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Skills and Development
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Leadership as Encounter

Posted By Clore Social Leadership, 28 May 2020
Updated: 07 December 2020
Nick Wright is a leadership coach, organisation development consultant and a Clore Social Action Learning Set Facilitator. In this blog, he writes about the transformational power of the personal leadership touch.

Talk about work with the poor and most vulnerable people in a community, the UK or the world, and the conversation turns quickly to words like strategy, evidence base, programmes, accountability and effectiveness. The underlying assumption is often that big is best, and that the best way to achieve big is to be well-planned and well-organised. After all, big means making a positive difference in more people’s lives, and that has to be good, right? Most beyond-profit organisations with a social purpose focus on some variation of income, influence and impact as their generic goals and indicators of success, with underlying theories of change and strategy maps to support them.

And I’m glad that they do. Imagine, for instance, a UK voluntary sector that worked in a purely ad hoc, spontaneous manner; resulting in e.g. unreliable, patchy availability of health and social care and provision or inequitable access to it. Imagine work that’s purely instinctive and full of energy but unfocused, not thought-through and wasteful of resources. Imagine organisations that are corrupt or abusive, diverting or siphoning off assets away from those in need and penalising those who dare to challenge them. Against this risk-laden backdrop, I’m thankful for those leaders, organisations and institutions that work hard to do the right thing in the right way and to ensure integrity on route.

Yet something is missing, deeply and profoundly missing in all of this. And it really matters. I work alongside a woman in South East Asia from among the poorest of the poor. It’s lockdown and, nevertheless, she ventures out in a makeshift mask to buy food with the little money she has and to distribute it to strangers who are facing near-starvation. In doing so, she risks arrest, contracting the Covid virus, being robbed by the very people she’s trying to help or being viewed by locals as having access to spare cash and, therefore, a target for extortion. She looks at them directly with a warm smile, gives them what she has, tells them earnestly it’s a gift from Jesus and returns quietly home.

"This isn’t a programme and it isn’t a transactional giving out of food. It’s a sacred, personal encounter with each and every person I meet." 
Hearing of this and feeling inspired by her example, two organisations contact me to ask if they can assist her with food distribution to the poor. I relay this offer and, yet, she turns it down graciously. I’m curious and I ask her why. She explains, ‘This isn’t a programme and it isn’t a transactional giving out of food. It’s a sacred, personal encounter with each and every person I meet: the poorest of the poor, who otherwise feel helpless, hopeless, invisible and unloved.’ I question her gently on this and ask if she wouldn’t be better saving and using the little money she has for her own family? She looks at me earnestly: ‘How can I eat rice at home, while they outside (the poor) have nothing to eat?’

That, in a nutshell, is the crux of the matter. This woman’s vision, faith and values, deep compassion, burning determination to do what’s right whatever the personal cost, humbles me. I’ve spent my life in leadership roles in UK charities and international non-governmental organisations (NGOs), yet I’ve rarely met anyone who demonstrates such profound personal leadership. I’ve focused on the big picture, strategy, leadership, organisation, culture, effectiveness etc. and in the midst of all this, at times I’ve allowed my heart to grow cold. I’ve permitted myself to stand too far at a distance, to lose sight of the very people, the real encounters, that make this work and life authentic and worthwhile.

I’m rediscovering the transformational power of the personal leadership touch. How about you..?

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Nick Wright is an independent leadership coach and organisation development consultant with over 25 years’ experience with UK charities and international non-governmental organisations. www.nick-wright.com - Nick Wright on LinkedIn.

If you would be interested to read more about the remarkable woman who features in this article, see: ‘A Radical Heart’.

Tags:  casestudy  challenges  future  team  values  wellbeing 

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Top tips to boost your resilience in a locked down world

Posted By Clore Social Leadership, 17 April 2020
Updated: 07 December 2020
Jennifer McCanna shares five top tips when thinking about your own resilience and that of your team. Read about what boosts and what hinders our resilience in this very strange new reality.

Amidst the juggle, and not knowing, and the worry, I came together with a group of Clore Social leaders on the Emerging Leader Women & Girls Programme to think about resilience – what boosts and what hinders our resilience in this very strange new reality we are now getting to grips with. I shared several models that help us think about how we can approach this new way of being and boost our wellbeing during this stressful time. Thinking about the Clore Social values of ‘know yourself’ and ‘look after yourself’ here are five things to consider when thinking about your own resilience and that of your team:

1. Everyone is in panic or stretch mode at the moment.

When at work we are almost always operating in one of three zones:

  • Our comfort zone – jobs we know well, things we’ve done before, relationships which are easy and well established;
  • Our stretch zone – this is where the learning happens, we are learning new things, stretching and challenging ourselves a bit, making new connections, achieving new things;
  • And then there’s the panic zone - this is where we are in fight or flight mode, it’s all quite overwhelming, and our performance starts to dip as we are stressed. Right now everyone is probably oscillating between stretch and panic. And that is not sustainable.


