An Atlantic Institute Report
Dr. Wilneida Negrón
BEING / SEEN
BEING / SEEN
How Changemakers Can Navigate Their Past and Present and Together Build Collective Futures
About the Author
Dr. Wilneida Negrón is a 2019 Global Atlantic Fellow for Racial Equity. An Atlantic Institute Leader-in-Residence (2022-2023), she focused on new models of leadership for global changemakers. She began her career as a therapist and social worker in the juvenile justice system, and now devotes her life to exploring new ways of bridging across differences, beliefs, disciplines, issue areas and sectors. She also works with communities, workers, policymakers and the private sector on innovating new programs, processes and institutions that can uphold human dignity and agency in the innovation economy. She has a Ph.D. in comparative politics, a master’s degree in international relations and a master’s degree in public administration.
Copyright 2023
Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1: Toward a New Leadership Trajectory
Chapter 2: A Global Network of Changemakers
Chapter 3: Uniquely Global, Multidisciplinary and Equity-Focused Community
Chapter 4: Introduction to the Pressure Point Mapping Framework
Chapter 5: Looking Into the Fast-Approaching Future
Appendix 1: Survey/Interview Tool
Introduction
Leadership development pedagogy often focuses on skills or professional development, omitting something essential — our shared humanity — even in organizations committed to the ideal that every human needs to be seen, heard and given the opportunity to live a life of hope, freedom and equity. Valuing our universal human experience is particularly important in an increasingly complex world where much of our day-to-day existence and interaction is mediated through technology. Factoring the human experience into support of leaders could unleash greater capacity for continued adaptation, variation and ingenuity. Despite persistent structural challenges and rapid technological change, this report describes the skills we need most in order to authentically find, see and support each other toward the goal of social change and transformation.
The challenges of deeply structural and systemic inequities (e.g., socioeconomic, health), racism and anti-blackness are not only increasing in urgency, but also becoming increasingly complex in an era of political and socio economic instability and technological change. These challenges may appear to be intractable and insurmountable, but we can overcome them if we adopt new ways of being and work together across fields, disciplines, issues, regions and strategies.
The challenges and the opportunities can be seen in the stories of changemakers: individuals taking action to solve problems in their communities and/or the world at large. Around the world, aspiring changemakers embark on what is often a long and solitary journey to realize their potential and undertake action to challenge and/or resolve a problem. The journey from that self-actualization to action puts them in direct contact with deeply entrenched systems, structures and processes — and also with the realities and vulnerabilities inherent in people’s lives. With them on these journeys, are changemakers’ own inherent beauty, individuality, complexity and imperfections.
Changemakers sometimes traverse systematized pathways and trajectories to bring about social change. While few changemakers receive recognition or support for their efforts, some do. A small percentage are invited or selected to participate in exclusive professional and leadership development programs that include fellowships, awards or residencies and may increase the odds of success for other grant opportunities — much like the Global Atlantic Fellows community. In addition to providing opportunities for collaboration and networking, these professional spaces also support changemakers and help to sustain their work.
It is also in these spaces that every day changemakers encounter the language and pedagogy of leadership. Prescriptive efforts are offered as a service to changemakers, intended to deepen the analytical and impact tools of changemakers to help amplify and deepen their impact. Yet in my conversations with more than seven dozen changemakers worldwide who are part of the Global Atlantic Fellows community, most rejected (to varying degrees) the language and pedagogy of leadership frameworks and theories that are so often imposed on them. Instead, based on journeys both imperfect and unexpected, many of these Global Atlantic Fellows expressed a real hunger to deconstruct professional facades and embrace the personal, relational and social transformations
that embody so much of the daily life of a changemaker, along with the juggling of hopes, dreams and fears.
What I heard, in essence, was the desire to be seen more as fellow humans than as leaders. A similar sentiment surfaced in “The Catalyst’s Way,” a report by Chellie Spiller, a New Zealand professor at the University of Waikato Management School, who wrote of her experience in interviewing changemakers for the Atlantic Institute:
“Leadership in this space is a tricky, complicated term. Many catalysts see themselves as contributors, facilitators and collaborators — not as ‘leaders.’ They especially resist notions of leaders as exceptional with positional, hierarchical and authoritative privileges and reject command and control approaches.”1
My conclusion on how to best support changemakers is to first center their humanity. Doing so centers the complexity of the human experience of being a changemaker. It also increases the transparency of the challenges associated with juggling the personal, professional, moral, and ethical challenges and struggles of most changemakers. By centering Fellows in their full life journey, adult learning theory demonstrates how this can enable a greater exploration of the multiplicity of experiences, ideas, approaches, solutions as well as greater reflective and adaptive practices toward shared goals.
This conclusion is based on surveys and interviews with 85 Global Atlantic Fellows following completion of one of the seven Atlantic Fellows programs and their ongoing work as members of a lifelong community. From these interviews, navigating complexity was the most dominant theme. The types of complexity discussed include leadership and organizational/systemic complexity, with an emphasis on physical and emotional demands. Meanwhile, their leadership work calls on them to continue focusing on dominant physical and mental traits. This is despite the fact that the more emotional- and interpersonal-driven characteristics are actually what most Global Atlantic Fellows admire in other leaders and themselves.
The latter insight emerges from my analysis of these survey/interview responses and draws on some of the findings of Spiller’s report. This paper presents a framework for identifying central intersectional pressure points (e.g., personal, relational and social transformations) that many changemakers grapple with on their journeys. This tool and my analysis can help guide changemaker support and community-building efforts.
Each chapter of the report begins with a short, mostly fictional account that is a mix of stories, ideas and quotes from the surveys and interviews. I chose this approach of storytelling across regions, issue areas, fellowship programs and strategies for several reasons. First, I wanted to complement the work of the storytellers featured in the “The Catalyst Way” report by identifying and highlighting some universal themes in fictional storytelling prose. Second, given that topics of discomfort and tension often surfaced, I wanted to ensure confidentiality to the Fellows who participated in the survey/interviews. Third, while every fellowship program is unique (e.g., in recruitment, leadership development training and pedagogy and the experiences and support offered), the aim was to understand the Global Atlantic Fellows community as a whole and explore areas of commonality. Finally, throughout the report, the term “changemakers” is interchangeable with Global Atlantic Fellows.
1 Chellie Spiller, “The Catalyst’s Way,” 4.
We have much to gain by embracing the messy and imperfect work of being changemakers. While some areas of work can be tracked and measured in leadership programs focusing on determining impact, others call for a shift in focus to the individual and navigating life. First, helping changemakers turn inward, as opposed to constantly being consumed by professional demands of external representations of self and work, we can help changemakers develop the skill of maintaining stillness and silence,2 which helps to sustain their work. Second, centering conversations and experiences around life challenges, struggles as well as hopes and dreams can help changemakers enter collaborative and networking spaces from a place of situational humility and curiosity. These two factors are essential for creating a psychological sense of safety that enables risk-taking with strangers,3 and can lead to building bridges (e.g., across fields, equity frameworks, disciplines, issues, regions and strategies) to address the critical problems of our time.
2 C. Spiller et al., “What Silence Can Teach Us About Race and Leadership,” Leadership 17, no. 1 (2021): 81–98, https://doi. org/10.1177/1742715020976003.
3 A. C. Edmondson, “How to Turn a Group of Strangers Into a Team,” Ted Talk, 2017.
CHAPTER 1 Towards a New Leadership Trajectory
He began his career as a banker in Atlanta, Georgia, and worked for large corporations. In response to seeing protests over the Dakota Access pipeline and meeting Navajo and Puebloan members during a business trip to Arizona, he became interested in learning more about the historical struggles and culture of these communities. Although he was born in the U.S., he was embarrassed that he actually knew very little about the Native American communities that play an important role in that history. On family visits later that year to several reservations in the Southwest, he found himself increasingly engrossed in their culture and stories. As a result of this experience, he grew increasingly appreciative of the rich and complex heritage of the United States. This trip was a major catalyst and he later packed up his car and traveled all over the country, connecting with a number of Native communities that deeply touched him and planted the seed that culminated a decade later. Although he had never been involved in activism or social justice work before, he wanted to see if he could put his business skills to work to advance justice and equity for these communities.
Drawing insights from traditional leadership studies
Leadership studies have provided detailed insights into the traits, values and characteristics of effective leaders. There also are a growing number of books, training programs and pedagogies devoted to teaching leadership attributes and practices to adults and children. Despite the advances of these studies from both a human development and cross-sectoral perspective (e.g., helping foster more effective leaders in management, business and social justice), the field is not without criticism. Among them is the belief that leadership studies are heavily influenced by Western thought, views and culture and are overly biased toward masculine, individualistic and heroic traits. As a result, non-Western groups feel that focusing on the individual is not helpful for understanding more collective forms of leadership. In the case of the Global Atlantic Fellows, this bias can leave little room to explore the kinds of collective organizing models required for facilitating social transformation at a societal or global level, or work where common purpose is distributed across several initiatives that have to be bridged, translated, coordinated and aligned.
Furthermore, growing evidence suggests that leadership studies do not adequately prepare leaders for navigating complexity.4 Some studies have argued that leadership should be less personality-driven and more fluid, adaptive5 and this includes being able to incorporate a mix of styles and leadership practices,6 including top-down and/or relational, distributed and collective approaches7 in response to different contexts. To this end, these more adaptive and reflexive
4 M. Uhl-Bien, “Complexity Leadership and Followership: Changed Leadership in a Changed World,” Journal of Change Management: Reframing Leadership and Organizational Practice 21, no. 2 (2021): 146–162, DOI: 10.1080/14697017.2021.1917490
5 Uhl-Bien, “Complexity Leadership and Followership.”
6 In the article, “From Leadership-as-Practice to Leaderful Practice,” J. Raelin defines leadership-as-practice as “how leadership emerges as a practice rather than residing in the traits, character or behaviors of individuals — in which traditional approaches to the study of leadership place emphasis.”
7 Viviane Sergi et al., “Saying What You Do and Doing What You Say: The Performative Dynamics of Lean Management The-
practices have been found to help facilitate the collaboration, adaptation and resilience8 needed to navigate complexity. Resilience — a skill several Atlantic Fellows programs note is important — is found to be produced by the interplay of cognitive and behavioral shifts,9 or internal disposition in responding to external experiences and events.10 Therefore, it is essential to develop and deepen these capacities for both reflection and action in the face of complex challenges, but also for strengthening the skill and practice of resilience.11
Two additional branches of leadership studies — social justice and racial equity leadership — complement this analysis on the role of critical reflection and adaptive and reflexive responses. Social justice leadership also takes a more holistic approach to understanding leaders through its identification of several dimensions critical to the praxis of this particular type of leadership: the interconnections between the personal, interpersonal, communal, systemic and ecological.12 In racial equity leadership, studies highlight the importance of leadership being the enactment of values.13 According to these studies, leadership development programs should help leaders develop approaches that enable them to challenge their own assumptions, clarify and strengthen their own values and work on aligning their own behaviors and practice with these beliefs, attitudes and philosophies.
