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Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
04 April 2017
Updated: 04 December 2020
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‘How does social change happen?’ This question was posed at a leadership training residential which I attended as part of my Clore Social Leadership fellowship.
It stuck with me. I realised that in some form it has fascinated me since I was teenager studying history at school: How does change happen - any kind of change, but particularly major societal or political change?
The Clore Social programme gave me a chance to re-examine my thinking around change, and particularly the role leaders play in working for positive social transformation.
Margaret Wheatley, in her writings on leadership, suggests: ‘We live in a world of complex systems… These systems are emergent phenomena – the result of thousands of small, local actions that converged to create powerful systems with properties that may bear little or no resemblance to the smaller actions that gave rise to them. These are the systems that now dominate our lives; they cannot be changed by working backwards, focusing on only a few simple causes.’
In my longer provocation piece I consider the implications for leadership if the causes of radical societal change are the result of systems that generate their own results. How can we find agency and have an impact for positive change in such a complex world?
I suggest that the election of Donald Trump and Brexit are the consequences of the function of complex systems – systems that are failing. These events are the result of intricate feedback loops that arise despite – perhaps even because of - concerted efforts of those working for change in the other direction.
If this is the case, what can our response be?
Drawing on the work of system thinking experts, I propose that there is a need for a different kind of leadership, one that no longer relies on the emergence of ‘heroes’, the strong leaders that we often idolise. Instead we need leaders to act as hosts to facilitate others to find solutions. We need leaders who genuinely embrace wider perspectives. We need leaders who are exactly the opposite of Trump.
I also consider Donella Meadow’s suggestion that the most effective intervention in a complex system is the power to transcend paradigms and that the way to achieve this is to refuse to accept the status quo, and instead to loudly and publicly assert the reality of a different model. Instead, we often find ourselves ‘Diddling with the details’ as Meadows calls it, tied up with the exact details of what impact this or that action will have, justifying this to funders and regulators.
Here we can aspire to be more like Trump: Trump didn’t care about the existing paradigm and certainly not about details. He asserted a new reality, and claimed it. Woefully, this reality is built on hate, exclusion and a version of human nature that believes in putting up barriers not building understanding.
I suggest our response needs to be on a similar level. What could we do, how would we act, if we genuinely believed that we are not constrained by our existing paradigms? What could we create if we exercised empathy, cared less about being a hero, and started to behave as if equality and inclusion were already the reality? Let’s start to claim that new reality.
Ruth is a 2016 Clore Social Fellow; she developed this blog as part of her Fellowship. You can download her full provocation piece here. Share your comments and views below, or join the conversation with Ruth on Twitter. You can connect with her on LinkedIn.
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Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
03 April 2017
Updated: 04 December 2020
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As part of her 2016 Clore Social Leadership Fellowship, Amelia Viney developed a video blog where she explores what could be done to unleash the power of young people to help them transform their worlds.
Amelia said:
‘We all want young people to have the power to influence decisions about their lives, but the vast majority feel excluded from participating in our democracy. Not having a voice in the big conversations that directly affect their futures - like housing, crime and education - has a dangerous impact on confidence and aspirations of these young people. It also means that valuable voices are missing from the debate, leading to policies and provisions that fail to reflect the diverse experiences and interests of all our communities.’
Amelia debates these issues in her vlog, which includes some of the young people she works with at The Advocacy Academy. Join the conversation with Amelia on Twitter.
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Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
20 March 2017
Updated: 04 December 2020
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The leadership industry offers numerous theoretical frameworks and models, ranging from the instructional to the inspirational. The majority of these models are focused on the exogenous – the external factors, and offer up-skilling and progression as a solution to overcoming leadership challenges. But is this enough?
After spending 2016 as a Clore Social Leadership Fellow, I don’t claim to be an expert on the subject, but with the knowledge that I have gained from that intense fellowship year and reflecting on my 15 years of working towards social justice I offer this: leadership should be more about regression than progression.
The chances are we probably once had many of the qualities that would make us a strong leader, but we have lost or forgotten them. Perhaps more concerning, we might have learned not to value them as we should. We need to tap into our inner-child and re-learn the qualities that childhood gifted us, and value them as leadership traits.
