One of the big challenges of leadership is that, once you assume it, you are there to be shot at.<\/p>\n
It is not necessarily that people want to bring you down. \u00a0But they do\u00a0want\u00a0to know that ‘the leaders’ know their stuff, that they are credible. \u00a0That they are worth following on a journey. \u00a0That they deserve the commitment of discretionary time and effort too. \u00a0That it will all make a positive difference in the end.<\/p>\n
In leadership, you have to earn your followers…<\/p>\n
The problem is further compounded if:<\/p>\n
When some of these conditions are met, then vision based leadership becomes very, very difficult. \u00a0Attempts are\u00a0likely\u00a0to be met with, at best, ‘passive aggression’. \u00a0And I think that\u00a0this\u00a0is the situation facing us in Leeds at the moment with the Leeds Vision 2030 process. \u00a0It is a situation that faces many leadership teams.<\/p>\n
People are giving up time and money to engage in a leadership process that should be a very high stakes game for the city. \u00a0Shaping our international profile, providing a platform for a socially just society, rising to an array of carbon and environmental sustainability challenges and\u00a0delivering\u00a0an economy that works, are just a few of the opportunities and challenges that the\u00a0process needs to address.<\/p>\n
This is why I\u00a0think\u00a0some people, myself included,\u00a0were disappointed when we first saw the new ‘Leeds Owl<\/a>‘ \u00a0and strapline that have been developed to\u00a0brand\u00a0the Vision 2030 exercise. \u00a0Personally I\u00a0think\u00a0that Phil Kirby’s criticisms<\/a> are justified. So too Lee Hickens<\/a>. \u00a0And I have made some observations about the symbolic\u00a0meaning\u00a0of the owl. In what is a multi-cultural and international city we should show some sensitivity and awareness of what our city symbol means in parts of Japanese, Hindu and African history.<\/p>\n There are all sorts of\u00a0things\u00a0that the council is now doing that I\u00a0think\u00a0show signs of progress. \u00a0Setting up facebook<\/a> pages and twitter feeds<\/a> for example. \u00a0Far more council staff seem to be really engaging, online and off, in some of the stuff that is happening in the city. \u00a0 But these\u00a0tools are double edged swords. \u00a0Reputations take a long time to build online and\u00a0can\u00a0be very quickly lost. \u00a0They will certainly surface more and more critical responses (let’s face it few of us find the time to write a\u00a0response\u00a0that says ‘Great work, keep it up!’) than more traditional and ‘managed’ consultations<\/p>\n [youtube=http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=lhmjnYKlVnM]<\/p>\n