To get insights into how to foster these capacities in an adult learning context, the body of work on transformative learning provides useful insights. Transformative learning focuses on how adult learners make sense or meaning of their experiences, the nature of the structures that influence the way they construct experience,14 the dynamics involved in modifying meanings and the way the structures of meanings themselves undergo changes when learners find them to be no longer helpful.15 Additionally, like studies looking at how leaders can better adapt to complexity, transformative learning also emphasizes focusing on the centrality of experience, critical reflection and rational discourse.16
Some relevant pedagogical strategies include:
• Completing cultural autobiographies.17
• Engaging in life history interviews.
• Writing in reflective analysis journals.
• Engaging in self-directed, experiential learning.18
ory,” Department of Management, Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia Working Paper No. 35/2013, December 2013, https://ssrn.com/abstract=2374287.
8 Lucia Crevani et al., “Changing Leadership in Changing Times II,” Journal of Change Management 21, no. 2 (2021): 133–143, DOI: 10.1080/14697017.2021.1917489.
9 A. Pangallo et al., “Resilience Through the Lens of Interactionism: A Systematic Review,” Psychological Assessment 27 (2014): 1–20, doi: 10.1037/pas0000024.
10 R. Dias et al., “Resilience of Caregivers of People with Dementia: A Systematic Review of Biological and Psychosocial Determinants,” Trends in Psychiatry and Psychotherapy 37 (2015):12–19, doi: 10.1590/2237-6089-2014-0032.
11 Dias et al., “Resilience of Caregivers of People with Dementia.”
12 G. Furman, “Social Justice Leadership as Praxis: Developing Capacities Through Preparation Programs,” Educational Administration Quarterly 48, no. 2 (2012): 191–229, https://doi.org/10.1177/0013161X11427394.
13 L. Miron, Resisting Discrimination: Affirmative Strategies for Principals and Teachers (Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press, 1996).
14 J. Mezirow, “Perspective Transformation,” Adult Education 28, no. 2 (1978): 100–110, doi: 10.1177/074171367802800202.
15 J. Habermas, Knowledge and Human Interests (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1971).
16 J. Mezirow, “Transformative Theory of Adult Learning,” in In Defense of the Lifeworld, ed. M. Welton (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1995).
17 K.M. Brown, “Leadership for Social Justice and Equity: Weaving a Transformative Framework and Pedagogy,” Educational Administration Quarterly 40, no. 1 (2004), 77–108.
18 S. Brookfield, Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Inc., 1995).
Toward a more human-centered leadership pedagogy
The theories and bodies of work on navigating complexity, social justice and racial equity leadership and transformative learning are incredibly timely and powerful, but these ideas are not new. Indigenous, Aboriginal, and Native communities have been practicing more interconnected ways of being for generations. For example, Indigenous communities have always emphasized the wholeness and interconnections of people and Earth. In “The Catalyst Way,” Spiller discusses the Māori “Tangata Whakapapa,” embracing the wholeness of people, as well as “Te tōrino haere whakamua, whakamuri,” or the journey of going forward as well as returning, which captures the process of embracing our interconnection to the present, future and past. In Indigenous American communities, these concepts have been referred to as the sacred hoop or sundance circle, and represent the never-ending circle of life.
Throughout the years, many healing groups have adapted these frameworks into what is often described as a medicine wheel. It consists of four quadrants that represent a stage of life: air, sun/fire, water, earth/physical. The circle represents the interconnectedness of all aspects of one’s being, including our connection to the natural world.
Adaptation of a Cangleska Wakan (sacred hoop), which was the first medicine wheel depicted in Native American culture.
The simplicity, wholeness, and robustness of the medicine wheel framework makes it an ideal starting point for the development of what I call the Pressure Point Forecast. This forecast is a framework for several functions. First, it can serve as a diagnostic tool to help programs gain situational awareness of how their communities and networks are doing, and inform and align program offerings to community needs. Second, it can help shift traditional leadership development support and pedagogy, by centering it around the goal of making leaders “whole”: centering and focusing on the intersection of the multiple internal and external pressures changemakers face. Third, it can establish the foundation for more authentic mutual learning and collaboration by finding connective tissue across the common pressure points experienced by changemakers across regions, issues, areas and programs, rather than focusing just on professional connective tissue. To that end, it can be used to foster critical internal/external reflection by naming and defining the very real process that changemakers go through in aligning, negotiating, healing and connecting their present, past and future selves. This addresses the concern that more traditional leadership development work prioritizes a changemaker’s professional life and identity — while much of changemaking is a very individual journey and reactions and adaptations to a series of internal and external contexts, many of which seem to be getting more complex.
The concept of pressure points is also meant to be neutral. In the physical world, touching pressure points can elicit different responses when touched. For example, traditional Asian medicine teaches that pushing down on pressure points, such as through acupuncture or reflexology, can release tension or new energy, which can be leveraged to create catalytic momentum or steer in a new direction. Pressure points also can be used to emphasize critical junctures or defining moments or intersections. Finally and conversely, ignoring pressure points can be destabilizing, while pushing too hard on them without enough awareness and protection can be paralyzing. In karate, for example, you can knock someone out by pushing hard on critical pressure points such as in the stomach or gallbladder.
The Pressure Point Forecast provides a three-level taxonomy of pressure point areas identified by the Fellows:
• The first layer involves the four main pressure point areas shown on the medicine wheel: mental, spiritual, emotional and physical.
• The second layer encompasses the specific past (e.g., familial and ancestral), the present (e.g., trapped in bureaucracy, not feeling professionally fulfilled, lacking resources and pressure to scale) and future-sensing situations (e.g., not familiar with technology and new realities following a pandemic).
• The last layer focuses on feelings and action, such as alleviating, pressing on or navigating around pressure points through leadership practices and values.
Table 1: Centering humanity, centering complexity and the chamber of discomfort
Navigation through feeling and doing Essential leadership practices and driving values
Presence of time
Main pressure points
Present, past and the future
Mental, spiritual, emotional and physical
Through its focus on areas of growth, pain points and other internal and external pressures that Global Atlantic Fellows experience, the Pressure Point Forecast can be used as a tool to go deeper into some areas of the spiral, outlined in “The Catalyst’s Way, ” such as the chamber of discomfort and the four dimensions of “interbeing,” self, community and world that Spiller discusses.
CHAPTER 2
A Global Network of Changemakers
“In Mumbai where I live, the work that sustains me is outside of the traditional professional spaces. When I work with sex workers, I rely on feminist principles of collective care, solidarity, curiosity, listening, compassion and self-expression. This is the work I most care about, that makes me human and sustains me.” She quickly shared this reflection with one of her fellow board members. She had just been selected to join the board of a medium-sized nonprofit organization and she swore to herself that the only way she would accept this position was if she could bring her “real self” to these more professionalized social change spaces. Afraid of needing to “perform” for the other NGO professionals, she was relieved to find that some of them were willing to step out of their professional shells too and have more candid conversations about the challenges and the struggles of the work. In spite of this, she still wondered how long she could maintain a facade in a setting that was not anchored in the values she so deeply cherished.
Among the growing number of leadership development programs at the national and global levels, most are aimed at or mostly accessible to leaders in the Global North. Discernible in the last ten years, however, is a small but growing focus on regions of the Global South. Mary McDonnell, a strategist who has worked for The Atlantic Philanthropies and Atlantic Fellows programs for years, assisted me in identifying 12 programs that cater to global communities. In the past three years, we have seen an increase in leadership programs designed to support and build a global network of changemakers, as shown in the timeline and table overleaf. Furthermore, there has been an explicit focus since 2001 on “transformative” social change goals and values, and on “the world’s most urgent issues and problems”, including inequality.
It’s important to note how the historical trajectory of these fellowships has shifted toward more social justice values and goals, which have grown within an infrastructure and culture emphasizing professionalism and expertise. For many of the Global Atlantic Fellows that I spoke to, these two factors are the ones that most conflict with the way they want to do the work and the change they want to see in the world. This dynamic gets in the way of leaders/changemakers being able to break free from a professional career that is often focused on maintaining the status quo and engaging in the kind of short-term decision-making that fragments their commitment to social change causes and hinders intergenerational investment. Since many Global Atlantic Fellows see their work as reshaping power hierarchies and structures, these emphases are especially challenging. Therefore, the Atlantic Institute, in partnership with the seven Atlantic Fellows programs, supports a growing community of Global Atlantic Fellows. This stands out as one of the most equity- and community-focused, multidisciplinary global leadership development programs currently available — and has a unique opportunity and responsibility to pave a new trajectory. As a result, while some may ask if there is a distinctive approach to the Atlantic Fellows programs, the answer is, there could be, if the Atlantic Institute and the Atlantic Fellows programs double down on the elements that make the Global Atlantic Fellows as unique as they are.
1: Timeline of global fellowship programs
Figure
Table 2: Relevant global fellowship programs
Name Year started Program goals
Fulbright19 1946 Enables graduate students, young professionals and artists from abroad to conduct research and study in the United States.
Echoing Green Fellowship 1987 Seeks leaders who bring deep knowledge and passion to designing solutions with and for their communities.
Pew Marine Fellows20 1996 Supports mid-career scientists and other experts from around the world to advance knowledge and innovation in ocean protection.
Ford International Fellowships Program21 2001 Supports advanced studies for social change leaders from the world’s most vulnerable populations.
Global Leadership Fellows Programme of the World Economic Forum
Aspen Global Leadership Network
2005 Develops leaders who can understand and navigate complex, dynamic systems and cultivate a shared vision for change.
2009 Serves a growing, worldwide community of entrepreneurial leaders from business, government and the nonprofit sector who share a commitment to enlightened leadership and to using their extraordinary creativity, energy and resources to tackle the foremost societal challenges of our times.
Mastercard Scholars Program 2012 Envisions a transformative network of young people and institutions driving inclusive and equitable socioeconomic change in Africa.
W. K. Kellogg Fellows Community Leadership Network
2013 Develops the leadership skills of individuals who will be communitybased social change agents working to help vulnerable children and their families achieve optimal health and well-being, access to good food, academic achievement and financial security.
Atlantic Fellowship 2015 Empowers catalytic communities of emerging leaders to advance fairer, healthier, more inclusive societies.
BMW Foundation Responsible Leaders Program
Schmidt Futures Innovation Fellows
2016 Promotes responsible leadership and inspires leaders worldwide to work toward a more peaceful, just and sustainable future.
2017 Supports extraordinary mid-career individuals and teams with ideas to leverage technology thoughtfully to solve important societal challenges.
Schmidt Science Fellows 2017 Develops the next generation of science leaders to transcend disciplines, advance discovery and solve the world’s most pressing problems.
Obama Foundation Fellowship 2018 Supports outstanding civic innovators — leaders who are working with their communities to create transformational change and addressing some of the world’s most pressing problems.
Ford Foundation Global Fellowship 2020 Aims to connect and support the next generation of leaders from around the world who are advancing innovative solutions to end inequality.
