|
|
Posted By Nick Wright,
28 January 2022
Updated: 28 January 2022
|
‘The opportunity to make effective personal choices is highly unequal.’ (Robert A. Dahl - After the Revolution)
I worked as a coach with a client from Myanmar and asked her what she dreamed of. She looked at me blankly then responded that she was unable to conceive of a different reality to the one that she had lived until now. She felt crushed by the mental and practical constraints of living as an ethnic minority in a country dominated by a military dictatorship. The impact of unequal and unjust social-political power is not a fixed determinant of personal agency – but the stark psychological and tangible inequalities of choice and opportunity it engenders are significant.
You, like me, may have made new years’ resolutions at the start of this year. For many people, soon after having made a decision, the resolve will dissolve and be lost in the mists of time. Yet central to this idea of resolution is the notion of personal choice and, with it, the principle that I can succeed in achieving what I choose. I create (prayerfully) a list of key aspirations at the start of each year then put practical steps in place to fulfil them. It focuses on people and things that are important to me and, therefore, taps into values, motivation and determination.
We can think of this choosing-acting-influencing phenomenon as exercising agency. Shaun Gallagher describes this as, ‘the sense that I am the one who is causing or generating an action’. ‘I can choose’ is a profound existential, psychological and political statement and stance. It means I can break out beyond the apparent default of my circumstances. It implies we hold the potential to be catalysts of real change in the world, within ourselves as well as in broader relationships and situations – and this brings opportunity and responsibility.
A person's sense and scope of agency can be affected by structural factors that transcend the individual, e.g. social status; wealth; education; gender; ethnicity; culture. Mustafa Emirbayer and Ann Mische observed that a person’s lived experience limits what possible alternatives or future scenarios they can imagine. Paulo Freire proposed, on a similar basis, that critical consciousness (‘conscientisation’) is a necessary condition for people to exercise freer choices and agency for change. Yet these factors remain influences, not definitive controls.
Other factors can include personal confidence, competence and capacity. If a person operates psychologically and relationally from a secure base with trust and support, that person is more likely to choose to take a positive risk. If, conversely, someone has experienced or anticipates unfair discrimination, negative evaluation or other painful consequences, to act can feel and be hazardous – especially if the stakes are high. As we have seen (above), agency can demand energy, courage and resilience. A person may not feel ready, willing or able to take that step.
So, some ways forward. If a client is unaware of or avoiding personal agency, William Glasser suggests stimulating his or her sense of reality, responsibility and relationship in order to enable more life-giving choices. If stuck in a pattern of apathy or passivity, John Blakey and Ian Day propose offering high challenge with high support. If we risk colluding with or disempowering a client, Reg and Madge Batten advise focusing attention on what the person can do for him- or herself and, only after that, what we could do by agreement on their behalf.
Viktor Frankl, a victim of Nazi persecution concluded that fundamentally: ‘The one thing you can’t take away from me is the way I choose to respond.’ In our personal, social and political lives, we can see how a person’s choices, actions and influence are affected by a diverse range of factors. These include the privileges a person may hold (or not) and the opportunities that they have benefited from by birth, background or context. The choice is real. Jesus – help me choose this year to exercise my agency for the life and liberation of others. We can be hope.
Nick Wright is a psychological coach, trainer and organisation development (OD) consultant who is based in the UK and works internationally. Nick is also an action learning facilitator for the Clore Social Leadership programme (www.nick-wright.com).
Tags:
challenges
coaching
leadship
Permalink
|
|
|
Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
04 December 2020
Updated: 07 December 2020
|
As a long-term Trustee of the wonderful organisation that is Clore Social, Shaks Ghosh (Clore Social CEO), asked me for some personal reflections on leadership, and in particular leading through difficult times.
I have been in the public service for my whole career, including some periods right in the spotlight. Periods when my work was in the national news more or less every day, and periods when what we were doing was particularly tough. I am currently the Director General responsible for the public inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire. My experiences have caused me to reflect a lot on what needs to be done to lead teams through periods of stress, and to build resilience. I don’t have any magic answers, or much book learning to share. All I can talk about is what has helped me. Some reflections:
Spreading the Load. Being good at what you do and surviving sticky moments is, in my view, mostly about the people who work for you, and about others who can help you to spread the load. Rarely can you do big things all by yourself. I certainly can’t. The more taxing the situation, the less likely I find myself to be the answer. As a leader, I think this has to mean gaining strength by giving away power. Why does the co-pilot and not the pilot fly the plane a lot of the time? I am told it is because the pilot can correct the actions of the co-pilot far more readily than the co-pilot can correct the actions of his or her boss. If you empower your team to get on with the job and hold yourself in reserve as coach, counsellor and advisor, you will (in the short run) create a more powerful unit, and (in the long run) grow your people. Furthermore, if you make a habit of recruiting people who are better than you and/or complement your skillset, and pay attention to their growth and development, you will end up with a stronger unit. Don’t then worry too much about losing great people to bigger jobs. Just make sure you are a leader even better people want to work for.
