Putting relationships first: leadership
The topic discussed was: the qualities of leadership that build strong relationships and how to promote them. The opening speakers were Nick Sinclair, who told us about what he had learnt from the New Social Leaders programme he is running at Community Catalysts, and Sophie Kendall from the Oxford Hub who has taken part in that programme.
Key points from the speakers and in the subsequent discussion included:
We are still in ‘the thick of’ the pandemic, even though we appear to have gone back to normal, and this is still a moment in which relational skills are most important. The greater use of online meetings has been a leveller and opened up new possibilities, as well as reducing physical connection.
We can all be leaders, not just managers, and need to find our own style, not be constrained by cultural norms around leadership.
To be a good leader you need to be able to build good relationships. The qualities most prized in other leaders in Community Catalyst’s New Social Leaders programme include warmth, selflessness, honesty, kindness, openness, passion, determination, and the ability to build and inspire trust.
These kinds of empathetic leaders find the courage to ‘be themselves’, discover strength in their own vulnerability, step out of the way and create space for the new to emerge, rather than trying to specify outcomes in advance. They realise power in others and use this for good.
Command and control leadership and hierarchies can undermine these qualities – the difference between the centralised NHS Volunteer scheme, which didn’t work, and neighbours helping out neighbours during Covid, which did.
This kind of leadership is not just about qualities but also about behaviours and refining new tools – listening, creating new kinds of spaces, getting out of people’s way, sharing and giving up power.
We need to challenge existing cultural norms of leadership by creating a new idea of what leadership is for – leaders as ‘community builders’ who create communities of interest, practice and place and build community inside as well as outside organisations; and we need to explain why this is more likely to create value than command and control and new public management.
After the meeting, James Dixon wrote this blog about leadership styles.