1.1 Defining resistance leadership

The nature of power and resistance and the boundaries between them can become ambiguous when resistance is so pronounced that power needs to respond, as in the case of the after-effects of the BLM protests. One important implication of this statement is that resistance can itself provide leadership because it pushes a response from power. When resistance generates a response and change, it is doing the work of leadership.

At the heart of such leadership is a reliance on those with less power generating the courage, determination and collective ability (a bundle of qualities known together as ‘agency’) to make resistance happen. For resistance leadership to occur, those with less power need to step up and take action. This suggests the following definition of resistance leadership:

Resistance and power are closely related: they unfold against one another in a continuous process of struggle (Fleming and Spicer, 2007 and 2008). Power responds to resistance in many different ways. It can concede entirely or partially; but it can also try to resist the resistance, through language and/or action. Hence as the BLM protests and national dialogue continued, the far right themselves took to the streets, ostensibly to ‘defend’ public monuments – although in reality we all knew the intention was to intimidate and assert power. Some people in positions of power – in the media and politics – started to publicly criticise the act of taking the knee and even to deny the extent of racism in the UK. The struggle continued.

Yet one important lesson of this discussion is to note that those in power can never truly predict or control resistance, as it has the capacity to surprise and challenge in unexpected ways. For example, during a far-right street action in London in 2020, a white man, Bryn Male, was left stranded amongst BLM activists when his colleagues ran away. A few BLM protesters tried to protect Male, and one of them, Patrick Hutchinson, aged 50, carried Male to the police in a fireman’s lift (Iqbal, 2020). The image, reproduced extensively in the media, was iconic, a symbol of the dignity and courage of Patrick Hutchinson and the Black struggle for equity in the face of hatred and violence. Patrick Hutchinson himself, who was motivated by experiences of witnessing the division created in communities by white supremacists when he was growing up, has since become a powerful advocate for racial equity, writing a book in the form of a letter to his children and grandchildren (Hutchinson, 2021).

Resistance and power are implicated within one another and the relationship between them can be ambiguous. In some instances, resistance can even help status quo power within organisations adapt, as the next section explores.