Several factors stand out when looking at the evolution of global leadership development fellowships since the 1940s. Initially focused on mid-career professionals or academics, the array of programs has expanded over time to include a broader set of backgrounds and participants unified by a commitment to affecting social change. While many of these fellowships continue to emphasize hard sciences, some are increasingly curating multidisciplinary and cross-sectoral networks.
19 Mary McDonnell noted that there are other international fellowships among the 200 programs in 180 countries managed by the Institute of International Education. While a search of IIE fellowship offerings brings up 24, most seem to be in specific locations, per funding source interests, such as in East Asia, China, Central Europe or Africa, though a few are globally focused, but topically narrow.
20 McDonnell has noted that there are probably other Pew programs that run similar global fellowship programs.
21 This Ford fellowship program ended in 2011, but at one point covered 22 countries
CHAPTER 3 Uniquely Global Multidisciplinary & Equity-Focused Community
“I am based in Johannesburg, but I approach the work very globally. I look for opportunities where I can exchange ideas with colleagues in Canada, the U.S., Germany, Australia or New Zealand. Likewise, I feel that these colleagues have also been open to learning about how we’ve approached transitional justice here in South Africa. So much of what I do is still about challenging institutions, but because no country has gotten it perfectly right, we need those spaces for learning, dreaming and experimenting together. It’s hard to make the time to do this and sometimes a top-down approach is needed to bridge and hold those connections and conversations.”
From May 2022 to January 2023, I surveyed and interviewed 85 Global Atlantic Fellows from across the seven Atlantic Fellows programs.22 In this hybrid survey/interview, there were two parts: the first half consisted of multichoice questions designed to gather fellowship, demographic and other background information, along with a list of leadership practices they used; the second part included open-ended questions about those practices and their personal, professional and life trajectories including opinions on technological change and driving values. Fellows had the choice of completing the survey with me (with the interviewer recording their answers as they spoke) or completing it on their own. All but 11 Fellows chose to interview with me. As a result, there were some inconsistencies between those who were interviewed (with responses recorded verbatim) and those who filled out their responses on their own. Nonetheless, resounding themes emerged.
First, let’s look at the demographics. Participants from the Atlantic Fellows for Equity in Brain Health program made up nearly a third of the participants (32.43%), followed by the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity (16.22%) and Atlantic Fellows for Healthy Equity in U.S. + Global (14.86%).
Though seeking as much global representation as possible, most participants were based in North America (33.78%) and sub-Saharan Africa (33.78%), with significant but smaller shares from Latin America and the Caribbean (20.27%) and Oceania (17.57%).
22 The list of survey/interview questions can be found in Appendix 1.
Table 3: Responses by program Percentage of Global Atlantic Fellows
Table 4: Participation by region
Q3 What region(s) do you work in?
A closer look at the Global Atlantic Fellows community
Issue areas and leadership practices
Fellows are often involved in more than one issue area, so the total exceeds 100%. Given this, the top five issue areas that Fellows worked in were: education and learning (28%); democracy, power and governance (29.33%); equality, diversity and inclusion (41.33%); poverty, inequality and social justice (46.67%); and health and well-being (73.33%). Meanwhile the top five areas or strategies represented are medicine and health provider (21.33%); teaching and education (in schools, academia or public education) (33.33%); organizing, movements, etc. (33.33%); policy, advocacy, etc. (48%); and research (e.g., academic, nongovernmental organization) (60%).
Because my map of pressure points emphasizes an adaptive approach to leadership, I also wanted to identify what leadership practices Global Atlantic Fellows utilize and how frequently they do so. The list of leadership practices is based on the Leadership Practices Inventory developed by scholars James M. Kouzes and Barry Posner.23 Their inventory is designed to measure the unique leadership style of current managers, executives and other types of organizational leaders. Because they interviewed more than 75,000 leaders, their inventory of practices is the most comprehensive, identifying how leaders act, think and feel in their positions.
In my outreach, 49% of Fellows selected more than 11 leadership practices,24 which is quite robust, while 51% selected fewer than 11 practices. The top five practices most selected are: providing mentorship; learning new ideas and seeking advice/professional development; actively listening to diverse viewpoints; leading an organization, initiative or program; and publicly recognizing people doing good work. The least selected practices were being clear about their philosophy of leadership; challenging institutions and organizations; appealing to others by sharing an exciting dream of the future; building consensus around a common set of values, ideas or activities; and envisioning the future and talking about future trends.
Figure 2: Selection frequency of the leadership practices
23 J. M. Kouzes and B. Z. Posner, The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership, second edition (John Wiley & Sons, 2011).
24 On average, Global Fellows selected 11.33 leadership practices out of 17 practices.
Fellows noted other leadership practices that are not on this inventory including:
• Using different types of decision-making, with ethical or equitable decision-making most commonly identified.
• Holding complexity, including creating space for differences.
• Employing conflict mediation.
Ethical leadership surfaced in some of the conversations about decision-making styles, but there seems to be a lack of a clear understanding of what it entails. Max Price, who is a consultant and former vice chancellor at the University of Cape Town, recently served as an Atlantic Institute Reader-in-Residence. As part of this work, he interviewed Atlantic Fellows and some program staff on ethical decision-making. From these interviews he noted that the concept is used rather loosely. For example, when pressed to say what they mean, Fellows often refer to leading with integrity: a refusal to lie, steal or deceive in any way; incorruptible; trustworthy, dependable, consistent and honoring one’s word and commitments. In other words, the concept is being used more to describe personality traits than an approach to making tough morally informed decisions.
Leadership practices vary across Atlantic Fellowship programs. Global Atlantic Fellows from all three of the health equity programs held the most traditional leadership positions, with most indicating they lead an organization, program or initiative. Among those from the racial equity program, publicly recognizing good work was one of the top three leadership practices. In contrast, only those from the social equity program included challenging institutions as one of their top three leadership practices.
Figure 3: Top leadership practices by program (including frequency of selection)
Atlantic Fellows for Equity in Brain Health
Atlantic Fellows for Health Equity in Southeast Asia
Atlantic Fellows for Healthy Equity in U.S. + Global
Atlantic Fellows for Racial Equity
Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity
Atlantic Fellows for Social Equity
Atlantic Fellows for Health Equity in South Africa
The top five issue areas of work identified by Fellows are:
• Health and well-being (73.33%).
• Poverty, inequality and social justice (46.67%).
• Equality, diversity and inclusion (41.33%).
• Democracy, power and governance (29.33%).
• Education and learning (28%).
Meanwhile the top five areas or strategies represented are:
• Research (e.g., academic, nongovernmental organization) (60%).
• Policy and advocacy (48%).
• Organizing movements (33.33%).
• Teaching and education (in schools, academia or public education) (33.33%).
• Medicine and providing health services (21.33%).
To get a more granular look at the leadership practices utilized by Global Atlantic Fellows, the top five issue areas are broken out by strategies and leadership practices. This cross tabulation reveals a few themes, and a discussion of key findings follows each issue area.
Concentration of leadership practices by issue area and strategies
Health and well-being
Based on the survey, Global Atlantic Fellows who work on health and well-being have a limited range of leadership practices, mostly concentrated on research, teaching and education, and policy/advocacy. Meanwhile, Global Atlantic Fellows who work on this issue but tend to have strategies that engage business or private-sector work, technology or data or media and communication strategies — tend to have significantly fewer practices to draw on in their day-today work. Most of their leadership practices were focused on learning new ideas, seeking advice, and or professional development. Meanwhile, the practice of painting a “big picture” of what to accomplish (in private-sector work) was the least checked off.
I actively listen to diverse points of view
I am clear about my philosophy of leadership
I appeal to others by sharing an exciting dream of the future
I build consensus around a common set of values, ideas or programmatic activities
I challenge institutions and organizations
I continue to learn new ideas, seek advice and/or professional development
I create structures and opportunities for people to collaborate and build relationships
I envision the future and talk about future trends that will influence how our work gets done
I experiment and take risks
I experiment, take risks and encourage others to do so
I lead an organization, initiative or program
Figure 5: Health and well-being
I paint the “big picture” of what we aspire to accomplish
I provide mentorship and/or build up the capacity of others
I publicly recognize people who are doing important work
I seek challenging opportunities to change, grow, innovate and improve at a personal and organizational level
I seek out challenging opportunities that test my own skills and abilities
I serve as an example for others by aligning actions with shared values.
I set a personal example of what I expect of others
I set achievable goals, make concrete plans and establish measurable milestones for the projects and programs that I work on I spend time listening to the needs and concerns of a variety of stakeholders
Others
Poverty, inequality and social justice
Global Atlantic Fellows who work in issue areas related to poverty, inequality and social justice identified a wider range of practices. For example, those working in research and policy include the most variety of leadership practices, followed by those organizing movements. The strategies that had the least variety in leadership practices were once again direct services, business and private-sector work; and medicine and health providers. The most often checkedoff practices for this issue area in the research strategy include actively listening to diverse points of view; continuing to learn new ideas, seeking advice and/or professional development; and setting achievable goals, making concrete plans and establishing milestones.
I actively listen to diverse points of view
I am clear about my philosophy of leadership
I appeal to others by sharing an exciting dream of the future
I build consensus around a common set of values, ideas or programmatic activities I challenge institutions and organizations
I continue to learn new ideas, seek advice and/ or professional development
I create structures and opportunities for people to collaborate and build relationships
I envision the future and talk about future trends that will influence how our work gets done
I experiment and take risks
I experiment, take risks and encourage others to do so
Figure 6: Poverty, inequality and social justice
I lead an organization, initiative or program
I paint the “big picture” of what we aspire to accomplish I provide mentorship and/ or build up the capacity of others
I publicly recognize people who are doing important work
I seek challenging opportunities to change, grow, innovate and improve at a personal and organizational level I seek out challenging opportunities that test my own skills and abilities
I serve as an example for others by aligning actions with shared values.
I set a personal example of what I expect of others
I set achievable goals, make concrete plans and establish measurable milestones for the projects and programs that I work on I spend time listening to the needs and concerns of a variety of stakeholders
Others
Democracy, power and governance
Global Atlantic Fellows working on issues related to democracy, power and governance had a limited range compared to colleagues focusing on other issue areas. My analysis found that those working in the business/private sector, creative spaces, teaching and education or medicine have the least variety in their leadership practices. Meanwhile, those working in policy/ advocacy, research and organizing movements had the most amount of variety in their practices. Interestingly, for this issue area and in the strategy of policy/advocacy, the most common practice selected was envisioning the future and identifying future trends.
Figure 7: Democracy, power and governance
I actively listen to diverse points of view
I am clear about my philosophy of leadership
I appeal to others by sharing an exciting dream of the future
I build consensus around a common set of values, ideas or programmatic activities
I challenge institutions and organizations
I continue to learn new ideas, seek advice and/ or professional development
I create structures and opportunities for people to collaborate and build relationships
I envision the future and talk about future trends that will influence how our work gets done
I experiment and take risks
I experiment, take risks and encourage others to do so
I lead an organization, initiative or program
I paint the “big picture” of what we aspire to accomplish I provide mentorship and/or build up the capacity of others
I publicly recognize people who are doing important work
I seek challenging opportunities to change, grow, innovate and improve at a personal and organizational level
I seek out challenging opportunities that test my own skills and abilities I serve as an example for others by aligning actions with shared values.
