"Bridging Leadership has given us a new way of looking at life, a different perspective. It has made us feel stronger and be broader in our perspectives". So says Soledad Luna, one of the participants in the bridging leadership courses that the Esquel Foundation carries out in Ecuador.
These courses are part of a global effort coordinated by The Synergos Institute's Bridging Divides program that involves people and organizations in 14 countries. They target, in particular, emerging leaders from poor communities, businesses and local governments.
Based on the idea that development challenges are too big and complex to be faced by isolated individuals (however powerful or charismatic they might be), the Bridging Leadership Program of the Esquel Foundation seeks to develop skills and practical tools that enable individuals to work in teams, create partnerships and implement processes of dialogue and consensus building (concertación).
Concertación is a Spanish word of difficult translation. It implies the process of convening different actors -- who, on occasion, are even rivals -- in order to debate the problems faced by a concrete community and find a minimum level of consensus to work together toward a solution.
Other key tools are negotiation, lobbying, and the creation of proposals. "This experience, unlike other courses, made many of us decide to have an impact in our environment", said Walter Vélez, a leader from Guayaquil.
"It tries to help men and women find possible paths and to motivate unlikely groups to work together in a lasting way, so that they can achieve common development goals", explains Gonzalo Ortiz, who coordinates the program for Esquel. "It is vital, thus, that we give them the tools for concertación but also for sustaining this collective effort in time", affirms Boris Cornejo, Vice President of Esquel, who also steals time from other responsibilities to teach in these courses.
Personal values play a key role in the process, increasing awareness in what one believes in and values: openness to learn new things, honesty, active valuing of diversity, that is, the richness of different people and groups. As Rafael Carriel, who leads an NGO that works with youth gangs in Guayaquil, said: "this leadership really bridges, because it seeks to generate actions by taking diversity into account. But also because, at the same time, it tries to build common dreams, demanding from the person exercising the leadership a holistic vision and that he or she is an integral, honest person".
The bridging leadership courses are complemented by research activities that aim to uncover who, even without knowing, exercise this type of leadership in the Ecuadorian society.