BMA eBook - Manual / Resource - Page 54
Intervention and Leadership
1. Introduction
Leadership is often described as a noble and heroic activity, one few can
demonstrate and one which focuses on issues or problems of significance.
Leadership is , however, also about the day to day, the moment to moment action
taken by ordinary people, in their roles as managers in organisations, members of a
community groups or as a citizens on the street or at home, as well as the efforts to
make progress on the bigger things people care about. The day-to-day actions
someone takes to assist a group face problematic realties, where current knowledge
or skills are not sufficient for progress to be made, are one of the building blocks for
adaptive change (Heifetz and Linsky 2002).
Such actions or interventions are
designed to do one thing – to get and hold the attention of those who most need to
be involved in the work of change and to do so long enough for the groups with a
stake in the issue to be mobilised to action. Indeed we use the term “mobilized” on
purpose as it implies movement and the marshalling of focus usually because some
or all of those involved are stuck and movement is wanted and required.
In this way intervention is a core leadership capacity: one that needs to be and can
be, learned, in order for those who choose to exercise leadership to be effective.
Leaders have very few direct levers to pull when attempting to bring about change
and, therefore, the solutions are to be found in community and organisational
groups as they work, experiment, learn and adapt together.
Copyright Vantage Point Consulting Pty Ltd 2010
Not to be reproduced without the author’s permission
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