Lamese Waterfield, who completed our Open Programme earlier this year, sheds light on some of the areas the programme covers and the results and effects that she is now seeing.
Self Authentic leadership is about having a deep sense of self, knowing your strengths but also your weaknesses. The programme starts the journey of greater self-awareness and purpose, to be able to lead from the heart.
I now more clearly see the value I bring to my role and projects and I
am more confident about injecting my values within my role and organisation. I
am speaking up with more courage, clarity, self-belief and ownership.
Other From active listening to deep listening we were given tools and techniques to develop our presence. We practiced the different levels of listening to help deepen interactions in meetings, work, projects and relationships.
Learning how to fully listen has helped me manage meetings better and develop more impactful relationships at work.
Whole How do we fit into the various systems within which we operate? What’s in our control in the work we do and what role can we play to create change? The programme gave us the opportunity to explore our beliefs and assumptions connected to the systems we operate in and together, we created new possibilities for ourselves, our organisations and our communities.
I have a better sense of when to step in and when not to, a more holistic understanding of all moving parts and where my role sits. Clarity about how I work in the system has helped me start to crack impostor syndrome!
Resilience Resilience is a vital in the workplace and our personal lives. On the three-month journey we explored and unpicked resilience to build clarity on boundaries, accountability and developing your voice.
I met a former colleague recently and we spoke in-depth about resilience because we both suffered under the same manager. She asked how I felt about that time now and I simply said: “I will never allow anyone to treat me that way again and let it go on for so long but I also take responsibility because I allowed it to happen and that’s something I won’t do again either.”
Vulnerability Allowing yourself to be vulnerable creates space for growth. Brené Brown speaks of vulnerability and leadership – the courage to step up in uncertain times and being fully exposed to the discomfort of possible failure. The programme provides a safe space with like-minded women to explore the power of vulnerability.
Theory U has stuck with me and I use it my personal and professional life – the process of letting go (of our old ego and self) and letting-come (our highest future possibility) was very powerful and I am still working with that inner place of stillness where knowing comes to the surface.
And above all else I met the most inspiring group of women – we are there to support each other, leading change together.
Jacqueline Lim, our partnerships lead, on why we need to focus on collective impact for health and wellbeing.
Health and wellbeing have been dominating the headlines. Mental health in the workplace and across wider society, the crisis around air pollution in our cities, and the devastating effects of malnutrition in regions troubled by changing climates and intensive farming are just a few of the issues we face.
“Good health and wellbeing” is the third of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and is ambitious in its goal to: “ensure healthy lives and promote wellbeing for all at all ages”.
Achieving SDG 3 requires us to take a connected, systems approach as:
Health is both symptom and cause: Many factors – from the air we breathe, the food we eat, our work environments, loneliness, even stress induced by the climate emergency – affect our health. And health in turn affects all spheres of life – our ability to access education, our livelihoods, etc.
Health and wellbeing is mutually reinforced across nested systems: From individuals, families, communities, businesses, economies to our biosphere, positive (and negative) actions have a reinforcing ripple effect on other systems.
The potential for connected impact across varied organisations is huge: Health and wellbeing is no longer just the domain of health organisations like the WHO, the NHS, or medical companies on the frontline. Diverse organisations across sectors too are all part of the wider health and wellbeing ecosystem. There is potential for connected impact at the level of employees and others across supply chains, customers and other service users, as well as citizens in both urban and rural settings.
It also requires a collective approach to creating impact. Leaders need to “look above the parapet” of their domain expertise, their department, their organisation – even their industry and sector. They also need to make sense of complexity from others’ perspectives. They need to imagine new possibilities and co-create an emergent future with others.
As Nesta put it at Nesta Health 2019 – The Future of People Powered Health: Reimagining Leadership:
“… It’s time to reimagine leadership in health. With the growing complex challenges we now face in health and care, top-down approaches to leadership are not enough. In fact, they are holding us back. We must be bold and innovative to expand our approach to leadership. We need to champion approaches that empower people to lead during times of uncertainty and to create a shared purpose.We need to embrace leaders from different vantage points, and approaches that bridge organisational boundaries.”
