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# Cornell University Brooks School of Public Policy Adaptive Leadership (VMCL) Course

## Details

**Authors** Cornell University

**Year** 2021-2026

**Publisher** Cornell University

**Kind of work** course

**Discipline** Systems Science

**Secondary disciplines** Business & Management

**Reading level** beginner

**Kind of engagement** applications

[Read it](cornell.edu)

## In authors' words

### What they set out to do (purpose)

The graduate-level course teaches students to apply systems thinking to organizational leadership, change, and design in public and nonprofit organizations. A central learning objective is to practice the four functions of Systems Leadership—VMCL—and use them to design an adaptive learning organization.

### What they found (results)

The course presents systems thinking as a practical foundation for organizational leadership, change, and design and teaches VMCL as four functions that can be used to design an adaptive learning organization. Rather than treating leadership simply as individual decision-making or command, the framework approaches organizational effectiveness systemically: leaders must align vision, mission, organizational capacity, and learning so that the organization can continually respond and adapt to changing conditions. The available catalog materials present this as a teaching framework rather than reporting measured outcomes from its use.

## Commentary

### In short

Cornell University Brooks School chose Cabrera's VMCL work for their Adaptive Leadership graduate level offering. The course demonstrates Cornell’s formal institutional adoption of Cabrera systems-thinking and systems-leadership ideas in graduate public-administration education.

### In more detail

Cornell’s Spring 2020 record describes PADM 5114 as a three-credit, reading- and writing-intensive MPA course providing applied systems-thinking methodologies and tools relevant across public-affairs concentrations. Students examined organizational leadership, change, and design and practiced the four functions of Systems Leadership (VMCL) with the explicit goal of designing an adaptive learning organization. The course also gave students an opportunity to present original research at a public symposium or conference.

### Response

The Brooks School selected VMCL as the framework for its graduate adaptive leadership course, running from 2021. The course teaches the four functions of systems leadership as the means of designing an adaptive learning organization.

**How to cite this** Cornell University (2021-2026). Cornell University Brooks School of Public Policy Adaptive Leadership (VMCL) Course. Cornell University.