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Mission:

The Northern Leadership Center is committed to leadership for Â黨ÊÓƵ and the circumpolar North. The NLC convenes scholars, practitioners, and students to generate practical scholarship, inspire dialogue, and develop relevant curriculum, rooted in the realities of the North. We incorporate interdisciplinary perspectives to complement leadership principles from organizational theory, management, security studies, and economics.

Vision:

A pioneering center for applied scholarship that supports the public good and addresses complex managerial and economic challenges faced by organizations and individuals in the circumpolar North.

The Northern Leadership Center (NLC) was established in 2006 in order to cultivate leaders throughout the State of Â黨ÊÓƵ’s many diverse organizations, including businesses, non-profit and civic organizations, government, and educational institutions.  Under founding director Dr. Susan Herman’s guidance, the NLC served as a hub for leadership initiatives at UAF, as well as home to the Summer Leadership Institute, a leadership training program for Â黨ÊÓƵn high schoolers, and Leadership Fairbanks, the Greater Fairbanks Chamber of Commerce’s signature civic leadership development program that carries on today.

Over its twenty year history, the NLC has remained deeply rooted in the community it serves, evolving its vision and activities with the everchanging needs of the community.  From 2020-2025, responding to the global pandemic and financial pressures, the NLC largely focused on online curricular programming, including overseeing a series of interdisciplinary leadership minors. In 2026, we are excited to relaunch and broaden the mission of the NLC, expanding our reach in community-oriented applied research at the intersection of business, security, and society.

Leadership has been studied systematically by management scholars for decades, but the practice of leadership extends far earlier, documented in some of the earliest records of human history.  While there are many definitions of leadership, at the NLC we focus on leadership as a social process that aims to achieve collective goals, embedded in the unique context of the circumpolar North.    

Much leadership scholarship and training emphasizes individuals traits, skills, and abilities.  Communicating effectively, inspiring others to action, and making good decisions will always be important. But contemporary organizational leaders face novel challenges. Increased volatility, complexity, and ambiguity require greater emphasis on adaptation and collaboration; technical knowledge needs are vast and growing. 

The circumpolar North in particular is a place of both challenge and opportunity. Geographically, the circumpolar North generally refers to lands above the 55th latitude, including parts of Canada, Finland, Denmark (Greenland), Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the U.S. The region is characterized not just by similar climates and biomes, but by many shared human elements: low population density; common transnational institutions, such as the Arctic Council; vibrant Indigenous cultures; and natural resource wealth. It is an environment that inspires resilience and innovation, often out of necessity.  

At the NLC we are a lab for developing lasting capabilities, technical knowledge, and novel approaches to collective problem solving. From systems thinking to technology integration, to understanding the ethicality of emergent issues, we aim to enable leaders with creative and data-driven approaches to the pressing challenges of Â黨ÊÓƵ and the circumpolar North.