Rethinking Leadership for a Brighter Future

Recent events highlight the need for rethinking and re-configuring the systems that provide society with 'functional ability', which sparks the opportunity for a new type of leadership.

This becomes evident as we navigate through a set of global crises (i.e. unsustainable practices, global warming, COVID-19, and war). Specifically for the UK, continuous strikes in the transport and healthcare systems, unsuitable and unaffordable housing, disruption to services and a seemingly unstoppable rise in the cost of living. Alvesson (2020) writes about the need to challenge current leadership models, where 'talk, decisions, and action are decoupled' after a historical analysis of their evolution. 

I arrived in the UK at the end of 2019 to develop a set of timber frame kit homes to age in place as part of a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) between Norscot Joinery and Teesside University. As my project developed, I was made aware of the Housing Learning and Improvement Network (LIN), as the best practices they published, including the HAPPI and TAPPI principles, became part of the framework of my project.

During the final year of my journey to validate and refine the WellBe homes (opens new window), I started questioning myself regarding my plans for the future. By serendipity, I read the Housing LIN Future Leaders’ Programme call, which immediately caught my attention; the aim was to 'learn through the lived experience of a selection of industry leaders about what/who inspired or influenced them and what qualities they looked out for to enable them to then develop their own leadership styles and credentials'. So I decided to apply.

By early December 2021, I received an email from Jeremy Porteus, notifying acceptance to the programme and later received the full plan for it with sessions to make 2022 even more exciting.

By January, we had an inception meeting where the cohort delegates introduced ourselves, and then there was a series of online sessions, in which leaders with a career in the housing sector or related to it shared their personal and professional paths and stories of discovery and resilience. The group of people we were able to meet during the Future Leaders Programme was incredible; they were very open and had a diverse portfolio of experiences that resonated with all of us in the cohort. We were lucky to be introduced to and listen first-hand from Caroline Bernard (Head of Influence at Respect), Ella Moonan-Howard (Senior Innovator at Alzheimer's Society), Francesca Lewis (Associate Architect at Stride Treglown), Dan Lyus (Director of Partnerships at South West Academic Health Science Network), Sarah Mitton (Age Friendly Programme Manager at Clarion Futures), Maxine Epsley MBE (Executive Director of Care and Support at Green Square Accord) and Jeremy Porteus CEO of the Housing LIN).

Almost simultaneously with this programme, Rama Gheerawo (opens new window) (Director of the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design published his book 'Creative Leadership', which I considered a necessary companion to my journey, so I would like to summarise the learnings from the programme sessions as I believe are aligned to some insights from Rama's book:

1. "Leadership belongs to you. It's not an alien to you. Challenge it. Change it. Embrace it." (p. 17)

In Rama's book, he refers to creating opportunities for leaders that don't usually think of themselves as leaders (i.e. people who want to improve things and processes and challenge the status quo but rarely have the chance to lead). This resonated with the discussion of one of the programme's sessions when it was mentioned that sometimes characteristics of our environments might seem to push us out. For example, representing a minority group can be intimidating and challenging. A great piece of advice provided was: 'Get on with it', trusting one's experience to move forward in complex environment can be the key to thrive and develop our own leadership style.

2. "We will all shine brighter if leadership becomes a little more self-reflective, introverted and conscious" (p.28)

This quote is very important, as the opposite (i.e. networking) is frequently associated with leadership and growth. However, a key point of the conversation with the network panellists, was finding a healthy balance between listening, sharing and building a network, and switching everything off to better visualise complex problems and potential solutions.

3. "Caring for people is a strength, not a weakness" (p.76)

One of the topics of conversation during our sessions was the need to reposition empathy, compassion and caring as key leadership features. So this recommendation is one of the key outputs I think applies to professionals working in the built environment and care provision, as well as any other: Make sure to include caring for people on a personal mission/vision level and make it the base to start any creative process, so this will permeate to other parts of our organisations. 

4. "Leadership is not perfection – it is a process." (p. 124)

As young professionals, professionals discovering a new career path, or excursionists potentially exploring new fields, I consider it very important to embrace this final point. Panelists shared that leadership is a process of growth and change, testing our ideas and evaluating results for improvement as an iterative process.

In summary, these four points capture some of the experiences of the leaders that took the time to share their knowledge with our Future Leaders cohort. I adopted these as tools, especially when my project finished and I had to take a career decision.

I feel privileged to have had this opportunity to learn about the real-life experiences of seven amazing individuals with inspiring stories about how they used their leadership to create change, build resilience and positively impact other people's lives.

I also want to highlight that having the opportunity to interact and learn from my fellow cohort members was very enriching. When we met, I realised we had very different backgrounds but shared a vision. During the programme, we had the opportunity to share and explore our own concerns, experiences and hopes, especially during the in-person session. It has been great to follow their career growth across the duration of the programme, and I'm looking forward to continuing to follow their steps as I'm sure they are (and will be) great leaders creating positive change in the housing and care sector.

I want to conclude by thanking the Housing LIN for this space for our cohort to explore and define what leadership is to us, as well as for providing a series of sources of inspiration to continue believing and working towards making the world a better place.

References:

• Alvesson, M. (2020) Upbeat leadership: A recipe for – or against – "successful" leadership studies. The leadership Quarterly. Vol. 31 Issue 6.
• Gheerawo, R. (2022) Creative Leadership: Born from Design. Lund Humphries: London. ISBN: 9781848225107

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Carla’s blog is one of 7 from the 2nd cohort of the Housing LIN’s Future Leaders’ Programme that we are publishing in the lead up to our virtual Summit – A Festival of Ideas and the virtual session on Tuesday, 28 February 2023 (2.30-4pm). Register now for Inspiring young talent: investing in our future housing and care leaders

Find out more about Housing LIN’s Future Leaders’ Programme and read the other blogs once published.