Last Friday morning, a small group of us gathered online for the second of our She Leads Change taster sessions: “Working the system you’re in”.
We started with a picture. A fish, the water it swims in, the bowl that holds the water, and whatever lies beyond the bowl. It’s a simple image, but it does a lot of work. So much of how we lead is shaped by the water around us: the expectations, the habits, the unspoken rules of the places we work and live. And because we swim in it every day, it is very easy not to see it at all.
Donella Meadows, who spent her life thinking about systems, describes a system as “an interconnected set of elements, coherently organised, to achieve something”. I find that comforting. If a system is organised, it can be understood. And if it can be understood, it can be influenced.
What have you picked up along the way?
The question that stayed with us most came from Neha, one of our co-facilitators: what have you internalised from the systems you operate in, and what is genuinely yours?
As we talked, a pattern emerged. Many of us had quietly taken on jobs nobody had asked us to do. Smoothing the friction where teams or systems overlap. Holding things together at home and at work. Keeping things running simply so that they keep running.
That last one was mine. I noticed how much of my energy goes into maintaining things, without stopping to ask whether they still serve what I care about.
Systems are people too
Someone else noticed something I keep coming back to. We often think of systems as structures: rules, processes, reporting lines. But systems are also people and relationships. Which means that when something feels stuck, there is usually someone to talk to.
That shift matters. A structure can feel immovable. A relationship is something you can do something with.
Where is your influence?
In small groups, we each looked for one place of influence and one small next step. Sometimes the step was starting something new. Just as often, it was stopping something. A conversation in place of a complaint. Reconnecting with why we do what we do. Leaving a little more space between commitments.
None of these are grand gestures. But they are the kind of small, deliberate moves that change how a system feels from the inside.
We watched Marge Piercy’s poem “The Low Road”, which turns on a line that feels like the heart of this work: “It starts when you say we.”
Why this matters
This is the kind of thinking at the centre of Leading From Within, our seven-session programme for women leaders. It isn’t about learning to fit more neatly into the systems we are in. It’s about seeing them clearly, knowing what is yours to carry, and finding where you can make a difference, alongside other women doing the same.
Our next cohort begins on 3 November.
If you’d like a taste first, join us for one of our last two free taster sessions:
- Tuesday 13 October, 18:00: Asking the right questions
- Wednesday 21 October, 12:00: Finding joy as a leader
You can book at https://portal.sheleadschange.org/events/slctaster26
And if you’d like to explore the ideas behind the session, these resources informed our thinking:
- Donella Meadows, Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System
- The multi-level perspective, developed by Frank Geels
- The Three Horizons model, developed by Bill Sharpe at the International Futures Forum
What is one thing you’ve been carrying that might not be yours?