PHOTO BY LANA BRADSTREAM Thirty members of the Leadership Marshalltown class spent Thursday learning about different nonprofits before graduating from the course. They are the first class to complete the new Leadership Marshalltown, which was previously Iowa Valley Leadership.

Thirty community members graduated from the first ever program focusing on leadership on Thursday. Leadership Marshalltown carried on the 30-year history of Iowa Valley Leadership (IVL), offered by the Marshalltown Area Chamber of Commerce.

Kyle Hall, Workforce Development Coordinator for the Chamber, said the course was completely redesigned.

“This was similar to [Iowa Valley Leadership] but completely different,” he said. “What IVL was, was a networking group for community engagement and growth, but there was no real leadership curriculum to it. At the end of the day, you learned more about the community, got to network with people and saw some businesses, but you went back to your employer the same person. We partnered with the Kansas Leadership Center and have built an entire leadership curriculum to go with our program.”

The new program still includes networking, but Hall is confident the graduates left with a new leadership framework which will help them become better employees and leaders.

“That’s the biggest difference. We added that actual leadership to it,” he said. “We want better community citizens who know how to lead.”

The program not only experienced a change of curriculum, but also a return to Marshalltown. The IVL program “died” due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and 2022-23 witnessed the rebirth.

Hall hopes future participants will include community leaders such as Marshalltown City Council members. He said the primary reason to complete the program is to become a better citizen. Hall stressed participants do not have to be in positions of leadership or power to participate.

Included in the new Chamber program was a “teaching team,” consisting of Erica Finders with the Marshalltown Community School District, Heidi Dalal with the Martha-Ellen Tye Foundation and Becky Hassett with Iowa Valley Business and Community Solutions. Hall said since the program was new, he could not do it by himself. He wanted to bring in people who had teaching experience.

“It opened the door for us to cumulatively teach this program,” he said. “They all have different ideas and we are all working together.”

Finders, 44, is the pre-kindergarten through sixth grade curriculum and professional development leader for the school district. She said she came onto the team as a “newbie,” just like everyone else, but every person on the team signed a three-year contract to commit to the program. Finders said it was a new experience, because as she was learning, she knew she would have to figure out how to immediately teach program participants.

One aspect that stood out for her was all of the smaller components of leadership, and how they all fit together. The biggest challenge was gaining the knowledge shortly before the participants.

“In the classroom before, I was the expert, and with this, you learn as you go. It’s going to be okay. It’s going to turn out. So, just trusting that system of training,” she said. “Along the way, we deepened our knowledge as we went.”

Hassett

Hassett, 37, is the director of student services for Iowa Valley Business and Community Solutions. She thought the best aspect of the experience was seeing participants enter the program with their own challenges, and learning how to work through those challenges.

“We’re not solving these problems, but we’re making progress on some of those challenges,” she said. “It’s been great to see and watch that evolve. I’m excited to see how this program continues.”

——

Contact Lana Bradstream

at 641-753-6611 ext. 210 or

lbradstream@timesrepublican.com.