Key to this is our curiosity. I’m sure none of our parents expected to give birth to pint-sized Paxman’s but this is what many of them got. 'Do the trees make the wind?', 'Do they close the roads to switch on all the cats eyes?', 'Where is my soul?', and of course, 'Where do babies come from?'. As children we’re naturally curious about the world around us, and less willing to accept things at face value.
The circle of why is a phenomenon that delights curious young minds and frustrates parents in equal measure. Yet at some point we learned to be less curious. 'Why?' Because the very question becomes annoying and it stopped eliciting the responses that we liked.
Research shows that our questioning drops off dramatically after the age of five, suggesting that schools have a role to play here too. I remember from my own experience that school rewarded the children who knew the answer, not asked the best questions, and this pattern of rewarding answers over questions continues into our professional life.
So, what’s stopping us being more curious as adults? Potentially lots of things! Have you ever heard it quipped that there’s 'no such thing as stupid questions, just stupid people'? Asking questions can cause us to be perceived as naive or ill-informed. Asking a question might feed our imposter syndrome, or we could risk letting our demigod masks slip in front of those who we want to see us as strong and all knowing – so they can trust us to lead them.
But without leaders asking why, what if, and how, we stifle our creativity and, at best, are doomed to tweak existing behaviours, programmes and ideas, and at worst repeat the mistakes of the past. If we’re to lead the change that we seek, then it’s critical that we think differently, and maintain a curious approach to everything we do, and everyone we do it with.
I started doing this a few years ago, particularly in relation to who I work with. It’s now habitual for me to be more curious soon after appointment to get to know my new colleagues more closely. I start with two questions. First I ask 'what matters to you?'.
Beyond an interview environment and trying to impress the new boss, I aim to get to know my new colleagues more personally. I talk about what matters to me, and give the example of walking my dogs at lunch times, hoping to give them permission to share what matters to them and how we can fit work in to their life.
I also ask them to tell me about their favourite line-manager (or sometimes their lest favourite – depending how mischievous I'm feeling). This gives me an idea of how they do/don’t like to be managed and supported. This curiosity is simple, but it has had a big impact on my relationships with colleagues and helps me to create an environment in which we can all thrive.
I'm also more curious in circumstances and conversations where I disagree. In the spirit of curiosity, I have become better at listening to understand, rather than listening ready to challenge with my own view.
This blog was developed as part of Mark's 2016 Clore Social Fellowship prgramme and was originally published on Third Force News.
Mark Kelvin is programme director at the Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland and a 2016 Clore Social Fellow.
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Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
28 February 2017
Updated: 04 December 2020
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I’ve worked with the Armed Forces community for many years, both in military help-seeking research at the King’s Centre of Military Health Research and in healthcare policy at the Royal British Legion. I was fortunate enough last year to be a Forces in Mind Trust Fellow on Clore Social Leadership’s Fellowship Programme.
An area I care very deeply about is the mental health of our Armed Forces community. We live in a stressful world, there is no doubt. The World Health Organisation reports that mental health and substance misuse problems are the leading cause of disability worldwide, and one in four of us will experience a mental health problem in our lifetime.
In the UK Armed Forces community, the most common mental health problems are depression and anxiety. Most recent research suggests these may be experienced by Service and ex-Service personnel at double the rates of those in the general population. Despite much effort to improve service provision and mental health attitudes by the Ministry of Defence, the NHS and Service charities, help-seeking rates in the Armed Forces community continue to remain extremely low.
My provocation piece asks us to rethink our conceptions of mental health and help-seeking in the Armed Forces. The piece begins with an imagined character in the Armed Forces giving advice through a letter to those struggling with mental health problems. Whilst this letter is my creation and exaggerated for effect, it is based on some real views I have had recounted to me in my research interviews with the Armed Forces community. The language in the letter seeks to highlight some very important issues that prevent individuals from seeking help for mental health problems in the Armed Forces.
I highlight the main barriers to seeking help for mental health problems in the Armed Forces. These include mental health stigma, the preference to solve problems alone, a lack of social or family support, and finally the pervading culture of masculinity that equates help-seeking with weakness.
