Authentic Leadership in Action (ALIA) Institute

Nova Scotia, 2000-2014

Elements of the first Thrive gatherings were drawn from the legacy of the ALIA Summer Institutes, which took place in Halifax between 2000 and 2014. 

For 14 years, ALIA's week-long summer institutes brought 200-300 people from around the world to Nova Scotia each June. They came to study with leading thinkers and practitioners in fields related to systems change and social innovation, and to grow their own leadership.

ALIA was situated at an emerging edge of theory and practice, at a time when organizations and communities were recognizing the need to become more nimble and adaptive, and to get below the surface of issues. The week-long gatherings included tools for solving complex problems and thriving in complexity as well as leadership practices drawn from mindfulness and the arts.

Many of the faculty and some of the participants returned to ALIA year after year and made an ongoing connection with the people and place of Nova Scotia. ALIA first introduced practices such as the Art of Hosting, World Cafe, Deep Democracy, and social innovation labs, among many others, to Nova Scotia and Canada.

ALIA's ongoing partners and faculty in this exciting exploration included Peter Senge (founder of the Society for Organizational Learning and author of The Fifth Discipline and The Necessary Revolution), Margaret Wheatley (founder of the Berkana Institute and author of Leadership and the New Science and many others), Adam Kahane (co-founder of Reos Partners and author of Solving Tough Problems, Power and Love, Transformative Scenario Planning and Collaborating with the Enemy), Otto Scharmer (founder of the Presencing Institute and author of Theory U), Wendy Palmer (founder of Leadership Embodiment), Juanita Brown (co-founder of the World Cafe), Toke Moeller (co-founder of the Art of Hosting), and a creative process team that included Barbara Bash, Arawana Hayashi, Lanny Harrison and Jerry Granelli, to name just a few.

Over the years, ALIA offered similar leadership institutes in the Netherlands, Ohio, Ontario, B.C. and Washington State. Locally, ALIA also co-founded (with United Way Halifax) Envision Halifax as well as the community-based Rural Communities Leading and Growth Starts Here leadership programs. ALIA offered a master class in Authentic Leadership in collaboration with Margaret and Jim Drescher of Windhorse Farm.

Susan Szpakowski, the director of ALIA, was inspired to make the learning from ALIA more available to Nova Scotia’s communities, grounding and transforming it in the wisdom of this place. This inspiration was a founding seed for How We Thrive.

You can read more about ALIA's first ten years in this Little Book of Practice for Authentic Leadership in Action.