“As a leader, I think this has to mean gaining strength by giving away power." Mark Fisher
There are other ways of spreading the load too. Pester your allies and abuse your networks. In my experience even the busiest people are enormously generous with their advice. You will need it. Find and then work closely with partners - if there are others travelling willingly with you on your journey you are more likely to be right!
Creating Organisational Resilience. How resilient is the organisation, and how I can improve it? I have tried in particular to cement and communicate belief and purpose, and celebrate success. Few things are more important than giving people a powerful reason to come to work. I try to be calm in any crisis, and deal quickly with any internal problems. Nothing weakens a team as rapidly as a breakdown between team members. You need to be there when it matters for people, take the most difficult meetings, and be the lightning rod for criticism. Perhaps most importantly, you have to allow people to be affected by things, ensure there is proper counselling and wellbeing support, take advantage of it yourself, and be seen to do so.
"None of this is possible unless you look after yourself." Mark Fisher
Personal Resilience None of this is possible unless you look after yourself. Do things, and only do things, that you believe in, have purpose and play to your values. Find colleagues you want to work with. Avoid over-reach, and over-ambition, and give yourself time for other things!
-------------
Mark Fisher CBE FRSA is a Clore Social Trustee and Director General and Secretary to the Grenfell Tower Public Inquiry.
Tags:
challenges
change
collaboration
communication
culture
management
skills
tips
Permalink
| Comments (0)
|
|
|
Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
08 October 2020
Updated: 07 December 2020
|
Paula Harriott is an integral member of the Double Lockdown Programme design group. Here she shines a light on the reality facing people experiencing the criminal justice system, and the lived experience leaders working tirelessly to support them.
As Autumn 2020 progresses, the social sector is forced to face the ongoing uncertainties and complexities of a second wave of the pandemic. As we move out of universal lockdown, we grapple with the possibilities of more, and the devastating impact this is having on vulnerable and marginalised communities. But there is one hidden group of society experiencing the effects of a double lockdown, which requires urgent and sustained attention and support.
Just like any community, prisoners and people leaving prisons, including children and young people, and their families, are anxious about Covid-19, but feel forgotten by the general public as they endure the harshest of lockdowns. A lockdown which has left many confined to a cell for up to 23 hours a day since March 2020, with little contact with other human beings.
"A lockdown which has left many confined to a cell for up to 23 hours a day since March 2020, with little contact with other human beings." Paula Harriot
Social leaders supporting prisoners and those leaving prisons are witnessing a major disruption to the criminal justice regime. Prisons have ceased crucial rehabilitation activities and interventions. There is major disruption to work activities, rehabilitative programmes and education, and a consequent disruption to preparation for parole and progression. Vital visits with loved ones have been stopped for months and are now re-starting, with social distancing, and no physical contact. With a second wave emerging this may all cease once again.
Likewise, people on probation are having to contend with online appointments and accessing services which are no longer face to face - conditions negatively impacting the delivery of the intense support required for the benefit of communities. The impending renationalisation of the probation service creates new challenges of potential disruption to an already strained service and many across the Criminal Justice sector have growing concerns over the dismantling of the Community Rehabilitation Companies.
"Lived experience leaders working across the Criminal Justice Sector have been challenged as never before." Paula Harriot
Lived experience leaders working across the Criminal Justice Sector have been challenged as never before as they navigate a complex and ever-evolving terrain. Many continue to work tirelessly on emergency responses, while others move towards thinking about recovery, renewal or building back better in a post-Covid world. We know that economic hardship and other social inequalities are on the way, while pre-existing inequities are on the rise, including racial injustice.
There is no doubt about the need for this programme, and the commitment of the LEx Leaders Movement at the Centre for Knowledge Equity and Clore Social teams to deliver. Coronavirus should not deter us from service at this crucial time and we must play our part to strengthen a sector that is having to do its utmost to serve some of the most marginalised people in our country.
