Leading Toward Preferred Futures: A Free Worksheet for Social Work Education Leaders

Leadership in a rapidly changing environment does not require predicting the future perfectly. It requires recognizing important signals, making sense of competing forces, identifying a preferred future, and taking intentional action.

This free worksheet walks you through the CLEAR process: Clarify the challenge, Look at the forces, Envision the futures, Act within your influence, and Review signals and adjust. Along the way, you'll map your challenge on the Futures Triangle, compare possible, plausible, default, and preferred futures, and work backward to one specific next step. An optional practice example applies the process to authentic assessment in the age of AI.

Use it on your own, with your leadership team, or alongside the workshop. It's a Word document, so you can fill it in on screen or print it.