A Foundation of Character. People of Purpose. A Community of Leaders.

The VLA is a non-profit membership organization.  We offer personal growth and leadership development programs convening individuals, groups, and organizations with the goal of inspiring them to lead purposeful lives.  We do this through personal discovery and experiential learning that transforms people’s approach to life and leadership.  We use a holistic approach that touches body, mind, spirit, and connection. We develop trust quickly by advocating the integration of a sound mind, a pure heart, and clean hands.  We encourage creating community in small groups and keep people connected through a Leaders' Network.

We define the Inside First® philosophy as a process that starts within, clarifying purpose, values and beliefs that differentiate our character, and then emanates outward, advanced by the skills of visioning and planning to guide our actions and relationships. As a multiple thought-leader, open-source philosophy, Inside First® leadership has resonance with many different approaches, including heart-centered leadership, values-based leadership, authentic leadership, transformative leadership, servant leadership, and more. To help people build a commendable character, our model focuses on the principles of purpose, integrity, attitude, and commitment. The phrase “inside first” comes from Matthew 23:26 where Jesus says, “first cleanse the inside, that the outside might be clean as well.”

More than anything else, we hope to strengthen hearts, because that’s really the most effective way to change behavior. Rules and guidelines may help in the short-term, but ultimately, fundamental changes take place in the heart. Most importantly, we seek to help people find a meaningful purpose for their lives.

Helping people discover and explore their purpose is central. We believe purpose lies at the very core of who we are as leaders. We firmly believe that when our passions are ignited, leaders get beyond ego-centric tendencies and powerful forces are unleashed. We particularly like John Eldredge’s sentiment when he says, “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

As a non-profit organization, we feel called to help leaders uncover their innate talents for the betterment of society. To get at this, among many questions, we ask people what they value and believe, what is their spiritual perspective, what their gifts and talents are, and where they see themselves in five to ten years. 

We believe in whole person leadership that nourishes mind, body, sprit, and connection.  We define spirituality as the human drive to connect with something larger than the self. Or as Brene Brown’s defines it, "Spirituality is the deep human longing to experience the transcendent in our ordinary life — it's the expectation to experience the extraordinary in the ordinary, the miraculous in the mundane, and the sacred camouflaged in the profane."  

To this end, we help cultivate meaning, purpose, values, and a sense of inner depth (all related to spirit) without requiring or denying any religious belief.

We believe that people who incorporate a spiritual perspective into their lives and leadership are more likely to seek meaning and significance over self-aggrandizement. We believe that great leadership is built more on character and one’s personal ethics than on skills. And we believe that one’s character and ethics are in turn founded primarily on that spiritual perspective.

The Alliance endorses the proposition that great leadership can be strengthened and enriched by acknowledging and embracing the spiritual aspect of our humanity. This orientation recognizes that many leaders are spiritually hungry, but institutionally wary. And it recognizes that one of the best ways to get beyond our selfishness is to recognize a higher purpose. We do not sanction or deny any particular religion or spiritual tradition. We do not proselytize in favor of any one tradition, but you are free to bring God into our conversations by asking what leaders believe and value and encouraging thoughtful dialogue on each individual's perspective regarding spirituality. We don’t promote any perspective but rather uncover what’s there for each individual.

No.  Our board, staff, and members include people from various faith and secular perspectives. While we make reference and quote people like Gandhi, the Dali Lama, Viktor Frankl ,and Jesus in our documents and programs, we do not advocate one tradition over another. When appropriate, we might ask about a person’s spiritual perspective and how it has evolved. We never go further than this unless invited to.

Yes and no. On the one hand, we want to help build a vibrant learning community in the Vail Valley where we “walk our talk” as leaders and create a place that is transformative and restorative. And we’re interested in bringing people to our community to expose them to this thinking in an environment that inspires renewal of the human spirit. And, in time, we’d like orient many to Inside First as facilitators and have them spread the ideals widely within other communities.

The Alliance is concerned that American character seems to be in decline. We agree with Cherie Harder of the Trinity Forum when she says, “Our culture drifts with the currents of political fashion, intellectual fads, and public whim. Truth and falsehood are bypassed as we consign to irrelevance centuries of discussion about the good life. We declare them ‘outworn,’ or merely ‘personal’ rather than public, and therefore without authority or significance to current issues.” If there is to be cultural renewal in our society, it will progress from the individual to small groups and then to communities. Trying to “right the ship” at the national level is very complex. Harder recommends starting with “individuals who make the effort to deepen their character and find spiritual resources to inspire and sustain good and creative work.”

This cultural renewal will occur in the context of the finely woven fabric of history. At the Alliance, we focus on exemplary leaders like Martin Luther King, Mohandas Gandhi, Jesus, Mother Teresa, Abraham Lincoln, Max DePree and Eleanor Roosevelt who have helped shaped our progress over time with principles informed by their character and spiritual perspective. As we study these great leaders, and add the great writers and thinkers to the conversation, it helps shape our understanding of ourselves and our responsibilities to our world.

Our philosophy has evolved over the past 25 years from the thinking of many scholars, thinkers and leaders. We have drawn upon individuals such as Richard Leider, Peter Vaill, Brene Brown, David Brooks, Peter Senge, Robert Greenleaf, Bob Vanourek, Bill George, Stephen Covey and Parker Palmer to mention just a few. With multiple thought-leaders contributing to this evolving perspective through an “open source” approach, much like computer software, we believe we can stay at the cutting edge of leadership thinking.