Margy-Jean Malcolm
Community Conversation Inc Conference
Dunedin
October 2013
Copyright MJ Malcolm 2013
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WHY are you engaged with
conservation?
WHAT do you want to achieve?
 HOW are you going to achieve
it?
 WHO do you need to engage?
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Copyright MJ Malcolm 2013
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Rethinking our understanding of “good
leadership” amidst the complexities of
community engagement
Leadership as learning to shape vision and
action together
Leadership as a living system in constant
movement
Copyright MJ Malcolm 2013
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“ the process of building relationships with
community members who will work side-byside with you as an ongoing partner, in any
and every way imaginable, building an army of
support for your mission, with the end goal of
making the community a better place to live”
(Hildy Gotlieb, 2007)
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Community Engagement as both a process and
an outcome from leadership perspective … the
journey and a destination
Copyright MJ Malcolm 2013
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Ambiguous ownership and
interdependence of multiple
stakeholders
Clarity of shared vision, mission and
values
Building trust and engagement around
thinking, learning and acting together
Copyright MJ Malcolm 2013
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Strong
Decisive answers
Outcomes focused
Inspiring and
engaging followers
around ‘your’ vision
Building consensus
Shaping strategic
plans
Organising structures
and systems
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Vulnerable
Powerful questions
Process focused
Co-creating ‘our’
vision together
Enabling diverse
pathways
Shaping next steps
Enabling selforganising,
decentralised systems
Copyright MJ Malcolm 2013
Copyright MJ Malcolm 2013
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Four inter-woven layers to pay attention to as
we discern, how to lead amidst complexity
Personal
 Relational
 Structural
 Cultural
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Ten ideas for working with the paradoxes of
leading amidst the complexities of community
engagement
Copyright MJ Malcolm 2013
Bring curiosity, a learner, ‘not knower’ mind to everything.
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Engaging with wise questions to find a way forward
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Multi-sensory noticing to help see what is unfolding
Let go of the need for power and control and the fear of the unknown
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and unknowable.
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Intentionally redistributing power in how you lead and engage people
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The power of small actions to produce big outcomes
What do I need to be doing (or letting go of), to enable the leadership
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contribution of the many to this system?
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Influencing – enabling – self-organising
Copyright MJ Malcolm 2013
Facilitate inquiry within and with others
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Ongoing cycles of noticing, reflection, reading patterns, sense-making, exploring possibilities,
designing temporary support structures and learning-informed action steps
Leverage uncertainty, messiness, diversity, tensions, discomfort,
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disturbance and paradoxes as the driving energy for learning, change
and innovation.
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Shape insightful questions to support sense-making through the unknown.
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Offer encouragement for others’ to step out into the unknown and into their potential.
What are the counter-intuitive possibilities that could emerge out of
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these tensions?
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Keeping the system in movement, not stuck
Copyright MJ Malcolm 2013
Low
AGREEMENT
High
High
CERTAINTY
Low
Stacey’s Agreement and Certainty Matrix adapted by Mark Cabaj, Tamarack Institute
Copyright MJ Malcolm 2013
Create temporary support structures, agreements and roles
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Discern together when and how these need to evolve organically into new forms
Maximize connections with across every level of the system.
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The power of peer learning interactions beyond traditional roles, hierarchies and
boundaries , exchanging information, energy and assets
Avoid over-specialisation of roles (e.g. of people, organisations)
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Apparent duplication may be a vital excess in the system needed for adaptation in
turbulent times, not an inefficiency.
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What mix of structure and more organic ways of working do we need
for now?
Copyright MJ Malcolm 2013
Build a strong collaborative inquiry culture of ‘doing with’ in preference
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to ‘doing for’.
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Step up, alongside and back, to redistribute power, to support
resourcefulness, to enable the growth of the leader in everyone
Welcome diversity of people, perspectives and practices as a rich
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resource for learning and adaptation.
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Diversity increases the range of possible pathways forward
Co-create common vision, values and culture for working together – and
then shape practical, achievable action steps as you go.
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Commonalities: WHY, HOW – supporting Diversity: WHAT, WHO
Copyright MJ Malcolm 2013
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Embrace the paradoxes with a learner’s inquiring curiosity
and a leadership ability to facilitate inquiry together
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Keep learning and discerning appropriate leadership
responses for whatever the level of complexity of your
community context: Influencing- Enabling- Self-organising
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Think leadership as living systems, not just individuals –
past, present, future patterns, rhythms and movements –
find and work with where the energy is
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“It’s not the answer that enlightens but the question”
(Eugene Ionesco)
Copyright MJ Malcolm 2013
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Cabaj, Mark Cabaj, M. (2011) Situational Leadership and Management
http://www.inspiringcommunities.org.nz
Gleick, J. (1987). Chaos: Making a New Science. London: Heinemann.
Gotlieb, Hildy (2007) Community Engagement Arizona: Renaissance
Press
Inspiring Communities (2013) Learning by Doing: community-led
change in Aotearoa NZ. New Zealand Inspiring Communities Trust.
Johnson, S. (2001). Emergence. London: Penguin.
Uhl-Bien, M., Marion, R., & McKelvey, B. (2007). Complexity
Leadership Theory: Shifting leadership from the industrial age to
the knowledge era. The Leadership Quarterly, 18(4), 298-318.
Wheatley, M., J. (1992). Leadership and the New Science: discovering
order in a chaotic world. San Francisco: Berrett Koehler.
Copyright MJ Malcolm 2013