Strong leadership starts with understanding experiences beyond our own
Colorado is one state, but our experiences of it can feel worlds apart.
That feeling isn’t unique to Colorado. A national Pew Research Center study found that 70% of rural residents and 65% of urban residents felt people outside their type of community didn’t understand the problems they faced. At the same time, majorities in both groups said they believed they understood the challenges facing people in other communities.
That disconnect points to an opportunity for belonging and bridging.
Bridging starts with questioning what we assume about people and places we don’t know well. We may share more experiences, values, or aspirations than geography suggests. And where real differences exist, bridging gives us a way to listen, learn and build relationships across them.
For leaders, those relationships can challenge assumptions, bring new knowledge into decision-making, and build trust across communities that may experience the same challenges very differently.
We’re seeing this take shape right here in Colorado through our partners.
TEENS, Inc. is launching a pilot that brings urban and rural youth together through outdoor recreation, team-building, and leadership—creating opportunities to build relationships and belonging across geographic differences. The project used interdependence in the outdoors and storytelling to bridge divides among 7th–9th graders from urban and rural communities.
“We have seen the combination of interdependence and storytelling create meaningful opportunities for youth to learn about themselves and one another while seeing firsthand that collaboration across differences is not only possible, but powerful,” said Ariel Gustafson, Out of School Time director for Teens, Inc.
The pilot was modeled after Teens, Inc.’s TeamWorks program, which serves older youth from differing backgrounds.
“Throughout the grant period, we have been learning and adapting, considering everything from recruitment strategies to program goals and outcomes, to better meet the developmental needs of a younger audience.”
Gustafson said the pilot project may have lessons that can help other Colorado organizations working to increase belonging.
“One lesson that may be useful to other organizations seeking to bridge differences is the value of combining challenging, shared experiences with intentional facilitator support. Working together toward common goals gives young people opportunities to rely on one another, recognize each other’s strengths, and begin to see one another as valued teammates rather than ‘the other.’”
Roaring Fork Leadership (RFL) is bringing the same principle to regional leadership across Garfield, Eagle and Pitkin counties—finding even neighboring rural and mountain communities can have distinct identities, economies and experiences.
“Proximity doesn’t automatically create understanding,” said Roaring Fork Leadership President and CEO Andrea Palm-Porter. “Neighboring communities can share an economy, workforce, natural resources, and many of the same challenges, yet experience those challenges very differently.”
By embedding bridging practices across its programs, RFL is creating opportunities for leaders to move beyond those boundaries, learn from one another, and identify shared goals.
“When we bring people across geographic, economic and community boundaries, assumptions begin to give way to curiosity, relationships form, and people start to see both the challenges and their role in solving them differently,” said Palm-Porter. “We’re talking more and more about the need for regional collaboration, but recognizing that need is only the beginning; lasting change requires the trust, relationships, and skills to actually work across those boundaries.”
Bridging isn’t about erasing differences. It’s about replacing assumptions with understanding—discovering what we share and learning from what we don’t.
For leaders: Who might you understand differently if you had the opportunity to listen and learn from them?