerability is embraced, allowing for authentic conversations and meaningful relationships to develop.”

MiDian Holmes, 2023 Fellow
CEO, The Epitome of Black Excellence & Partnership

“Not only do I feel a strong kinship with my cohort, but God was certainly present and spoke to me directly during the retreats. It’s something that happens to me when I pilgrimage to holy sites. Ideos actually mimicked the level of holiness of those monasteries and ashrams that I’ve travelled the world to get to. It’s the level of thoughtfulness that was invested into creating the cohort and the retreats that created a vibe or an energy that is profound.“

Vicki Lee, 2023 Fellow
Pastor, Hale Ho’onani (House of Praise)

“The Ideos [Leaders] Fellowship is an exciting way to explore empathy as a method of crossing deep divides, and come into proximity with those we often dismiss as the 'other'. Through my time spent with [the Ideos team] and Fellows, I could see the formation of community amongst everyone present. A sacred space was created to delve deeply into the most challenging issues for Christian leaders, and to reimagine a more collaborative future.“

Hannah Larn, Leaders Fellowship Mentor
Programme Manager, Rose Castle Foundation


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