CISL Leadership Lab
Last week I had the privilege of delivering CISL’s latest Leadership Lab at Madingley Hall. It’s my fourth Leadership Lab but the first time I’ve properly paused to reflect on why the Lab means so much to me - encouraged by contributor Alex Robinson’s mantra ‘writing is thinking’.
I was struck by a feeling of real joy and gratitude at being able to bring outstanding individuals together, the integrity and partnership of colleagues whose aim is to engender the highest positive impact, and the passion, purpose and deep desire of the contributors who share their expertise. The Lab allows me to live my purpose in supporting others to build the capability, confidence, courage and commitment to lead transformational change. It becomes a ‘leadership sandpit’ for all involved to explore their role in leading change.
Why is this sandpit important?
We need courageous leadership. There’s an intensity in a 2-day open programme that supports people to think more boldly – there’s the commitment and focus of people in the room and a packed schedule but also spaciousness for learning, unlearning and relearning.
We need collaborative leadership to enable us to get outside our own echo chamber and come up with better solutions with others. Our international delegates came from business, academia, industry bodies and NGOs to share their challenges and learn from others.
We need connected leadership where we both better understand our role in systems change and increase self-awareness of the mind traps we can fall into that reduce our effectiveness.
We need creative leadership that fosters a growth mindset, re-thinking and innovation, to support us with new ways of working. We know that we can’t achieve different results by doing the same thing.
These leadership principles of connected, collaborative, creative and courageous are outlined by my co-authors Louise Drake, Gillian Secrett and I in CISL’s paper Leadership Capabilities for the 21st Century which underpinned the structure of the Lab.
Our goal was to help close the yawning gap between theory and action - underlining the vital role of leadership in bridging that divide.
We also explored with Lindsay Hooper CISL’s recent paper Survival of the Fittest: From ESG to Competitive Sustainability. (Indeed, this paper was the motivator for at least one delegate joining us).
I’m hugely grateful to the programme team, faculty, contributors and delegates who made the Lab possible.