Leadership Development
Why we think leadership development is important
Why we think exercising leadership is difficult
Why we think exercising leadership works
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Why we think leadership development is important
In SHS we are deeply interested in developing the leadership potential of people who want to make Scotland a more socially inclusive country to live in.
We believe that all citizens are entitled to be included in their local schools, communities and workplaces. This entitlement is irrespective of age, race, creed, sexual orientation, religious persuasion, income, disability or gender. To achieve this level of inclusion, they must be provided with the supports they need to both participate and contribute.
We know there are many, many people in Scotland, from different constituencies of interest, working towards the same goal. Some are paid for their contribution; others are not. Some come to this work through personal, political or religious conviction; others find themselves volunteering or working in the field for less conscious reasons. Some are born into disadvantage and potential marginalisation; others find themselves working for social change because of their daily life experience.
Many of these people are dissatisfied with the way things are now and struggling to imagine better. Some of them are veterans of service reform and systems change and battle weary; others are just at the beginning of the process of taking control over their own lives and the lives of those they love and care about.
In order to move from where we are now to where we want to be, we need better
leadership and more of it.
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Why we think exercising leadership is difficult
Exercising leadership in this environment is complex for many reasons. Here are but a few:
* Social policy is informed by our fundamental beliefs about who people are and their place and purpose in our society. Working for greater social inclusion is about confronting established, often deep-seated and sometimes fiercely defended, fears, beliefs and prejudices. It is about replacing these fears, beliefs and prejudices with a different way of seeing and understanding the world. Sometimes these beliefs are held unconsciously. This is challenging work to do.
* We are all threatened by a change to our belief system, as it requires us to question how we make sense of ourselves and what we do. Resistance to this kind of change is inevitable.
* Many people have an understandable investment in the current environment. They may have fought hard and been working with the best of intentions, over a long period of time, to create the current reality. Defensiveness is unavoidable.
* There is a lack of clarity in analysis and a scarcity of theoretical frameworks to enable people to identify the real problem they are trying to solve or to visualise what a good solution would look like. As a result, considerable amounts of energy, time and money can be invested in solutions capable of creating more problems than they solve. Cynicism and demoralisation are likely.
* The primary, but not sole, beneficiaries of change are people who, by definition, are likely to be the most vulnerable and least powerful. Their struggle is inherently personal, and their life experience embodies their cause. Exercising leadership is always personally demanding and may be even more so in this context.
* When real and meaningful inclusion is happening, there is nothing to see. This is partly because it is about the way people are with one another. It is something that is felt rather than seen. It is simultaneously powerful and fragile. Although we all know in our hearts what inclusion is, inclusion can easily be misrepresented and dishonoured as a concept. Systemically engineering inclusion requires a degree of courage, imagination, humility and belief in capacity that we infrequently witness.
* Low expectation and an impoverished vision of what is possible are unfortunately endemic in our society. People find themselves fighting for minimal change because they have been taught to abandon the hopes they would normally hold. Raising people’s expectations and enabling them to regain their hopes and aspirations is emotional and responsible work.
* People are frightened of losing what they already have and they often lack faith in any alternative. In this arena, the job of leaders is to imagine better. If leaders can’t draw the picture of what better would look like, no-one will follow them. For many of the leaders in this field, the picture of what better would look like is constantly evolving. It is a work in progress, so the leaders themselves are constantly challenging their own assumptions. This constant increase in expectation simultaneously makes the movement for change vibrant and vulnerable.
* More energy is spent on defining the differences between potentially marginalised and devalued groups than on the creation of common cause. Campaigning and support groups are often obliged to compete for restricted and transient resources. Building tolerance, mutual understanding and trust takes longer and requires a lighter touch than sowing division, fear and distrust.
* The system we are seeking to influence is fragmented and systemically incoherent. Services are organised into category specific silos - for example, separate systems run services for older people, children, people with physical or sensory impairment, people with learning difficulties, people with mental health issues, people with long term illness or medical condition, etc. Frustration and exasperation with current systems is ongoing.
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Why we think exercising leadership works
In spite of and perhaps partly because of every complexity listed about, there is enormous energy for change within the people who have an investment in things being better. Many of the people with the highest stake in making change happen are the people who currently use and rely on services. These people bring their passion for social justice and the reality of their experience. We add value to their experience, enabling it to be used as a force for positive and creative change.
We add value to people’s experience by enabling people to understand why things have been designed to be the way they are now. We explore philosophy and beliefs with people and give them the information, tools and techniques they will need to make sense of their experience. We work with people over time to assist them to question and develop their own ideas and evaluate the impact of changes they want to make.
When people have a conceptual, values based framework to understand their experience through, they can begin the work of constructing a values based model of the alternative. They develop their sense of what supports they need to live the lives they want to live. The service system, which may have previously defined the boundaries of their life, can begin to be re-engineered to be of service to the person.
We complement values based analysis and service design principles with the development of competences. Through a number of different programmes, people practice their presentation and negotiation skills. They develop their media skills. They learn to use their experience to show others how things can be different. They explore their leadership styles and potential. They learn to be teachers. They think strategically about how change can happen and how they can organise themselves to achieve the greatest impact. They learn to be conscious of the importance of their conduct. They work within existing organisations and develop new ones where necessary.
We believe that leadership is an attribute of the person, not the role. We believe that people who demonstrate leadership promise can be significantly supported to develop and fulfil their leadership potential. A full impact assessment of the outcomes achieved by these graduates is currently being undertaken and will be published by end 2003.