"We must play our part to strengthen a sector that is having to do its utmost to serve some of the most marginalised people in our country." Paula Harriot
We therefore plan to respond quickly to design and deliver a programme which equips lived experience leaders with some of the skills, resilience and confidence that they need to rise to the challenges ahead. Essentially, the programme will build skills and leadership behaviours in the sector and ensure that lived experience leaders are better able to support and manage themselves, their people, organisations, and communities.
The leadership landscape of the Criminal Justice System is varied and diverse covering the voluntary, charity, public and private sectors – also spanning the intersection of multiple and complex injustices and disadvantage including homelessness; recovery and addiction; mental health; gender, racial injustice and/or economic injustice and poverty.
As part of that landscape there is a vibrant and growing community of Lived Experience Leaders (LEx leaders). People with direct, first-hand experience of the Criminal Justice System who are activating their lived experiences, in combination with their learned and practice experiences, to improve the lives of the communities they share experiences with. However, often LEx leaders have little, if any, support to develop their leadership skills in a strained and overstretched sector.
"This programme creates the space to meet all these ambitions." Paula Harriot
As a senior Lived experience leader in the criminal justice sector I see every day the undeniable contribution that those with lived experience make. I also witness the challenges we face as we seek to redefine the challenges and offer solutions; often reduced to labels that keep us within a ‘service user’ model, anonymous participants in research or depicted as too passionate or partisan.
Leadership, collaboration, and collective action are critical components of the change we seek. This programme creates the space to meet all these ambitions, building leadership, bringing people together and building the foundations of collective vision and action. I am delighted to be part of this initiative and salute the efforts of our allies at the Centre for Knowledge Equity and their partners Clore Social in supporting us to bring this about.
Tags:
challenges
conviction
criminal justice
diversity
programme
systems
Permalink
| Comments (0)
|
|
|
Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
20 March 2020
Updated: 04 December 2020
|
“No leader knows where their influence ends - the effect of your leadership is incalculably diffusive. It travels further and influences more than you can possibly imagine.”
Speaking at our Emerging Leader Programme celebration event on 12 March, Nick Wilkie, former NCT CEO, says that“no leader knows where their influence ends - the effect of your leadership is incalculably diffusive. It travels further and influences more than you can possibly imagine.” Looking at the socioeconomic context of the social sector, at the concept of leadership as an individual act, and at a picture of a beaver next to a dam, Nick thinks out loud about what it can be to lead in the social sector now. We’re delighted to have translated Nick’s reflections into a blog and hope you will enjoy reading it.
I’ve had the privilege of leading in a number of different organisations and whenever I am asked to discuss leadership, I am tempted to say nothing more than what two very different individuals from very different backgrounds, both of whom I respect greatly, said to me at different times.
The first is a woman called Laura McArthur who was in the People team at a charity where I worked, who once said to me: ‘If I ever write a book, it will be one page and will say: listen to what people say and what they don’t say; pay attention to the small stuff; treat everyone like a human being; do all of that all the time, never forget.’
The second is a man called Field Marshall, the Lord Guthrie, who was President of London Youth when I was chief executive. He had spent a lifetime in the military, ending up as Chief of the Defence Staff, having earlier commanded the Welsh Guards and SAS. He looked at me at a point at which I was rambling on and not perhaps thinking clearly, and said with both precision and kindness: “You just have to find great people, and love them a lot. I mean really love them.”
"You just have to find great people, and love them a lot. I mean really love them." Charles Guthrie
And I am often tempted as I am now to share these two perspectives and stop there, because I really do think that fundamentally there is nothing else to say. But I never do, because there is much to say about leadership. In fact, once you start thinking about what you might reflect on the challenge is what to cut, there is an almost infinite range of subjects we could cover.
First, whilst I don’t think we should define civil society by its relationship to the state, I do think that if the government can direct investment to an unparalleled degree and make laws, then if we get up every morning aiming to change the world, we do need to think carefully about our relationship with the state. And it’s a tricky one right now, I think. In the nineties and noughties, in a time of economic plenty and a sympathetic government with big majorities, a fairly typical theory of change for many charities was: grow through public service delivery and deliver these services better than the state; and use rational argumentation and insider tracks (through good relationships with civil servants and junior ministers) to effect policy change.
Now both these flushes feel busted - austerity doesn’t feel like it’s over, few charities are growing, and many are at the end of a decade of grinding budget rounds. Meanwhile Brexit has, of course, eclipsed social policy and, looking beyond Brexit (however it is ‘done’), neither a populist right nor statist left seem terribly interested in our sector.