Fundamentally, we need leaders who are able to bring their real, authentic, best selves – able to step up and take responsibility for the change they wish to see – and not be limited by self-imposed barriers. This is at the core of our Open Programme at She Leads Change.
In November 2019, our Collective Impact Programme will launch with the goal of deepening impact in specific thematic areas – health and wellbeing being the first. We will expand the programme focus on the “ways of being” and include the exploration of new “ways of doing”. The programme aims to develop capacities for connected, system-focused and collective leadership.
Participants will be asked to bring on board the programme a personal challenge and a professional challenge – the latter related to the theme of health and wellbeing. Following the 6-month programme, they will leave with an action plan that they can take forward as well as a whole community of other changemakers working alongside them.
An invitation to partner with us
She Leads Change is looking for other partners to join the likes of Pearson and others whose employees will be part of the first cohort of the Collective Impact programme working together and modelling the collective leadership required to create deeper, more sustained impact, in health and wellbeing.
We are also looking for individuals and organisations who would like to support us in this journey.
If you would like to get involved, in the programme, or have ideas for future impact themes we should work on, let’s have a conversation! Get in touch with Jacqueline Lim.
Our SLC community fairly bursts at the seams with leaders, dreamers, visionaries and pioneers, developing, transforming and leading individuals, teams, businesses and society – all with the heart to creating a positive legacy for our future generations.
One of our current participants has shared a request from Arise – they are looking for ‘ordinary, extraordinary’ speakers – everyday people who are trailblazing change, often quietly and without fanfare and who would not necessarily describe themselves as trailblazers to share at their upcoming conference in London…
Their focus is “on the empowerment of women as leaders and we totally welcome and are inclusive of men as speakers and attendees at this event.”
If you would never normally do this, maybe today is your day! Arise encourage you to step up and join as a speaker – it’s a massive confidence boost and a great experience. We’d love to see some of our SLC community stepping up and into the speaking arena – you lead change every day and your experience will empower others to do the same!
I was invited by Rhys Marc Photis, leader of the strategy module, to introduce Pearson MBM students to She Leads Change, and to work with them on a topic relating to the self: I chose resilience.
She Leads Change was created on the premise: to lead positive change we need to first find and be our most powerful, authentic selves. Self and resilience are two concepts at the heart of our programmes. We work alongside our Open Programme participants on self – helping them open up the narratives, misperceptions or limitations we carry, alongside the strengths and capabilities we hold back. Our session on resilience, co-created by participants and facilitators, encourages participants to have the courage to live fully through being able to handle failure and related emotions of shame, vulnerability, hope, compassion and grief.
” Having looked at “Graves Value system” as part of the current module and how personality types can affect the way a team and company operates, it was good to reflect on how resilient I am as a leader. Shalini helped me to realise that having the power and confidence to know when to stop and say no is vital in effective leadership and enables me to be resilient in my everyday work.” — Matthew Evans, Senior Standards Manager at Pearson
With the students from the MA in Business & Management, I ran a session on resilience working on personal stories through an exercise of deep listening in pairs. Having got students to think deeply about their own resilience – the situation, their actions, what they learnt about themselves – we moved on to consider how knowledge of resilience qualities can help better us understand drivers and motivations and build deeper awareness of organisational styles.
She
Leads Change was given as an example of a group orientated leadership and
organisational style where individuals are motivated by collaboration, sharing
responsibility and putting the team first.
Quite different from some of the other leadership styles in evidence all
around us.
“It was a very insightful session to have Shalini in the programme. It showed me and others how important it is to be true to ourselves. The more authentic we are, the more resilient will be in this slightly mad world.” — Rhys Marc Photis, Head of Contemporary Strategy, MBM at Pearson
It was a wonderful opportunity to share some of the She Leads Change approach with business students and to co-create the session with Rhys as part of the Strategy module he leads on.
Shalini Sequeira is a facilitator on the She Leads Change Open Programme, and also a coach for She Leads Change. Outside She Leads Change she is an executive coach, working with talented BAME professionals to support them into leadership.
Our next Open Programme starts on 30th September, more information and sign-up here.
