Experience as a facilitator on the leadership pathway for people with lived experience

In this Account of Practice, I share emerging reflections on the conditions which enable an experiential approach, by means of participatory action learning, to the collective development of leadership.As a facilitator on the ‘leadership pathway for people with lived experience’, I set out to challenge what is meant by leadership and leadership development through being in a learning community alongside each other as co-participants. While each of us has differing work contexts and areas for development, as co-participants we are connected through our respective lived experiences of psychological trauma. Rather than teach a set way of how to be a leader, my approach has been to foster conditions in which we have all felt able to learn inter-subjectively, from and alongside each other, i.e. a relational approach to leadership development.With the group, I have used a facilitated check-in process at the start of each regular session, and together we have experimented with working collaboratively on different people’s work and personal leadership issues. We have listened to each other’s issues in turn, offered insights and perspectives, and supported each other to come up with possible ways forward.By taking such an action learning approach, we have valued all our experiences, questions, and ways of knowing, and identified areas of collective impact. As a result, each of us has experienced a positive impact on our self-belief, broader understanding of leadership and relationality, and self-efficacy in terms of contributing to leadership practice and influencing policy (in our respective contexts).