I set a personal example of what I expect of others
I set achievable goals, make concrete plans and establish measurable milestones for the projects and programs that I work on
I spend time listening to the needs and concerns of a variety of stakeholders
Others
Education and learning
Those working on education and learning selected a wide range of practices, and there was less cohesion around key practices. Instead, what I found is that research and teaching had the greatest number of practices identified, while those working on creative spaces, technology/ data and direct services had a more limited range. For this issue area, mentoring and building the capacity of others was the most commonly selected practice.
I actively listen to diverse points of view
I am clear about my philosophy of leadership
I appeal to others by sharing an exciting dream of the future
I build consensus around a common set of values, ideas or programmatic activities
I challenge institutions and organizations
I continue to learn new ideas, seek advice and/ or professional development
I create structures and opportunities for people to collaborate and build relationships
I envision the future and talk about future trends that will influence how our work gets done
I experiment and take risks
I experiment, take risks and encourage others to do so
Figure 8: Education and learning
I lead an organization, initiative or program
I paint the “big picture” of what we aspire to accomplish
I provide mentorship and/ or build up the capacity of others
I publicly recognize people who are doing important work
I seek challenging opportunities to change, grow, innovate and improve at a personal and organizational level
I seek out challenging opportunities that test my own skills and abilities
I serve as an example for others by aligning actions with shared values.
I set a personal example of what I expect of others
I set achievable goals, make concrete plans and establish measurable milestones for the projects and programs that I work on
I spend time listening to the needs and concerns of a variety of stakeholders
Others
Equality, diversity and inclusion
Finally, Global Atlantic Fellows who work on equality, diversity and inclusion issue areas tend to have a wide range of practices across strategies. Global Atlantic Fellows working in research, teaching and education as well as policy and advocacy tended to have the most amount of variety. Fellows working on direct-services strategies had the shortest list of practices, followed by those who work in creative spaces. The most commonly selected practices in the research strategy included: continuing to learn new ideas, seek advice, etc.; setting achievable goals and concrete plans; and providing mentorship and capacity building for others.
I actively listen to diverse points of view
I am clear about my philosophy of leadership
I appeal to others by sharing an exciting dream of the future
I build consensus around a common set of values, ideas or programmatic activities
I challenge institutions and organizations
I continue to learn new ideas, seek advice and/ or professional development
I create structures and opportunities for people to collaborate and build relationships
I envision the future and talk about future trends that will influence how our work gets done
I experiment and take risks
I experiment, take risks and encourage others to do so
Figure 9: Equality, diversity and inclusion
I lead an organization, initiative or program
I paint the “big picture” of what we aspire to accomplish
I provide mentorship and/ or build up the capacity of others
I publicly recognize people who are doing important work
I seek challenging opportunities to change, grow, innovate and improve at a personal and organizational level
I seek out challenging opportunities that test my own skills and abilities
I serve as an example for others by aligning actions with shared values.
I set a personal example of what I expect of others
I set achievable goals, make concrete plans and establish measurable milestones for the projects and programs that I work on
I spend time listening to the needs and concerns of a variety of stakeholders
Others
In conclusion, the strategies of research and policy/advocacy generally tend to be associated with more leadership practices across all issue areas, while those working on direct services or in the private sector tend to check off the fewest practices. While organizing movements was among the top strategies utilized by Global Atlantic Fellows, this strategy did not have a strong concentration of leadership practices. Health and well-being was the only issue area where this strategy had a notable number of leadership practices. For this issue area, those working on movements and organizing noted the practice of being clear about leadership philosophy. Finally, I want to point out that technology — the area I see as likely to increase complexity for Fellows — is the only issue area where there was a strong concentration of leadership practices in migration, mobilities and movements. Global Atlantic Fellows working at this intersection are not only unique in their familiarity with technology, but also have a wide range of leadership practices to draw from and use. In contrast, Global Atlantic Fellows working on issues related to hunger, food and power had the least familiarity with technology strategies and leadership practices to help them navigate this space.
Migration, mobilities and movement
I actively listen to diverse points of view
I am clear about my philosophy of leadership
I appeal to others by sharing an exciting dream of the future
I build consensus around a common set of values, ideas or programmatic activities
I challenge institutions and organizations
I continue to learn new ideas, seek advice and/ or professional development
I create structures and opportunities for people to collaborate and build relationships
I envision the future and talk about future trends that will influence how our work gets done
I experiment and take risks
Figure 10: Migration, mobilities and movement
I experiment, take risks and encourage others to do so
I lead an organization, initiative or program
I paint the “big picture” of what we aspire to accomplish
I provide mentorship and/ or build up the capacity of others
I publicly recognize people who are doing important work
I seek challenging opportunities to change, grow, innovate and improve at a personal and organizational level
I seek out challenging opportunities that test my own skills and abilities
I serve as an example for others by aligning actions with shared values.
I set a personal example of what I expect of others
I set achievable goals, make concrete plans and establish measurable milestones for the projects and programs that I work on
I spend time listening to the needs and concerns of a variety of stakeholders
Others
Hunger, food, water and shelter
I actively listen to diverse points of view
I am clear about my philosophy of leadership
I appeal to others by sharing an exciting dream of the future
I build consensus around a common set of values, ideas or programmatic activities
I challenge institutions and organizations
I continue to learn new ideas, seek advice and/ or professional development
I create structures and opportunities for people to collaborate and build relationships
I envision the future and talk about future trends that will influence how our work gets done
I experiment and take risks
I experiment, take risks and encourage others to do so
I lead an organization, initiative or program
Figure 11: Hunger, food, water and shelter
I paint the “big picture” of what we aspire to accomplish
I provide mentorship and/or build up the capacity of others
I publicly recognize people who are doing important work
I seek challenging opportunities to change, grow, innovate and improve at a personal and organizational level
I seek out challenging opportunities that test my own skills and abilities
I serve as an example for others by aligning actions with shared values.
I set a personal example of what I expect of others
I set achievable goals, make concrete plans and establish measurable milestones for the projects and programs that I work on
I spend time listening to the needs and concerns of a variety of stakeholders
Others
Leadership practices and values
My analysis also looked at a Fellow’s values as guides in navigating complexity and in building more adaptive practices. Fellows identified the following values as the top ten: respect, equity, kindness, empathy, courage, openness, critical thinking, curiosity, inclusion and diversity. The values that were least selected were: innovation, fellow-centricity, Indigenous social change, ambiguity and radical inclusion.
Frequency of values
When looking at how the top five most selected leadership practices overlap with values, I see a few trends. First, for Global Atlantic Fellows who place a strong focus on externally giving to others — either through mentoring, building the capacity of others or listening to diverse points of views — tend to be driven by core values such as fairness, kindness, respect, courage and empathy. Practices less clearly defined as having central values include leading an organization, initiative or program and publicly recognizing people who are doing important work. Leadership practices with such ambiguity toward driving values could be considered pressure points, and represent areas of tension or growth.
Figure 4: Values resonating with Global Atlantic Fellows
Intersection of values and practices
Values
Agency
Ambiguity
Authenticity
Care
Collective Leadership
Committment
Committment to action
Courage
Creativity
Critical Thinking
Curiosity
Dignity
Diversity
Empathy
Equity
Fairness
Fellow Centric
Humility
I provide mentorship and/or build up the capacity of others
I continue to learn new ideas, seek advise, and/or professional development
I actively listen to diverse points of view
I lead an organization, initiative, or program
I publicly recognize people who are doing important work
Imagination Inclusion
Indigenous social change
Innovation Integrity
Justice Kindness
Openess Opportunity
Participatory Leadership Power
Radical Inclusion
Reciprocity
Respect Solidarity
Transformation
Transparency
Trusted Relationships
Ubuntu Valuing Indigenous knowledges
CHAPTER 4
Introduction to the Pressure Point Mapping Framework
She worked in a very bureaucratic hospital outside of Manila. She was trying to do a community survey, because that’s the part of the work she most cared about. But especially since COVID-19, the public health systems have been overstretched and underresourced. Therefore, as of late she feels like she spends most of her time navigating the bureaucracy, run mostly by men, and listening to everyone’s frustrations. “I find it so hard to navigate. I feel like to do clinical work and push for institutional change you need different personalities. Sometimes you have to try to make everyone happy and comfortable, and other times you have to be more aggressive and be the chief to push for the change that needs to happen. And I lack the confidence to be the chief. I feel like I still have imposter syndrome and I don’t feel comfortable sharing my ideas in meetings. Therefore, it will be really hard for me to push for the institutional change that needs to happen here.”
So far I’ve discussed how the work of social change and fostering equity is getting increasingly complex and urgent due to a variety of geopolitical, socioeconomic and technological issues. I discussed how leadership theories grounded on the interaction between the self and the broader environment is foundational to fostering greater adaptive and reflective responses. Additionally, transformative adult learning theory shows us how this can be done by creating spaces for more critical reflection, and recognizes the centrality of leaders’ experiences in their life journeys. Borrowing concepts and frameworks from “The Catalyst’s Way” chamber of discomfort, I set out to develop the Pressure Point Framework as a tool to help foster critical reflection on the multiplicity of internal and external forces that leaders often have to negotiate.
In this section, I unpack and apply the Pressure Point Framework to the 85 surveys/interviews discussed in the previous section, to demonstrate how it can be used to identify areas of pressure, tension and opportunities in leaders’ journeys and experiences. Because the analysis was over 100 pages long,25 I’ve chosen to highlight the most statistically significant findings to demonstrate this framework as an approach to reconstructing leadership studies by centering the experiences of changemakers, and in this case, the Global Atlantic Fellows.
25 I conducted the analysis on this section comparing Global Atlantic Fellows working in the Global North and Global South, but it is excluded to keep the report as brief as possible.
Main coding themes
I coded the open-ended questions according to two independent coding schemes:
• The first was the meta-level trend classification inspired by the Indigenous medicine wheel. I used the following four quadrants as a guide to identify pressure points:
o Physical.
o Mental.
o Emotional.
o Spiritual.