Second, our sector feels to me quite inward looking at the moment. For understandable reasons, we’re beset with institutional pre-occupations, concerns about safeguarding, workplace culture, senior salaries, fundraising practice - many, especially more established charities, contending with massive technical debt, historic wrongs, pension deficits. It’s emphatically not a criticism to observe that most leaders are spending most of their time looking into their organisations. But it is a real challenge right now, and one we all need to meet, to find the space and energy and creativity, to look up and look out, to connect and keep connecting with people and ideas well beyond our immediate orbit.
"It’s emphatically not a criticism to observe that most leaders are spending most of their time looking into their organisations."
And third, of course, you are being asked to look up and lead in a time of pervasive mistrust in leaders (and perhaps even in the very idea of leadership). So I think leadership is hard and I think it is particularly hard in civil society right now. Of course that could be taken simply to depress you, I don’t mean it to at all. Quite the opposite in fact, because at a time of complexity, your leadership is going to count more than ever. I don’t think that the grand challenges and great opportunities of this ‘now-not-so-new’ century can be met by state or market without society in its organised form playing the pivotal part. And so if I look out and see storm clouds, I also think there really is always a golden sky at the end of the storm. I look out and see too much love and conviction and brilliance in our sector to be anything other than hopeful.
The second thing I wanted to address is something about this cartoon, because I think it contains an awful lot - or more specifically, three interrelated ideas about leadership. Namely that:
Leadership is a fundamentally collective and communal act. It isn’t about autonomous individuals.
An awful lot of good leadership isn’t about what is immediately visible, nor about the big and the heroic final act, but rather centred upon the quiet and the daily and all the ground-work that goes into building great things.
That no leader knows where their influence ends - the effect of your leadership is incalculably diffusive. It travels further and influences more than you can possibly imagine.
We are used, I think, to framing leadership as the work of individuals. Our narratives are cast by reference to individual leaders. Yet I wonder if we can be too ready to keep our conception of leadership as an individual act. We hear a lot about authentic leadership just now, which I absolutely think is a good thing. Yet I also wonder whether inadvertently the grail of authenticity, coupled with the call for leaders to show some personal vulnerability, and our desire to know our leaders on more human terms, can lead us to focus too much on individual personalities at the expense of exploring the collective ideas and endeavours of leadership. Indeed, I was asked to share something of my story. On Clore Social’s Emerging Leader Programme, you have done much work these past six months on your self-awareness and develop your personal learning journey, all the while, I hope, encouraged to practice self-care.
None of this is bad, please don’t misunderstand me. We all need to work from the inside out. And authenticity, self-awareness, self-care are all good things. It’s just that I think great leadership also pays homage to some older-fashioned ideas too - ideas of service and duty and selflessness, that perhaps we hear and read less about.
Because the collective is in some ways counter cultural and here I am very grateful to the ideas of a brilliant coach and thinker with whom I have had the privilege of working, called Douglas Board (@BoardWryter). Douglas notes, and I quote, that from the moment we step into our first places of learning, we are asked to write down and call out our own names. We get report cards telling us what we have accomplished on our own. Later when we submit longer pieces of writing, we have to sign our solemn promise that this is all my own work. This is absurd. Nothing is all our own work – how can it possibly be? We are inextricably linked - all part of a shared space and culture and it is in this reality that we lead.
"From the moment we step into our first places of learning, we are asked to write down and call out our own names." Douglas Board
We need to move from the idea that leadership springs simply from individual brilliance. As Douglas Board suggests, we would do well to move from Descartes’s ‘I think therefore I am’ to the South African idea of Ubuntu - ‘I am because you are’, as both a more honest, and a richer starting point. Because the great paradox of leadership of course is that it is both everything and nothing about us.
From this flows the thought that a lot of great leadership is found in continual attention to what we might think of as the small stuff, not even perhaps in leadership so much as good management. Of course, strategy, insight, judgement and personifying the brand - what we might think of as the analytical and externalising skillsets - matter enormously. Yet if leadership is at root about helping other people be the best they can be, we need to pay continual attention to another set of worker-bee traits: to the structures we build and habitual behaviours we exhibit.
Does everyone in your organisation, department or team have regular one-to-ones that focus on feelings and learning and happiness as much as on delivering and being accountable? Do team meetings start on time, do they and have a rich and varied agenda, are actions written up and shared promptly? Are budgets devolved as far as they possibly can be? Are your planning processes set up so that everyone plays their part in thinking about tomorrow? Do you say goodbye at the end of every day?