Do what you can to find space to sit in your comfort zone every day. Even if it’s checking in with a trusted colleague for a chat, or ticking off something straightforward on your list. Step out of the panic zone when you can. See point 3 for one way of doing this.

2. Everyone is dealing with this change at a different pace.

You’ll have heard of the change curve – the journey we all go on when there is change in our home or work. It’s often talked about when departments go through restructures or when we may experience bereavement. Right now, we are going through change on a very grand scale and the change is happening very quickly. Every day there are new guidelines, guidelines which often it is us who stayed up through the night to write!

Everyone goes through change at a different rate, and crucially not in a linear fashion. You may feel you’ve assimilated the new way of being quite well, and then another set of guidelines comes up and suddenly you feel angry or depressed again. This is normal. And everyone is going through it. Be kind to those who finding today difficult. Don’t expect everyone in your team to get with the programme straight away. For team members who are struggling – buddy them up with someone they can talk to. Signpost to other support available (employee assistance programme?).

3. Focus on what you can influence or control.

Stephen Covey, in ‘7 habits of highly effective people’ talks about the circles of influence. He talks of three concentric circles:

  1. The smallest is our circle of control – the stuff in there we can do something about.
  2. Slightly bigger and around the first circle is our circle of influence – things go in there which are not directly within our control but certainly something we could influence if we worked out how.
  3. The final circle represents that which we can as individuals neither directly control nor influence, like a global pandemic for example. It’s called the circle of concern. The more time we spend in that circle of concern, thinking about things which we cannot control or influence the more stressful it is, and the less agency we feel we have.



However, the good news is that the more time we spend on what we can influence or control the more resourceful we feel. And, crucially, the more our circle of influence expands. (Fraud angle – focus on tightening up processes in YOUR area, don’t worry about what other teams are doing over there. Be in your sphere of influence by making sure everyone in your team are aware of what to look out for to mitigate fraud, etc.)

4. Find moments for wellbeing amid the high performance.


Some definitions of resilience talk about it being a balance between high performance and wellbeing. However, if we think about elite athletes, they have moments of very high performance and long stretches where they are focusing on wellbeing. That focus on wellbeing gives them the resources to be able to perform when they need to. You cannot consistently expect high performance from yourself without putting something back into your tank.

What can you do each day to focus on your wellbeing? Whether it’s a chat with a friend over Zoom, a nice food delivery, cuddles with your kids, a yoga workout, don’t expect you can run on empty.

5. Boundaries.

Just because now we are all connected via Zoom, Teams, Skype, WhatsApp, Slack etc., etc., doesn’t mean we should be 24/7. Create boundaries for you that work for you. Talk to your team about who is able to cover what and when, and when it’s not your turn, put your work phone away, shut your laptop and do something else. No one has their most creative ideas staring at a blank Word document. You’ll feel better and be more creative for getting away from your inbox. And creativity is what we all need right now!

What could you to do get out of your circle of concern and into your circle of influence, so you can have impact in the world? (Interestingly, spending time in our circle of concern is very likely to tip us into our panic zone.) What boundaries can you put in place to safeguard your wellbeing? What conversations do you need to have to check in on those you work with?

Stay safe and well and be the change you want to see.
Jen

You can follow Jen on Linkedin (Jennifer McCanna PCC), Twitter @jenthecoach and on Facebook at McCanna Coaching. Visit Jen's website for more information and useful articles: https://mccannacoaching.co.uk/

Tags:  challenges  collaboration  resilience  skills  team  tips  values 

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February Innovation Prize: How might we make the adoption of digital tools more effective and more fun?

Posted By Clore Social Leadership, 10 February 2020
Updated: 07 December 2020
Most of us have been there. You are at a meeting and someone shows you an exciting new digital tool. You immediately download it and on your return to your office try and get your colleagues to adopt and use it - promising that it will revolutionise everything you do. Maybe you get a few weeks or even a month out of it, but more often than not people start to gradually revert to the old ways of doing things. Slack messages turn back into emails; Trello boards become post-its and your data dashboard finds its way back into excel.

But does it have to be this way? What’s stopping the take up of these brilliant tools and how do we make it better?

What we want you to do

Over the next three weeks, we want to hear your best ideas on how to make the take up of digital tools more effective and fun. How have you done it in the past? What worked? What didn’t? Don’t worry, your ideas don’t need to be totally thought out, tested or prototyped. We are just looking for those initial thoughts and ideas that have the potential to be great.