In terms of what can be done to address these barriers, I suggest that:
- We need to get talking about our mental health to one another and to our families;
- We need to educate ourselves on how to look after our own mental health, how to spot signs and symptoms of mental ill health and know what services are available that can support us;
- We need to challenge the weakness culture. We cannot continue to uphold the notion that seeking help is akin to failure. True courage is found in honesty, in facing up to problems, taking action to help ourselves and being strong through support found in others.
Our significance as leaders is measured by the courage of the questions we ask in order to confront and change negative cultures and attitudes that should not be promoted in our communities. The barriers and cultures that prevent Armed Forces individuals, past and present, from seeking help is a problem that all people in the Armed Forces community can take a stand upon and demonstrate leadership in promoting the type of environment we want to live in. It is time we changed the conversation and refuse to accept the state of things as they are now. I believe changing the culture around help-seeking for mental health problems in the Armed Forces will need all of our combined strength and leadership.
You can download Marie-Louise Sharp’s provocation piece here.
Please share your views and comments below, or you can contact Marie-Louise on Twitter.
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Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
06 February 2017
Updated: 04 December 2020
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"I am human, and nothing of that which is human is alien to me." Publius Terentius Afer
At the end of his 2016 Reith Lectures, Kwame Anthony Appiah left us with this striking quotation. Written by a man who was ‘ a slave from Roman Africa, a Latin interpreter of Greek comedies and a writer from Classical Europe’, the words attest to a profound appreciation of what it is to be human, and how our humanity, once acknowledged, transcends concepts of nationality, identity or status.
The term ‘alien’, still used within US federal law to describe those born outside the country, is rightly considered an embarrassing and derogatory term in the UK, with connotations of dehumanisation and scapegoating that we prefer not to own. But in my experience of working with marginalised migrant and refugee communities, it’s often a term which recent arrivals, or even those who have lived here for decades, use to describe their treatment by UKBA officials, UK institutions, and even their lack of welcome by the Great British majority.
This painful reality is the opening precept to my Provocation Piece which I developed as part of my fellowship with Clore Social Leadership. The piece explores our current preoccupation with social integration and asks whether we can reconcile this with often fearful or nostalgic concepts of ‘British values’. If, as the Casey Review maintains, we are really looking for a ‘common life’, I argue that we need to be more questioning, more courageous, and more open to a reflexive discussion about ‘who’ we are and what ‘our values’ might look like in collaboration with those who arrive from abroad. What can we learn from people who have experienced themselves as ‘outsiders’; what reality checks can they give us about ourselves and our assumed cultural values; how might their experiences of migration and integration contribute to a dynamic model of cultural heritage for the future?
These questions have framed my Clore Social fellowship in a tumultuous year for issues and debates on migration, culminating in what can only be described as a crisis of national consciousness. Amidst the confusion and strife, it has also encouraged me to look for good practice in advocating for a model of social integration which addresses how we welcome and learn from new arrivals at ground level. From this, I’ve come up with four suggestions:
- We need to acknowledge that citizenship is not a birthright, but is earned by those who want a stake in society. Instead of an Integration Oath, why not use a Citizenship Celebration which brings together and rewards anyone who actively contributes their values and culture to their local community?
- Developing relationships across cultures takes curiosity, empathy and patience. Whether at work, in your neighbourhood or in the school playground, simply making eye contact, exchanging a friendly word is a great start; thereafter, accept that the normal social codes don’t necessarily apply – ask, explain, invite, explore, adapt, exchange and don’t give up.
- You can’t support social integration simply by saying nice things on social media. Stepping out of our comfort zone is what enables us to appreciate what it’s like to feel like an outsider: offer to teach English to your neighbour; ask them to teach you how to cook their cuisine; provide a night stay for a homeless refugee; join in with local or school activities which seem to be ‘for minorities’- you will be amazed by what you learn.
- Let’s offer experiential diversity training for our statutory services which doesn’t balk at exploring cultural difference and can promote empathy, intercultural awareness and cross-sector collaboration.
Whilst it’s a good thing that we starting to have ‘difficult conversations’ about values and identity, we have a long way to go on understanding the dynamics of privilege and power. Step into the shoes of a new arrival, question yourself and your assumptions in relation to those different to you, and you will awaken your own precious humanity.
Please share your comments about Emma’s blog and provocation piece below, or you can join the conversation on Twitter.
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