• The second coding scheme classified answers based on intersecting trends that came up across all of the surveys and interviews or were emerging areas of complexity for Global Atlantic Fellows (such as technological complexity). I broke those trends into six overarching themes:
o Familial complexity: Fellows either talked about early familial and parental influences, noting how they shaped their development and trajectory; and/or early hopes and dreams, discussing early career aspirations or any reflections about the early parts of their careers and when they switched over to more equity and social change work.
o Organizational, institutional and/or systemic complexity: Fellows described the challenges of working with institutions. For example, many Fellows talked about being “trapped in systems” they are trying to change and challenge. They also talk about wanting to experiment and do things in new ways and the friction they encounter when up against hierarchy and traditional power structures. They talk about frustrations with incremental change and wanting more systemic change.
o Relational complexity: Fellows talked about engaging in complex interpersonal work such as bridging work, conflict resolution, holding space for differences and stakeholder engagement. Some Fellows also talked about their concerns of not being close to marginalized or grassroots communities they ultimately want to serve, either because of having to go up the ladder or due to the changing nature of the work.
o Leadership complexity: Fellows discussed their reflections such as not feeling like a “leader,” or not having a clear vision or leadership philosophy or not feeling confident. Some Fellows talked about leadership areas they have to work on, such as having to be “more vocal” and “more visible” to become more effective. Some Fellows also highlighted their leadership strengths such as being entrepreneurial and innovative. Finally, some Fellows also shared leadership lessons or insights they have learned along the way that are helpful to them.
o Societal complexity: Fellows sometimes talked about societal challenges in doing their work, such as finding it harder to have dialogue with different groups or common ground, or spoke of other challenges happening in their society or community. Some talked about having to change humanity.
o Technological change: In general, this theme did not come up unless I explicitly asked about it, as I sought to gain insight into the extent to which Fellows express being aware of how technology is changing their work, or express not having knowledge or knowing a little bit, but not being engaged in the matter. If Fellows did not have a response, I interpreted this as there not being
enough information about technology for them to be able to assess how it might affect their issue area and how they work.
The following scores/variables were derived from participants’ answers to close-ended questions:
• The number of regions the respondent works in: calculated by counting the number of geographical regions listed in Q3.
• Whether the respondent is working in more than one region: a binary variable derived from the number of regions listed in Q3. Those who listed more than one region were classified as 1; those listing a single region were assigned 0.
• Working in Global North vs. Global South; derived from Q3 about the region of the world the participant works in:
o Global North, i.e., in one of or more of the following:
• North America.
• Eastern Asia.
• Eastern Europe.
• Northern Europe.
• Southern Europe.
• Western Europe.
• Oceania.
o Global South, i.e., in one of or more of the following:
• Northern Africa.
• Sub-Saharan Africa.
• Latin America and the Caribbean.
• Central Asia.
• Southeastern Asia.
• Southern Asia.
• Western Asia.
o Both types of regions.
• The number of issue areas the respondent works in: calculated by counting the number of areas listed on Q4.
• Working in a higher number of issue areas: a binary variable created from the number of issue areas the respondent works in, by assigning 1 to those who reported working in more than three areas and assigning 0 to those working in up to three areas.
• The number of areas the respondent devotes most of the work to: calculated by counting the number of areas listed on Q5.
• Devoting most of the work to a higher number of different areas: a binary variable derived from the number of areas the respondent devotes most of the work to, and obtained by assigning value 1 to participants who reported devoting most of their time to more than three areas and assigning 0 to participants reporting devoting most of their time to up to three areas.
• “Other” option codes in Q6: open-ended answers given by participants who chose other on Q7, the question asking them to list the leadership practices they used the most. Responses were coded using the meta-level trend classification coding scheme into one of the first three categories of this scheme (physical, mental or emotional).
• Meta-level trend scores of Q6 were calculated by counting the number of selected leadership practices (see below) and dividing it by the total number of leadership practices constituting that meta-level trend. In this way, each score was a proportion of the maximum score that
can be achieved on that particular meta-level score. This was done in order to make different meta-level scores comparable, given that they consist of different numbers of indicators.
Findings
I. Dominant pressure points: Preselected list of leadership practices
Question six (Q6) of the survey/interview26 prompts the participant to select the leadership practices that most define how they show up in the field, communities, etc. The meta-level trend scores of Q6 were calculated by counting the number of selected leadership practices (from the below list) and dividing it by the number of leadership practices constituting that meta-level trend. In this way, each score was a proportion of the maximum score that can be achieved on that particular meta-level score. This was done in order to make different meta-level scores comparable, given that they consist of different numbers of indicators.
Physical:
• I lead an organization, initiative, or program.
• I seek out challenging opportunities that test my own skills and abilities.
• I experiment, take risks and encourage others to do so.
• I experiment and take risks.
• I seek challenging opportunities to change, grow, innovate and improve at a personal and organizational level.
Mental:
• I am clear about my philosophy of leadership.
• I challenge institutions and organizations.
• I create structures and opportunities for people to collaborate and build relationships.
• I build consensus around a common set of values, ideas or programmatic activities.
• I envision the future and talk about future trends that will influence how our work gets done.
• I paint the “big picture” of what we aspire to accomplish.
• I set achievable goals, make concrete plans and establish measurable milestones for the projects and programs that I work on.
• I continue to learn new ideas, seek advice and/or professional development.
• I engage in conflict mediation.
Emotional:
• I publicly recognize people who are doing important work.
• I spend time listening to the needs and concerns of a variety of stakeholders.
• I actively listen to diverse points of view.
• Other: open answers that mention holding complexity or other practices belonging to this category.
26 See Appendix 1 for a list of survey/interview questions.
Spiritual:27
• I provide mentorship and/or build up the capacity of others.
• I serve as an example for others by aligning actions with shared values.
• I set a personal example of what I expect of others.
• I appeal to others by sharing an exciting dream of the future.
The dominant meta-level trend observed in Q6 responses was the physical area, as Fellows selected activities related to it (39%), followed by emotional (24%) and mental (23%) meta-trend levels. The number of people dominantly choosing practices related to the spiritual realm was the lowest (14%).
Q6. Most often chosen meta-level trend of leadership practices, Indigenous medicine wheel
Even though Fellows most often chose leadership practices corresponding to the physical meta-level trend (in response to Q6), their examples (prompted by Q8) tended to be in the mental meta-level category. When looking at these examples through intersecting trends, most answers were dominated by leadership complexity themes. Fellows most often reported that their leadership practices embody respect, equity and kindness, and least often that they embody innovation and indigenous social change through research and practice (Q9).
A sampling of responses from those selecting “other” to Q6 can be seen below, categorized by the four pressure points.
27 This one was a little tricker to code as it’s hard to define what spiritual intelligence is in the work of social change and equity. However, for the purposes of this study, I looked for themes focused on the traditional servant leadership style in which Global Atlantic Fellows discussed ways that they put their needs before others, and are driven by making connections to their external environment (e.g., people, world, etc.). I also looked for times when Fellows talked about their higher passions and things that fuel their will to keep going or mentioned specific activities they do to find joy including playing music, engaging in wellness activities and meditating.
Physical
• “Takes ideas into action.”
• “I have to face danger, your life may be in danger. For example, in the past week I was in a meeting with one of my colleagues and there was a strange car following us.”
• “I actively seek people who are able to collaborate, and that is very straightforward, and [I] avoid people that are very competitive.”
Mental
• “I would say I spend a lot of time doing conflict resolution/mediation.”
• “Ethical decision-making and distributed leadership/sharing power describe the way I show up in my work.”
• “My philosophy of leadership is evolving and I don’t publicly recognize people who are doing important work all the time.”
Emotional
• “I invite people to collaborate and try to support them in realizing their ideas as they want.”
• “I like to be clear about who I’m accountable to and my beliefs. One of the most important things we can do is create space to hold complexity and create space for difference. I’m especially interested in building organizations that distribute power.”
Spiritual
• “Leadership is a 24/7 role. Systems and processes allow me to delegate and replicate leadership principles by way of shared values.”
• “I use equitable decision-making in my day to day life.”
• “Building the capacity for people to engage is important to me. It’s essential to them to become a good ally.”
II. Dominant pressure points: Open-ended responses to examples of leadership practices
Question eight (Q8) was an open-ended question that asked Fellows to share examples, experiences or stories about the leadership practices they selected. In total there were over 45,000 words to analyze. I first identified 14 subthemes, which were then coded for the meta-level trend and the intersecting trend. The codes assigned to each of these contextual units were counted to form:
● Q8 meta-level trend scores: calculated by counting the number of contextual units of the content that correspond to that particular meta-level trend category, thereby determining the counts of physical, mental, emotional and spiritual answers.
● Q8 dominant meta-level trend: a categorical variable created by comparing the Q8 metalevel trend scores and assigning the value to this variable that corresponds to the highest Q8 meta-level trend score of the participant.
● Q8 intersecting trend scores: calculated by counting the number of contextual units of the content that correspond to that particular intersecting trend category, thereby creating counts of the seven intersecting trend categories.
● Q8 dominant intersecting trend: a categorical variable created by comparing the Q8 intersecting trend scores and assigning the value to this variable that corresponds to the highest Q8 intersecting trend score for the Fellow.
For the Q8 dominant meta-level trend, analysis of the long open-ended answers revealed that the largest number of Fellows primarily talked about examples from the mental meta-level trend category, followed by the physical category, as touched on above. Dominantly spiritual answers were the third most common type. Although there were a lot of contextual units with examples from the emotional area, they were much less common in the answers of individual participants.
Q8. Please provide specific examples of activities that you do for each leadership practice, dominant meta-level trends
A sampling of answers brings this to life.
Physical
• “In my work, we’re trying to bring a research collaborative, education, research and clinical initiatives together. The biggest challenge is to get them to play well together. It’s hard to get the deans of five schools to meet. There is no mechanism to do that and it’s hard to create these workarounds. It gives people anxiety. Communication is also very hard. We use different languages and how people approach problems, and we may bring something specific.”
• “Talking about scale at work — it’s exciting and exhausting.”
• “Art and health is something new in my country. First thing was to convince people in the health sector to embrace it. There is no experience in bringing interdisciplinary experience. My background was dance and arts. And it was me jumping three steps ahead. Had to set up panels with the arts, academic institutions and health institutions to get on the same ground. It took me three years.”
Mental
• “I think I’m always expanding my career. When the student is ready, the teacher will appear. I can imagine delving in one area, another one will open up. Like behavioral economics. I’m suddenly really interested in that field and better understanding why people do what they do.”
• “The Fellowship has helped me to think of ways to share my analysis through storytelling. It’s hard to do at work, but I’m practicing and tweaking to apply. I reached out to one of the futurists in Thailand, and he also provided examples about how to creatively bring people together through evidence.”
Emotional
• “I come from a very traditional and religious family. My sister is also a doctor in pathology. It’s very hard to talk about and I try to get my sister involved, and she’s one of the youth I had to change indirectly. No one in my family does this or understands.”
• “After the Fellowship, I have a more collaborative spirit. I have really good friends here, but the Fellow experience is totally different. I still have to manage a lot of critical problems in my country and the public system, like there are not enough resources for patients or medication, and I’m often alone. I have found my co-Fellows are inspiring and the kindest people I know and they share their knowledge and tools, and that’s helped me to push through.”
Spiritual
• “I’m not sure if I was always like that: open and vulnerable to collaborations. I probably learned it in school. I’m also an executive, I like to do things quickly and quickly. But collaborations move slowly and it’s not just about you — that requires a lot of flexibility because it means the structures.”
• “I have an intense curiosity about a lot of things and seek different experiences to fuel that need for new and different things. I go to the same cafe and order a different coffee. I’m always seeking variety and that comes from curiosity and relationships and connection to places. It’s what drives me as a leader and a desire to play a role in enabling community success rather than buying a bigger house.”