Once you’ve got an idea simply go to the Clore Social Forum Facebook group and post it under the topic “Innovation prizes” to share it with the whole community. Or click here to respond via an online form.

As always the best idea will be awarded £200 and will be shared with all the Clore Social community.

Tags:  challenges  change  future  joy  skills  tips  values  wellbeing 

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January Innovation Prize

Posted By Clore Social Leadership, 13 January 2020
Updated: 07 December 2020
January - How might we spark motivation?

We all know that the late winter months can be a difficult time. The excitement of Christmas and New Year are behind us but the days are still short and grey. It can be a time when excitement about work drops and people seem to be just battling through to the spring. So we thought what better time than right now to harness the creativity of our community to think about the challenge of motivation.

So often leaders think of motivation as something to be done to teams. Something that leadership is totally responsible for. Something that comes from the top. But what if we flip this? What if rather than asking how leaders can motivate staff we instead ask how leaders can support staff to find their own motivations - how we spark motivation in others.

What if we think about the tools, processes and even permissions people need to find their motivation? How do we as leaders create these things and what do they look like in real-world settings? This is where you come in.

What we want you to do

Over the next two weeks, we want your best ideas for how we might spark motivation in people. We want to hear about your ideas for techniques, resources, activities or anything else you can think of. Don’t worry your ideas don’t need to be totally thought out, tested or prototyped. We are just looking for those initial thoughts and ideas that have the potential to be great.

Once you’ve got an idea simply go to the Clore Social Forum Facebook group and post it under the topic “Innovation prizes” to share it with the whole community.

As always the best idea will be awarded £200 and will be shared with all the Clore Social community.

Tags:  challenges  change  future  joy  skills  tips  values  wellbeing 

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The importance of joy and why your leadership depends on it

Posted By Clore Social Leadership, 14 November 2018
Updated: 23 October 2020
Blog by Louise Drake, Director of Programmes & Leadership Innovation at Clore Social Leadership.

Joy, by definition is ‘a feeling of great pleasure and happiness'. You might be thinking what place does a blog about leadership have to do with joy?

In my opinion, joy is one of the most overlooked areas of leadership development for leaders and the people they lead. I want to convince you to focus on a little bit of joy everyday.

In my role as Director of Programmes and Leadership Innovation, I have the pleasure of working with people enacting their leadership for the benefit of our society’s most disadvantaged and marginalised people. They work tirelessly, often behind the scenes and for most of these leaders life is one lived in a state of survival. And, as you can imagine the concept of joy can be one which is far from their mindset when I meet them.

At Clore Social we use a Leadership Development Model designed by leadership experts that we’ve used consistently for over a decade.. The centre of our model is ‘Know Yourself, Be Yourself, Look After Yourself’ which is the concept we start with on all of our programmes. Within ‘Know Yourself, Be Yourself’ we focus on theories, research and practice from emotional intelligence, emotional agility and authenticity, to name but a few. All of which are rational, have evidence bases and make sense when reflecting on and applying leadership learning.

When we begin to focus on ‘Look After Yourself’ and concepts such as  scepticism, doubt and the physical manifestation of how uncomfortable the theme makes people as they squirm in their seats begins. For people who tirelessly work in the service of others, the thought of dedicating any time to ‘self’ joy and happiness often strikes them as counter-intuitive. I admit that it also goes against commonly held beliefs and images of ‘Leader’ and ‘Leadership’. When was the last time you saw a joyful leader?

Dedicating time to focus on leadership development, for most, feels like a luxury. To add the concept of ‘looking after yourself’ seems extravagant, if not almost decadent. It is not.

As a leader it is your role to be ‘RESPONSE-ABLE’ as well as responsible. RESPONSE-ABLE coined in the book ‘Productivity Ninja’ means ‘to be able to respond’. True leadership happens in times of crisis and times of opportunity. We have all witnessed the rise and subsequent fall of a promising leadership from a crisis that just was not handled in a RESPONSE-ABLE way.

How as a leader are you able to ensure you are RESPONSE-ABLE? One way is to ‘Look after yourself’ physically and mentally. There is a whole host of things that count as looking after yourself, such as getting enough sleep, eating nutritious food and taking regular exercise, however a fundamental thing such as joy and en-joy-ing life can easily be overlooked in the pursuit of achievement and success, especially if what you do at work brings you a sense of purpose and other people’s lives literally depend on you.

I promise by bringing more joy into your life, even if it is small moments of joy everyday, you will feel more motivated, less overwhelmed, more creative and likely to see yourself become more RESPONSE-ABLE. Don’t believe me? Most people don’t until they give it a go.

My challenge, if you choose to accept is to commit to building more joy into your life in the next two weeks and reflect back to see what difference it has made to you, your leadership and those around you.

Tags:  change  culture  future  joy  values  wellbeing 

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