I wonder if we can all be guilty at times of being leadership snobs, looking to leadership and strategy over the heads of operations and management. Indeed, when we get promoted it’s often framed as moving beyond operations, yet the longer I spend in work, the more I think it’s in the day-to-day and the prosaic, in the long littleness of organisational life, in the consistent application of care, that great leaders make things tick and people want to come into work.
This leads to the last part of my ramblings on this cartoon, which is that our actions and our ideas and our actions as leaders reach far beyond us. Like Mrs Beaver here, what we think and do, how we behave and relate, has enormous consequences for those around us.
We are all near-obsessed about contagion right now. Nothing transmits more than leadership, for good or ill, energy is infectious and the effect of your being as a leader is incalculably diffusive.
It really matters.
"Nothing transmits more than leadership, for good or ill energy is infectious."
--
Nick Wilkie has been Chief Executive of the National Childbirth Trust and London Youth, Director of UK Programmes at Save the Children and head of sustainable funding at NCVO. He has also served on the boards of a number of charitable and public institutions, and as a policy advisor to Cabinet Office and HM Treasury. Now his time is spent mainly with his three young children, whilst supporting a small number of charities as a trustee and as an associate at the Centre for Charity Effectiveness at Cass Business School.
Tags:
casestudy
challenges
charitysector
community
event
future
governance
politics
speech
trust
Permalink
| Comments (0)
|
|
|
Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
04 July 2019
Updated: 23 October 2020
|
Carrie Cuno, Clore Social Leadership’s Development Manager, on how investing in a place-based approach to leadership could reinvigorate communities across the UK.
As the world becomes ever more globalised and interdependent, government responses to the rapidly changing economic, social, and environmental conditions arguably are failing the majority of constituents, especially here in the UK. A common response is to call for ‘stronger’ leadership, but with little understanding of what that looks like, or of the abilities needed to drive social change. There is an urgent need to rethink conventional notions of leadership, and one answer could be a community - or place-based approach to leadership that allows for more inclusive forms of governance and social activism.
Community leadership can be based on common place, purpose or experience, and is increasingly recognised as a driver of social change. It operates within the boundaries of the group it serves, representing an interactive, reciprocal form of leadership rather than a fixed hierarchy. And place-based leadership welcomes and supports people from all different backgrounds to build change together, creating vital networks that can then provide opportunities for collaborative working, creative thinking, and peer support - all of which are crucial to building a dynamic and thriving society.
Because communities are based on shared experiences and connections, this kind of leadership is less hierarchical than its traditional, top-down counterpart. Community leaders operate everywhere in society, from a housing estate playground to the VCSE sector to the local authority; so, crucially, place-based leadership must be multi-level rather than restricted to those in positions of authority. This approach allows leaders to disrupt traditional power structures, creating space for new and innovative ways of thinking.
"Place-based leadership must be multi-level rather than restricted to those in positions of authority."
So how do we support community leaders? We build inclusive spaces where people can focus on personal development and relationship-forming--vital skills that will help them understand and participate in decision-making processes. We invest in leadership development programmes that cater to all community members instead of restricting leadership to those at executive or managerial levels. Most importantly, we challenge traditional notions of leadership, framing it in such a way as to provide social legitimation to community leaders who drive change rather than safeguard the status quo.
This was the approach taken with Clore Social Leadership’s place-based leadership development programme that ran across Hull and East Yorkshire last year. HEY100 offered leadership development and training to more than 100 social leaders at different levels across the community. The programme worked across traditional silos and brought together leaders from charities, social enterprises, community businesses and arts/cultural organisations. The interim findings recently released show that a place-based programme can build a sense of purpose across a city or region, galvanizing leaders around shared goals.
Making a commitment to develop leadership capacity and capability across communities can have an impact far wider than local social sectors. An active and engaged citizenry is key to holding our local, regional, and national governments accountable and ensuring officials act in the best interests of our communities. Underpinning all of Clore Social’s work is the belief that leadership is a set of skills and behaviours that anyone can develop. Redefining it as such drastically lowers the barrier to civic participation, amplifying the voices of community members whilst increasing the government’s receptivity to hearing those voices.
"An active and engaged citizenry is key to holding our local, regional, and national governments accountable..."
Leadership, and especially community leadership, is not a static concept; but mutual trust, shared vision, and collaborative planning are critical. Only by empowering all our leaders, strengthening the relationships that underpin a place, and making space for the personal growth that allows those relationships to flourish can we ensure that our towns and cities are able to face the challenges of the 21st century and beyond.
Tags:
authority
challenges
change
collaboration
community
diversity
placebased
skills
socialsector
Permalink
| Comments (0)
|
|
Blog Home
All Blogs
RSS