NEWS
Report { RTPI YOUNG PLANNERS’ CONFERENCE
How to be a leader By Laura Edgar
seeking a promotion and starting a What is a leader and how can you new role. be one? Three young planners “I think when left to think about considered this in a session at the my career development alone, the RTPI’s Young Planners’ Virtual lack of self-confidence I think comes Conference 2020. in again, and I’ve too often focused Attending her final Young Planners’ on addressing my weaknesses, but Conference, Lucy Seymour-Bowdery my mentors have also helped me to MRTPI, team leader, developer recognise and build on the strengths contributions at the Ministry of that I have.” Housing, Communities and Local Tom Carpen, infrastructure Government (MHCLG) cited an Audrey and energy planning associate at Hepburn quote (see right). It sums up, Barton Willmore and currently on she said, how she has felt in the early secondment to the years of her career. MHCLG’s national “And to be honest, I “EXPERIENCE IS THE still do sometimes, BEST TEACHER, BUT NO infrastructure team, believes trusting even now.” ONE SAYS IT MUST BE young people and Seymour-Bowdery YOUR OWN PERSONAL people early in has since realised that EXPERIENCE” their career with it was this that held OLAFIYIN TAIWO responsibility and her back rather than leadership is “essential her ability. It turns out if we’re going to that leaders are not handle complexity”. necessarily extroverts. Explaining what he The main quality for means by complexity, Seymour-Bowdery in he said: “It is clearly a very an inspirational leader is being your challenging time at the moment and “authentic self”. it’s certainly not business as usual. “I think with authenticity comes The top three examples for me are the empathy in others, and the ability for pandemic, climate change, and our people to connect with you, which I exit from the European Union – these think also links really well to inclusive really are shaping how we live, where leadership,” she told the audience. we live and how we invest in places, Mentoring, she emphasised, is in terms of economic investment, important – having one and being social and environmental. For me one. It’s a “more personal form that’s the context that planning is of leadership and I feel that I’ve working within, and there are others benefited greatly from both having as well.” a mentor and also being a mentor Collaboration is key to addressing myself”. Having a mentor was such challenges. “I always think of a valuable for Seymour-Bowdery when
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I lack selfconfidence. I don't know whether I shall ever get it. Perhaps it is better to be unsure of your self, as I am. But it is very tiring. Audrey Hepburn
peloton as a good analogy for how you can think about leadership because you can play a different role in that peloton at any time. There will be different skills that are required, but you can really find your way through and do it really effectively in that way. So it’s always worth bearing in mind who’s in your peloton when you’re taking on a complex problem, whose peloton are you in, and who can you support. That’s something that certainly I’ll always come back to, and it’s very difficult to go it alone.” For Olafiyin Taiwo MRTPI, convener at the Commonwealth Association of Planners (CAP) Young Planners Network, leadership is about influence and the different opportunities to influence, whether that is in the workplace, within professional bodies
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08/12/2020 15:53
