Week 6: Leadership as position
Introduction
Where you are positioned within organisations and societies matters for the leadership that is practiced. ‘Position’ has two meanings here.
The first refers to where you are positioned in terms of power and authority in an organisational hierarchy. As you will learn, becoming better at using your positional power is important for getting things done. A certain amount of power comes from holding a senior position, meaning that you can operate with the authority of a job title and the power delegated to you by an organisation to make certain decisions. However, people outside such roles underestimate how much influence they have, particularly when working together, to make change happen.
The second meaning of position concerns geographical position, and how this positioning shapes the leadership that is possible. Considering leadership in relation to geography means thinking about the spaces in which it happens, the political, social, cultural and economic forces that shape our spaces, and how leadership can relate to these. Following on from this, you can plan leadership that is more or less expansive, connected, inclusive and focused, depending on where you draw the geographical boundaries of your work.
After having engaged with organisational and geographical position, you will start to develop a spatial imagination, giving you the ability to start seeing the potential for new and creative connections within the spaces in which you live and work.
By the end of this week, you should be able to:
- identify and critically discuss the distinctive forms of leadership that tend to emerge from various organisational positions
- consider and practise healthy conflict that leads people into a ‘mess’ of creativity
- consider and practise leadership that works from and enhances the distinctive features of the geographical spaces in which you live and work.