On Eco-Leadership, learning, and unlearning

I recently completed a Diploma in Analytic Network Coaching with the Eco-Leadership Institute .  

As participants on this course, we were invited to journey, explore, and learn in community, via a non-linear, iterative, and highly connected series of conversations, readings, and writings, which have existed both inside and outside of the taught programme components. The modeling of an eco-systemic approach to learning and development was an important and informative part of the last months for me and I have been surprised – and gratified - by how the weaving and composting has enabled ideas to grow and connect in ways which feel organic, natural, and uncontrived – and all the more valuable as a consequence. I’m sharing some of my reflections on the course, and to invite comment and conversation about how ‘eco-leadership’ can support some of the important transformations in the “aid” sector and beyond...  

The programme started with Depth Analysis, and how meaningful human connection, across our different experiences of humanity, is a critical component of leading and succeeding in the world. My identity and work as a feminist leader situate curiosity and self-awareness as core values, and I experienced the depth analysis as a frame which elevates my desire to know people “in depth”, to understand what’s informing their positions and attitudes and to invite conversation from the “whole self” perspective.  I am struck by the ways in which a desire to question normative discourses, to “look awry” and to use this to work with intention to avoid manifesting or replicating norms – in favour of something more generative – was made possible, perhaps best summarized by the invitation: “To be troubled, to create trouble and to ‘stay with the trouble’”. I relate this to the importance of defending and exploring the counter cultural – particularly in the face of the tyrannies of time; of positivity; and of ‘progress’ as valued by modernity..  

On Relational Analysis: people are co-created through their relationships. Age is equipping me with an emerging ability to know my own scripts and to be able to determine “what’s my stuff, and what is theirs’”. My challenges and lack in this area remain important: my relationship with “power” continues to trigger old scripts for me and I am practicing connecting with (positional or projected) power. An important area of development remains in building my own confidence to work through the transference/projections – not absorb others’ versions of me into myself (while staying open to learning and feedback).  For the humanitarian sector, my learning here related primarily to the risks of “Duty of Care” resulting in the instrumentalization of care for the achievement of a ‘superordinate goal’ – rather than for valuing care in relationships just because.  

 Leadership Analysis provided the frame where I feel most ‘at home’. (Eco)-Leadership discourse is central to “transformation” as outlined in Pledge for Change and multiple other commitments in the humanitarian and development sectors – and I am grateful to have found this articulation of a different way of working, being, and leading which I know to be essential to creating new paradigms. I am struck by the ways in which controller, therapist and messiah leadership show up across the sector, and by the criticality, everywhere, but perhaps particularly in crises, of bringing eco-leadership practices which are conscious of the ethical use of power, resources, and influence.   

In the exploration of the “meta-discourse” in the Eco-System Analysis frame, I was struck by the many ways in which the humanitarian system is trying to develop a new way, and to ‘shift power’. We are at an inflection point where the counter-cultural and emergent is gathering momentum and where resistance and push back is growing; personally, organisationally, sectorally and systemically . The discomfort of the in-between times, the third horizon, have been expressed beautifully – and differently – by writers across time and cultures and geographies, and I find myself reflecting on the similarities – and differences between these two quotes:  

"The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear” Antonio Gramsci.  

 “Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing” – Arundhati Roy. 

 And so, finally, to Strategic Analysis, which – in my view – seeks to answer another gift of a question: “What is the liberated response?” And this one from a colleague on the course: “How is the system affecting you/us, and how are you/we affecting the system?”.  

My personal development strategy and emerging work strategy are intimately connected. In the last six months I have made many of the shifts which the sector is advocating for: moving from International to Local; from a position of high status in an unfair and unequal hierarchy (with associated benefits and compensation) to a role relying on influencing, catalyzing and connecting; from a VP job title working across six countries, to a team of two (and – excitingly – a distributed network of tens of thousands of leaders who are not awaiting instructions…) These are exhilarating, and anxiety provoking, changes. I experience doubt and uncertainty. I know that bringing “lived” and “professional” experience into closer proximity will bring more congruence and depth to leadership in the sector – mine and others’. I’m grateful for the multiple ways in which this course has helped me to navigate these transitions and make sense of my feelings, relationships, leadership, eco-system and strategy to do so. I am excited about building, with others, a strategy that learns from and grows with this learning – and to continuing to work in community with eco-leaders on contributing to a wider change towards the good society. I hope that contributing to this ‘re-enchantment’ in the sector, through putting the human back into humanitarian, will help.  

I would love to know what you think? Please let me know if you’d like to talk about any of these ideas.