Overview & Mission
American Leadership Forum Mission
The American Leadership Forum joins and strengthens diverse leaders to serve the common good. We do this through a year-long Fellows Program in each Chapter’s community in which leaders can engage in dialogue, differ, and build relationships. ALF strengthens Fellows’ capacity to address public issues collaboratively and builds a strong leadership network to work for positive change in the communities we serve.
ALF Core Values
We believe in the power and importance of trusted relationships.
We believe that diversity, equity, inclusion, justice and belonging are critical for thriving, equitable communities, healthy people, and a healthy planet.
We believe in the power of dialogue and collaborative leadership with leaders who have curiosity about people whose identity, culture, background and life experiences may be different from their own.
We believe we have a responsibility to prioritize active civic engagement to equitably serve for the benefit of all people in our communities.
We prioritize and engage in practices of mindfulness, grace, acceptance, accountability and openness to personal and professional growth.
ALF Cornerstones
These Core Values lead to a curriculum based on the following Cornerstones:
Building a network of leaders dedicated to nurturing relationships across a diversity of backgrounds, beliefs and practices
Designing spaces for leaders to engage in self-reflection and build trust across differences as a spark for personal growth and development
Creating space for conversations that encourage leaders to eliminate absolute thinking and practice curiosity
Highlighting how our global connectedness and influence can create possibilities for personal, organizational and community change
Working together to co-create a just and equitable society through the exploration of historical inequities
Inspiring leaders and their networks to be catalysts for creating a community in which all people have the ability to thrive
ALF History
The national American Leadership Forum (ALF) organization was founded in 1980 by Joseph Jaworski, who left his successful law practice to address what he increasingly saw as a crisis of leadership taking place throughout the country. His vision was to establish a national organization dedicated to bringing together leaders from various sectors in communities across the country to develop their leadership skills and capacity and strengthen their commitment to work together on public issues.
After a year of meeting with leaders from across the United States, Jaworski and seventeen other prominent Americans launched the American Leadership Forum with this vision in mind. This group included John Gardner, former Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare; James MacGregor Burns, Professor Emeritus of Williams College; Warren Bennis, former Professor at USC and respected author; Tom Bradley, former mayor of Los Angeles; Harlan Cleveland, former ambassador to NATO and President of the World Academy of Art & Science; Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School, and James B. Stockdale, Vice Admiral in the U.S. Navy.
Through the vision of this group, ALF began in 1980 to address a need for more skillful, more ethical, more effective leadership on a local basis. They were convinced that if a cross-section of a community's business, elected, academic, minority and religious leadership could be brought together to work on public issues, no problem would be beyond solution.
In 1996, Joe Jaworski published a book, Synchronicity: The Inner Path of Leadership, in which he chronicles his efforts to build the American Leadership Forum and highlights the principles and values that ALF embodies.