Intersecting trend: Navigating complexity
When considering the dominant intersecting trend of how Fellows view and navigate complexity, in relation to the pressure points discussed above, I found that most Fellows’ openended responses addressed the topic of navigating leadership complexity, followed by answers about organizational, institutional or systemic complexity and answers about societal complexity. While many Fellows had contextual units touching on early hopes and dreams and early familial influences, they were very rarely the dominant types of examples used in the answers. Technological change topics were very rare and were never the dominant intersecting trend in an answer.
Q8. Please provide specific examples of activities that you do for each leadership practice, dominant intersecting trends
Fellows said, for instance (by category):
Early familial and parental influences:
● “My Dad’s generation has done the same job for more than 50 years and that is very respectable, but I never saw myself doing the same job or being in the same place for more than five years. I think my philosophy [is] you only live once, there is so much to see and why limit yourself. I was always very curious since I was a child and my mom always had high expectations of me, like all moms. Wanted to make her proud.”
● “When I was five years old we moved to Brazil and we didn’t speak any Portuguese. Those months of navigating without language, I had to project receptiveness to people even if I could not understand. It got me to appreciate bridging and how to navigate systems that don’t reward approaches to the heart, human to human.”
Early hopes and dreams, career aspirations:
● “My background is marketing and sponsorship in the media and a large bank. I’ve also had a couple of other businesses before deciding to find purposeful work and giving back to the community. In my country we have a limited view on education for Indigenous community. That is a catalyst for me because I wanted to connect more with what I love more about my countries.”
● “I’ve always had a strong focus on learning. I did the Foreign Services early on and then got my master’s and took short courses to help with financial training and also took statistics. I’ve also done a pottery course and have been doing a public speaking course . . . podcasting course.”
● “I founded an org when I was in my early 20s. I felt very young and even back then it was purely passion driven to address the growing crisis. That’s what inspired me to create it. When I found it, I didn’t have money and we threw it all together.”
Organizational, institutional or systemic complexity:
● “My challenge right now is finding the balance of how to move the work as an individual and organizations, because we are volunteer-based organizations so we have to make sure everyone is on the same page and are interconnected and interdependent and have integrated values with ourselves and organizations.”
● “I only appeal to others about a dream of the future, to people I feel are ready to hear it. Because some people who are very technical, they can talk about the big picture, but they often also don’t have enough strategy to make it happen. When I talk about the big picture or about the future, I need to come up with a strategy.”
Relational complexity:
● “I spend time listening to the needs and concerns of a variety of stakeholders and thankfully I’m a good listener. So, my work is about trying to bring the visions of communities and local government together.”
● “I’m trying to bring a collective of individual organizations together. We’re trying to be cooperative, but we still have to build trust among all the groups.”
Leadership complexity:
● “I have an intense curiosity about a lot of things and seek different experiences to fuel that need for new and different things. I’m always seeking variety and that comes from curiosity and relationships and connection to places. It’s what drives me as a leader and a desire to play a role in enabling community success rather than buying a bigger house.”
● “I’ve been doing this work now for 18 years. And I see the value of my work beyond the grant cycle and what I’m expected to deliver as impact. I work at an NGO, but in the end I am doing this work so that some people’s lives will change.”
● “I started my nonprofit, but from day one I’ve been thinking about how to create a framework that the people after me can pick up on. I don’t really see myself as a founder and have had to get a leadership coach to help me.”
Societal complexity:
● “I recently had to run a meeting where I had to engage university management in discussions on gender and sexuality diversity.”
● “We are challenging the narrative and trying to innovate within the limits of the law, trying to influence the behaviors of service providers, community and children. Trying to show what a successful progressive government is.”
● “Things are risky for activists in Brazil, [and] work now is full time on making sure the president is not reelected.”
III. Pressure points and critical reflection of external context
Question ten (Q10) is an open-ended question inviting Fellows to reflect on what leadership practices they most admire in others. Using the topic-based coding scheme, participants most often listed traits such as kindness, caring about and listening to others, humility and generosity. The second-most-common type of answer emphasized leaders being effective, smart and committed.
Q10. What leadership practices do you most admire in others? Topics
Sample answers include:
Kind, caring of others, listening to others, humility and generosity:
• “Humility, listening, compassion.”
• “Honesty, kindness and respect.”
• “Building up capacity and mentoring; being open to different perspectives.”
Effective organizers, smart and committed:
● “Commitment to action from seeing environmental activists. Would let things slide and could see the long term; executive director of this org: don’t sweat the small stuff.”
● “Long-term commitment, relationships-based decision-making, having a clarity of vision and commitment, and standing for something bigger in one’s own fear and being vocal about that and through the channels.”
Courageous, strong, do what needs to be done and accept risks:
● “I appreciate leaders who have courage, dignity, kindness and respect.”
● “The people that have been able to get it right can embrace the emergency with calm. Being calm and composed when you’ve lost everything. Standing in your power and yes, you have power too. Some of these people are ahead of their own time and they believe in their power and stay in their power.”
● “People who have backbone. Leaders that are not afraid to stick to their conviction and values. Always enjoyed those kinds of leaders. I also enjoy leaders that celebrate others.”
Ability to inspire others, being authentic and have appealing psychological traits:
• “There are people out in the world that can be as outspoken and I don’t see them as the way that I admire the most and they take up a lot of air and energy. The people who are really thoughtful and quiet leaders, when they talk, everyone listens, and says something important. They are very thoughtful. I also appreciate critical thinking, kindness. Tanya is a good example, who was very friendly.”
• “Used to admire charisma a lot and now not so much. It’s important to get people fired up and excited. But an important one is steadiness and having faith that you will be steady in terms of taking risks. Recognizing your weaknesses and getting your team to fill those gaps. It’s important for leadership to understand and connect, without taking people’s emotional weight and labor. You see their talent and skills, and what you’re watching, important.”
• “Probably what I see as weaknesses in myself — compelling storytellers, it’s a powerful skill to inspire and bring collective-reflection of a bigger leadership style. Leading with your head vs. the heart. I’m more of a nerd and lead more with my head. People that lead with their heart, more organically. Boldness in leadership — I admire — my personality is conflict averse; people that are trying to be more confrontational and being disruptive in a constructive way. Doesn’t come as natural to me.”
Justice, integrity, consistency and trustworthy:
• “Ethical and collective leadership.”
• “Leadership that’s designed to lift up as many people as possible. I think there are some leaders that want to get to the top, and being in a leadership position or any position authority is such an opportunity to help other people and the people I see making the most impact think of that as a way to help others and lift up multiple people rather than being [in] leadership because you want an org to do one thing, a lot of aggressive leadership style. But I like leaders that are using their positions to do good.”
• “Integrity, Humility, Vision.”
When I take these trends and code them by the meta-level trends coding scheme, I can see that most answers correspond to the emotional category, followed by the mental category. The spiritual category was the least common.
It should be noted that there is a substantial amount of correspondence between the topic-based coding scheme and the meta-level trend coding scheme.
Q10. What leadership practices do you most admire in others? Meta level trends
For the Q10 intersecting trends coding scheme, Fellows most often gave answers touching on various aspects of leadership complexity. The other categories of answers were much rarer. No answers primarily corresponded to familial influences or technological change categories.
Q10. What leadership practices do you most admire in others? Intersecting trends
Sample answers include:
Organizational, institutional and/or systemic complexity:
● “Organizing. People who are effective organizers and capacity builders, and who do that well — and it’s what I aspire to be doing and what my job is, and I’m trying to do better. People who are good at that — some people are good about using their voice. Evie can be very inspirational, but her power is soft: lots of conversations she’s having that don’t feel like advice. I admire people who say the same thing in such a gentle way, heard differently, and I aspire.”
Relational complexity:
• “Inclusive and participatory. Bottom-up ... really informed by the needs and values and listening to communities. I don’t trust a leader who doesn’t listen first. I admire leaders that are curious; they tend to be able to innovate best. They value Indigenous knowledge. Radical empathy.”
• “Distributed leadership, empathy.”
Leadership complexity:
• “People who have backbone. Leaders that are not afraid to stick to their conviction and values. Always enjoyed those kinds of leaders. I also enjoy leaders that celebrate others.”
• “Generosity is tied into a certain confidence and a level of trust and a belief that pushes against the dominative narrative of scarcity. So, it takes a lot of courage to be confident. The thing that pushes me forward and has the most generosity, the more we have the less generous we become.”
Societal complexity:
• “Humility. I have seen some leaders that are very effective and are world changers, and their egos are so high up, that there is some point where they miss the point. They are not able to see anymore what they are doing and why they were doing it in the first place. There are some leaders that change the world, but still stay very connected to the community. It’s more of a horizontal model. When you can lead in a horizontal way and don’t want anyone to be above anyone.”
• “I admire the organization Momentum because they really try to understand and go deep into understanding why mass movements and mobilizations fail and succeed. And then they built trainings for us and I was amazed by their abilities and their depth and their courage. Take a very tough challenge, how it didn’t work and it was a turning point for all of us.”
IV. Pressure points and critical reflection internal reflection
Question 11 (Q11) is an open-ended question encouraging inward reflection about participants’ own practices that they most admire; and the same topic-based coding scheme (as Q10) was used. Interestingly, what they admire about their own leadership practices is similar to the types of practices they admire in others: being kind, caring about others, listening to others and being both humble and generous. The next most common answer was being effective, smart and committed leaders. Being just, having integrity, consistency and being trustworthy followed as the third most common response.
Q11. What leadership practice(s) do you most admire about yourself? Topics
Q11. What leadership practice(s) do you most admire about yourself? Meta level trends
On a meta level, the coded Q11 answers of participants most often correspond to the emotional meta-level trend, followed by the mental, spiritual and physical categories, respectively. What respondents found admirable in their own practices differs from what they admire in others. Fellows more often described admiring their own spiritual leadership practices than when contemplating others’ practices. On the other hand, they more often listed admiring others’ physical leadership practices than when reflecting on their own. It may be easier to notice others’ physical practices, which are external and observable, than their spiritual practices, which are more internal practices and perhaps therefore more difficult to discern.
I also coded Q11 responses along the intersecting trends of navigating different types of complexity. When looking at the open-ended answers to Q11 using this coding scheme, the vast majority of Fellows discussed traits they admire in relation to how someone navigates leadership complexity. A small number of them talked about relational complexity. None spoke primarily about early hopes and dreams and career aspirations, or technological change.
Q11. What leadership practice(s) do you most admire about yourself? Intersecting trends
Question 12 (Q12) further pushed Fellows to reflect on the future by asking them where they saw themselves in the next five to 10 years. Answers to this open-ended question were first coded using categories of the types of plans mentioned:
• Growth, scaling, increase the size of the team, get more new projects, institutionalize current activities and become top leader.
• Explore options, get education and try new things.
• Retire, take time off and reduce the level of engagement.
• Change career.
• Work on developing one’s psychological faculties.
