Leadership and Detachment

Three years ago I was a participant in a leadership development course and was asked to come up with a community project to work on during the course.  I came up with BollyGOOD.  This project was inspired by my friend Sophie Parr, she died of cancer at 24, but in the few weeks before she passed she created a blog and raised money for Macmillan Cancer Support.  

I started with this simple idea, use her love of Bollywood music to create an event that would honour her memory and ask for a minimum donation to take part.

That simple event grew into something that happens across the globe now.  I have spent the weekend contemplating how that happened and the answer was simple - Detachment !

The first time I started to organise this event, I was terrified.  I had to find a team, a venue, and people to participate, all with no budget and all within my spare time.  My friends and family thought I was mad and were often open about those thoughts !  

However, in 10 weeks we did it, we had 6 sites around the world all dancing at the same time and raised £13k for the charity. The trick to it all was to concentrate on being in the moment.  On focusing on each step rather than worrying about outcome.  Believe me this was not easy but I was lucky to have the other people on the course to keep me focused.  By having the constant reminder to be detached and to focus on just doing each task to my best ability, and being open to ANY possibilities, my team were amazing - they should incredible leadership.

The second time around, I didn't have the course participants and it was much harder to keep focused, the whole experience was more stressful and I think that impacted the team, they were just as stressed as me even though the event was wonderful.  I was also determined to make the second time around bigger than the first.  I was attached to the giddy, glorious feeling of success.  Suffice to say it wasn't bigger, it went well but it wasn't the same buzz.  

This is the 3rd event and I have had the benefit of another amazing set of volunteers.  This time I have been much more vigilant of my own stress and attachment to outcomes.  I have focused on each step and making the organisation of this event enjoyable.  So what is detachment and how does it impact leadership?

I'll give you an example:  We recently lost our sole corporate sponsor for the event.  With no budget this was a big challenge as we had to cover the costs of the audio equipment and the printing costs. Rather than panic or despair or get angry, I focused on getting new sponsors, knowing that there are opportunities everywhere, all I needed to do was to stay in the present moment.  An hour or so later, I was having a cuppa and a catch up conversation with a friend, and mentioned the challenge in passing.  She came up with an idea of asking an audio/visual company that supply many of the events she has organised in the past.  Within an hour they had agreed to supply us for free ! in the next 20mins we had another amazing company supplying the funds for the printing....

By staying detached I opened the space for others to show true leadership - I essentially got out of their way and let them do their thing!

Allowing others to be their best is leadership at its best.  I have learnt that being a leader means BEING rather than DOING, and being detached, i.e. letting go of how and what will happen whilst still being committed that it will be amazing is the key.

So this year we had more events and we were shortlisted for a National Diversity Award and our success has gone from strength to strength.  Watching the faces of the volunteers as their event came together and being totally present to the joy that the amazing performers created through their choreography helped me see that true leadership is in every little moment.