Date of Completion

5-31-2025

Document Type

Open Access Capstone

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

First Advisor

Robert Ricketts

Second Advisor

Jeremy Szteiter

Abstract

This synthesis introduces the Critical and Creative Thinking Leadership Toolbox (CCTLT), a practitioner-oriented framework designed to support nonprofit leaders navigating staff engagement, organizational complexity, and long-term sustainability. Drawing on lived experience, scholarly literature, and graduate coursework in the Critical and Creative Thinking (CCT) program, the project challenges traditional leadership models that treat employee buy-in as a binary status or compliance metric. Instead, it reframes buy-in as a dynamic spectrum shaped by trust, clarity, psychological safety, and reciprocal accountability. The work critiques unsustainable leadership practices common in mission-driven organizations and offers an actionable alternative grounded in reflection, systems awareness, and dialogic engagement. Through reflective inquiry and field-based observations, the CCTLT is developed as a bridge between leadership theory and real-world application. Tools are organized across key dimensions—Emotional Intelligence, Effective Communication, Metacognition, Creativity, Sustainability, and Presencing—each illustrated with definitions, contextual applications, and guiding principles. The framework also introduces the Buy-In/Burnout spectrum as a visual tool to support real-time leadership diagnosis and adaptive response. Intended for nonprofit leaders, leadership educators, and practitioners committed to organizational care and ethical alignment, this synthesis contributes to a growing field of sustainable leadership practice. The work affirms leadership as a relational and reflective process, offering a model for cultivating coherence between inner stance and external impact.

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