• Continue as before.
• Other.
Most Fellows talked about planning to explore various new options for their career or organization, getting a new education and generally trying to do new things. The next mostcommon response was about growth of their organization or their business, scaling it, increasing the size of their team, getting more new projects and other options for growth. Some participants talked about plans to work on developing their own psychological faculties, changing careers or simply continuing as before. Several participants listed plans to retire or disinvest their current activities.
Q12. Looking ahead at the next five to 10 years, how do you think your leadership practices will need to evolve? Topics
Sample answers include:
Growth, scaling, increase the size of the team, get more new projects, and become a top leader:
• “The art approach I do needs to be institutionalized in the health sector. It will give me a chance to study it and make it sound more natural. Now I just go to the hospital and ask if I can do this and with institutionalization you get funding and training will translate. You can bring training and bring a lot of interested people to this field. I want to see it as a center.”
• “I would love to see a hub in Eastern Europe supporting creative aging practices. I would love to be in the project that would be in the hands of others, but seeing it growing and seeing the impact, but not losing the oversight of it. But to see that I helped sow the seed and build the capacity, but it’s doing it. I need to create containers for the things that feed me. My work feeds me, but my community feeds me, finding space for creative endeavors that feed me play. Making more space for myself is really important.”
• “I think I will continue to grow and lead the team I have. Being able to kick off and complete my project, and then I think longer term, thinking about how to transition these insights into the global space.”
Explore options, get education and try new things:
• “I will need to be willing to put myself out there more, once again. To share not just policy and governance skills, but my ideas and how deeply I believe them, even though they are controversial and will draw a lot of fire from a wide array of places.”
• “I want to learn ways to build a community where everyone feels ownership of the process, of the collective, of the space being created. I don’t aspire to be a leader. I aspire to be in communication, in trust, in connection. I want to start a healing retreat and bring semantic healing.”
• “I hope to collaborate with other Fellows in order to expand my documentation work to include other countries. Absolutely, it could take me anywhere. The Atlantic [Institute] is already a warm place that is holding us and I can write to anyone and we already have a connection. Excited for the Atlantic Hub. But who knows. But in my life, I love the unexpected. “
Retire, take time off and reduce the level of engagement:
• “I have no idea if we’ll be around next year or even five years. Even if we get bankrolled, I’m not sure I’d want to be here for 10 years. I believe in fresh leadership. Just because it’s my baby, I don’t need to control it. When I’m complacent, I do check out and get complacent and don’t do my best work.”
Change career:
• “I imagine myself moving out of the country and managing a business and bringing real value to people, not just making money. I want to move into entrepreneurship and also work on research and clinical studies.”
• “Want to transition out of the movement, start a flower shop. Working with a leadership coach.”
• “Hard to talk about a 10-year time frame. Still have to figure out and settle as a family. A big change in my life is my family and [it] is going to impact my work.”
Work on developing one’s psychological faculties:
• “I see myself within the next five to 10 years developing stronger thought, ethical and collective leadership in a rapidly changing world which is facing major transformations, and facing profound challenges such as extreme inequality, racism, climate crisis and the curtailment of civic space and freedoms. I am equally looking to develop my leadership on bridging the academia and practice gap (praxis) in my field of work.”
• “I would like to become more confident in being a leader and taking on bigger leadership roles while sticking to my values and ideas of distributed leadership practice in change. Or leave the academy
to take on a role that gives me more room to practice the leadership and achieve the subsequent results that I want.”
Continue as before:
• “I’m in an interesting time and space where I’m not striving for the next thing and hoping to do really good work exactly where I am. And in the coming years there will be more opportunities. Being surrounded by really strong leaders, I’m in a wonderful space where they are pushing to take on even more and what a wonderful space to be in.”
• “I will be happy to be a well-equipped leader for the ability to run my established organization to be based in the heart of rural communities.”
When I next looked at the answers to Q12 and applied the meta-level trend coding scheme, I could see that Fellows most often talked about various activities and achievements they plan to accomplish in the time frame in the physical pressure point, followed (in order) by mental, spiritual and emotional pressure points, respectively.
Q12. Looking ahead at the next five to 10 years, how do you think your leadership practices will need to evolve? Meta level trends
Looking into the future
Question 13 (Q13) asked Fellows to reflect on how technologies might affect their leadership. Answers to this question were first coded based on the themes of their answers, using the following categories:
• No effects.
• Helps improve capacity, save time, improve visibility of what they do and positive effects.
• Will have to learn to use new technologies and adopt them.
• Need to be critical of the changes, reflect on structures being destroyed, negative effects, misinformation and both good and bad aspects.
• Does not know.
• Are / will transform (ing) society as a whole, empower people and redistribute power.
• We are already applying the new technologies; we are the leader in their adoption.
• Other.
Most often, Fellows conveyed how emerging technologies will have positive effects on them, indicating that emerging technologies are transforming or will transform the society as a whole, empower people and redistribute power. The second most common category of answers were those describing how technology will help them personally or their organization by helping them improve their capacity, save time, improve visibility of what they do and so on.
The third most common answers were those expressing views that one should be critical of the changes and reflect on the structures being destroyed. These answers sometimes mentioned the spread of misinformation as an important consideration with these technologies.
A small number wrote about how their organization is already applying the new technologies or is the leader in that field. Another group of similar size wrote about the need to learn to use the new technologies. Several Fellows wrote that technology will not affect them or that they do not know how these changes will affect them.
Q13. How do you think emerging technologies and data will impact how you do your work and your own leadership? Topics
Looking at answers to Q13 using the meta-level trend coding scheme, Fellows’ answers most often fell into the mental category, followed by the physical category.
Q13. How do you think emerging technologies and data will impact how you do your work and your own leadership? Meta level trends
Looking at the answers to Q13 using the intersecting trend coding scheme, Fellows most often wrote about emerging technologies affecting societal complexity, followed by answers describing the technological change.
Q13. How do you think emerging technologies and data will impact how you do your work and your own leadership? Intersecting trends
In summary, most pressure points lie in the division between the physical and emotional realms. Fellows most often reported admiring kind and caring leaders, followed by effective leaders (Q10). In a similar way, they admired emotional leadership practices, followed by the mental metalevel trend. The vast majority of answers on Q10 reflected the leadership complexity intersecting trend. The same trend was repeated when respondents talked about leadership practices that they admire in themselves (Q11). Though most Fellows report that their work occurs in the physical realm — the one that most emphasizes the external representation of leadership (e.g., leading organizations, initiatives, being a risk taker) — they tend to most admire leadership attributes associated with the emotional realm (e.g., mentoring, listening to different perspectives, building capacity in others).
Despite this admiration of the emotional attributes of leadership, the future will likely take most Global Atlantic Fellows further away from that focus. For example, when looking into changes in their lives and work in the near future (Q12), most responses highlighted an ongoing trajectory into the physical aspects of leadership. Additionally, when discussing the impact of emerging technologies on their work and leadership, the most dominant intersecting theme was that of mental attributes, in that most responses spoke about the need to activate their intellect, engage in more thinking, learning and understanding to be able to address the opportunities and challenges ahead. The most common meta-level trend in this question was mental, and the most common intersecting trends were societal complexity and technological change.
CHAPTER 5
Looking Into The Fast-Approaching Future
A large NGO in Egypt was helping to co-facilitate workshops with other NGOs and movements in the region to discuss the issue of affordable housing. At a recent global conference, they met some researchers and activists from South Africa working on these issues, but from a narrative-change angle. They felt so much solidarity between each other’s work and found their approaches complimentary. An Egypt-based advocate decided to arrange a series of virtual collective reflection workshops to see what insights and lessons could be drawn from everyone’s work. They immediately noticed that some people wanted to pursue more legalistic and formal approaches that engaged traditional accountability channels and tried to influence the political process. Other people wanted to adopt a more interdisciplinary approach and systems-thinking mindset and analyze the root causes of rights deprivation. Both sides were resistant to change approaches. The advocate from Egypt who was holding this collective space, started to get grumpy emails from partners. They took a break and went back to their values as a way to get more clarity on next steps. “I just realized, at the end of the day, you have to be as human as possible. It’s that balance between your head vs. the heart. I’m more of a nerd and lead more with my head. But I appreciate now why you sometimes have to lead with the heart too.”
In this analysis, I try to make a case for reorienting approaches and programming to support changemakers and leaders amid increased urgency and complexity. I developed the Pressure Point Mapping framework to help demonstrate how we can reconstruct what exists to build a new model for leadership development that centers changemakers.28 In the public and private sectors, one hears of a leadership crisis. My reaction: There is not a leadership crisis, but how we’ve come to view, define and support “leaders” has relied on a definition that has fundamentally detached itself from the real work of changemaking. Traditional leadership studies tend to focus on the professional and exceptional qualities of solitary individuals. Those studies, while helpful for different kinds of leaders, they dont always provide a pathway for coping and dealing with complex wicked problems including increasing political polarization, economic inequality, geopolitical tensions and technological change. New models and approaches are needed.
At the same time, we do not necessarily need to innovate. Work like “The Catalyst’s Way” demonstrates how we can use and adapt Indigenous thinking and ideas to make them as relevant today as they have been for thousands of years. In my case, I adapted the humble yet robust medicine wheel to make the argument that the most important thing that leadership development programs need to do in these times is to make changemakers whole and fully seen, not just in their exceptional leadership qualities, but in their very human existence of navigating homes, dreams and aspirations while at the same time juggling the challenges of fighting for equity, racism and anti-blackness. This entails looking at the pieces of their lives, journeys and experiences, which I argue are erased and fragmented the moment a traditional leadership lens is trained on their lives and through the very professionalization of social change. To see them with all the complexities and the “grays” that define their life and journey is to put back together again that which makes them human: the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual aspects. That is exactly what is required in an increasingly technological world.
28 As mentioned above, my approach is based on Spiller’s work as well as theories on leadership as a practice, social justice and adaptive leaders and transformative adult education.
This framework unmasks and centers the human experience amid complexity, so that changemakers and programs supporting them can better identify the tensions and pressures that exist in the journey of changemaking. To this end, the framework can be used to help programs cultivate situational awareness that can help inform program offerings and surface opportunities for critical reflection around dominant pressure points. For example, through the surveys and interviews with the 85 Global Atlantic Fellows, I identified that most of their pressure points exist in the physical and emotional realms and include everything from facing danger and running and leading organizations (physical) to supporting spaces for collaborations and holding complexity (emotional). Additionally, my analysis of open-ended responses yielded seven general types of complexities:29
• Early familial and parental influences.
• Early hopes and dreams, career aspirations.
• Organizational complexity and systemic complexity.
• Relational complexity.
• Leadership complexity.
• Societal complexity.
Given the multidimensional nature of complexities that Global Atlantic Fellows encounter in their lives and work, it is concerning that leadership studies do not adequately prepare leaders for navigating complexity, as academic studies have found.30 I argue that we have to name and center that complexity as we incorporate Indigenous and other approaches for a new paradigm of leadership studies: a less personality-driven model that is more fluid, adaptive31 and reflexive.
The following section offers recommendations for exploring and experimenting with approaches to supporting leaders in the 21st century.
Recommendations
1. Evaluate the extent to which support and programming for Global Atlantic Fellows are focused on centering complexity rather than on traditional professional and skills development.
According to all 85 interviews/surveys, navigating complexity was the most dominant theme. The types of complexity that Global Atlantic Fellows are navigating include leadership and organizational/systemic complexity, with an emphasis on physical and emotional demands. While technological complexity was less of a dominant theme, Fellows said it will require more mental energy and focus for them to be better able to leverage the opportunity and address the challenges. Therefore, the leadership work they are doing will continue to focus on dominant physical and mental traits, as opposed to the more emotional- and interpersonal-driven characteristics they most admire in other leaders and themselves. Therefore, it appears that Fellows are stuck within a leadership paradigm and trajectory that continue to fragment them from the aspects and areas that most fuel and enrich them. It is within this context that the Atlantic Institute has an important role in making Global Atlantic Fellows whole.
29 The exception is technological complexity, a topic that I raised.
30 See Uhl-Bien, “Complexity Leadership and Followership,” as discussed in Chapter 1.
31 Uhl-Bien, “Complexity Leadership and Followership.”
This means not overly focusing on professional identity and skill building and instead looking at what support and resources Fellows need to acknowledge their full humanity, particularly in this time of technological change.
Pressure Point Mapping is one tool among many that can help foster more authentic mutual learning and collaboration by finding connective tissue across the common pressure points experienced by changemakers (across regions, issues, areas and programs), rather than focusing solely on professional connective tissue.
2. Provide safe and critical reflection spaces for Global Atlantic Fellows to share their life journeys and experiences.
Both Spiller’s “The Catalyst’s Way” and the Pressure Point Mapping framework emphasize the importance of bringing together the totality of the experience of being a catalyst, a changemaker or a leader as well as the ongoing negotiations between the internal and external pressures and processes that define such a journey. Most traditional leadership development programs do not focus on grounding the work in this collective critical reflection, but rather place more emphasis on the professional identity of the changemaker and the pressures of showing impact. In my conversations with Global Atlantic Fellows, it was evident that many of them are frustrated with the professional aspects of their work, which leads them to focus more on the physical and mental aspects of it (as described on the medicine wheel), although in reality they report admiring more emotional leaders. We should therefore spend more time understanding what the world looks like for Global Atlantic Fellows and identifying connective tissue and ties around those rather than issue areas and professional activities.
3. Explore aligning global programming around common practices and values.
The surveys and interviews also present a pathway for exploring additional avenues for aligning some of the programming and pedagogy across the various fellowship programs. Two areas of exploration could be reducing personalistic attributes and focusing on leadership practices and values, particularly those that can help bridge the various equity frameworks utilized across the Atlantic Fellows programs (e.g., health equity, socioeconomic equity, racial equity, anti-blackness, etc.). In the face of complexity, leadership studies emphasize using particular practices in navigation such as collaboration, adaptation and resilience, among others.32 Further, this study, while not comprehensive (with only 85 Fellows’ perspectives) does highlight the potential commonality around driving values and practices.
This analysis revealed that the majority of Global Atlantic Fellows engage in mentorship and leadership development for the next generation; seek new ideas, advice and professional development; lead organizations, programs and initiatives; and actively listen to diverse viewpoints. Additionally, they share core values: fairness, kindness, respect, courage and empathy. These findings also reveal that the Atlantic Fellows community is unique in that most of its members are mid-career and are driven by values that are high in what is referred to as a transformational leadership style, which emphasizes interpersonal relationships, role modeling and supporting others.
As a result of this, it is evident that it is possible to establish a baseline of how to best support Global Atlantic Fellows upon completion of their individual programs, and could serve as a starting point for reprogramming the support and offerings. We can explore, for example, what the best journey, path and support would be if we knew we wanted to encourage more collaboration among Global
32 Lucia Crevani et al., “Changing Leadership in Changing Times II.”
Atlantic Fellows. The challenge for mid-career Fellows, who are deeply invested in interpersonal relationships and dynamics as well as having demanding professional careers, is to embrace complexity and participate in more collaborations that may be outside their purview.
4. Assist Global Atlantic Fellows in working on the technology dimensions of their issues through an incubator or project lab structure.
In addition to the complexities that Global Atlantic Fellows are navigating, there is an increasingly relevant and urgent complexity related to the rapid technological change we are experiencing, which was not frequently mentioned in the surveys or interviews.
Almost every issue area that Global Atlantic Fellows work in — health, medicine, agriculture, climate change, race, storytelling, etc. — is being impacted by technology in both positive and negative ways. Additionally, Fellows must be able to work simultaneously on dismantling both the historical and structural determinants of these issues as well as their future and new dimensions. Launching a new augmented reality/virtual reality creative space as well as putting a greater emphasis on developing futurist skills are both positive steps in the right direction. However, in order for Fellows to be able to critically examine and strategize the new systems of inequalities and opportunities that are arising as a result of technological change, more programming and support are required. In order to create a dedicated space for Global Atlantic Fellows to work deeply and collaboratively on these issues, the Institute should consider creating a technology project incubator or lab.
5. Pilot a second targeted fellowship trajectory for Global Atlantic Fellows with demonstrated commitment to collaborative leadership styles.
As discussed, Atlantic Fellows are typically mid-career and already utilize a wide range of leadership practices.33 They devote considerable time to mentoring and supporting the next generation of leaders, and they consider the big picture of what lies ahead for their professional career and passions in the future. This community possesses a wealth of experience and expertise, as well as limits in their ability to take on and learn new ways of working and being. For example, this may include learning ways to become more resilient and collaborative, as well as becoming familiar with our rapidly evolving technological future.
It is important to note that within this diverse and incredibly talented community, there are Global Atlantic Fellows who are best positioned to both leverage their vast experience and knowledge, and embrace new challenges and ways of working. By piloting a targeted fellowship for Global Atlantic Fellows with a commitment and dedication to this opportunity and challenge, the Atlantic Institute may be able to serve this leadership pool more effectively. Furthermore, this can support the emerging conversations that took place at the December 2022 Collective Leadership convening. From this convening there was a sense that the topic of collective leadership is complex, varies by region and often lacks shared language and frameworks. Nevertheless, it is an area that is important to Global Atlantic Fellows. The funding and programmatic structure of an annual fellowship program could serve this global community, as participants would strategize and work on projects addressing collective leadership within critical issue areas for the community.
33 On average, Global Fellows selected 11.33 leadership practices out of 17 practices, as noted above.
APPENDIX1: Survey/Interview Tool
List of Questions
Q2. What Atlantic Fellows program are you a part of?
• Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity.
• Atlantic Fellows for Healthy Equity U.S. + Global.
• Atlantic Fellows for Health Equity in South Africa.
• Atlantic Fellows for Equity in Brain Health.
• Atlantic Fellows for Racial Equity
• Atlantic Fellows for Social Equity.
• Atlantic Fellows for Health Equity in Southeast Asia.
Q3. What region(s) do you work in? (Check all that apply.) If needed, please refer to the United Nations Statistics Division Standard Country and Region codes for assistance: https://unstats. un.org/unsd/methodology/m49/.
• Northern Africa.
• Sub-Saharan Africa.
• Latin America and the Caribbean.
• North America.
• Central Asia.
• Eastern Asia.
• Southeastern Asia.
• Southern Asia.
• Western Asia.
• Eastern Europe.
• Northern Europe.
• Southern Europe.
• Western Europe.
• Oceania.
Q4. What issue area(s) do you work in (check all that apply)?
• Cities and communities (including housing, inadequate and overburdened services, pollution, overcrowded or inaccessible public transport).
• Climate change, energy and sustainability.
• Conflict, security and peace.
• Democracy, power and governance.
• Education and learning.
• Equality, diversity and inclusion.
• Health and well-being.
• Hunger, food, water and shelter.
• Justice, law and human and Indigenous rights.
• Life stages and intergenerationality.
• Migration, mobilities and movement.
• Poverty, inequality and social justice.
• Society, culture and arts.
• Technology, data and society.
• The future of work, finance and the economy.
Q5. In what areas do you devote most of your work to?
• Research (academic, NGO, etc.).
• Creative spaces (art, music, film, etc.).
• Media/communications.
• Teaching and education (in schools, academia or public education).
• Organizing, movements, etc.
• Policy, advocacy, etc.
• Medicine and health provider.
• Government, public-sector work.
• Direct services.
• Business, investing and private-sector work.
• Technology and data projects.
• Other (please specify).
Q6. Please select the leadership practices that you most use in your daily work and then answer the questions that follow:
• I lead an organization, initiative or program.
• I challenge institutions and organizations.
• I provide mentorship and/or build up the capacity of others.
• I create structures and opportunities for people to collaborate and build relationships.
• I build consensus around a common set of values, ideas or programmatic activities.
• I seek challenging opportunities to change, grow, innovate and improve at a personal and organizational level.
• I experiment, take risks and encourage others to do so.
• I spend time listening to the needs and concerns of a variety of stakeholders.
• I continue to learn new ideas, seek advice and/or professional development.
• I serve as an example for others by aligning actions with shared values.
• I envision the future and talk about future trends that will influence how our work gets done.
• I experiment and take risks.
• I set a personal example of what I expect of others.
• I seek out challenging opportunities that test my own skills and abilities.
• I set achievable goals, make concrete plans and establish measurable milestones for the projects and programs that I work on.
• I actively listen to diverse points of view.
• I appeal to others by sharing an exciting dream of the future.
• I am clear about my philosophy of leadership.
• I paint the “big picture” of what we aspire to accomplish.
• I publicly recognize people who are doing important work.
• Other (please specify).
Meta trends calculation
1) Physical: 1+6+7+14+4
2) Mental: 18+2+5+11+19+15+9+conflict mediation
3) Emotional: 17+10+13+8+20+3+holding complexity
Open-ended questions
Q8. Please provide specific examples of activities that you do for each leadership practice.
Q9. For these leadership practices, what are the values that you most embody? For ideas, look at this list of values from the Atlantic Fellows programs: courage, fairness, respect, creativity, integrity, openness, radical inclusion, solidarity, care, transparency, collective leadership, participatory leadership, diversity, agency, humility, critical thinking, diversity, ambiguity, power, ubuntu, imagination, transformation, justice, authenticity, empathy, valuing Indigenous knowledges, trusted relationships, reciprocity, fellow-centric innovation, Indigenous social change through research and practice, commitment, curiosity, kindness, opportunity, equity, dignity, inclusion and commitment to action.
Q10. What leadership practices do you most admire in others?
Q11. What leadership practice(s) do you most admire about yourself?
Q12. Looking ahead at the next five to 10 years, how do you think your leadership practices will need to evolve?
Q13. How do you think emerging technologies and data will impact how you do your work and your own leadership?
Q14. Who are your leadership heroes and heroines and why? (could be an established leader, colleague, friend, relative, etc.).
