UK Responsible Leadership Inquiry
Developing the Public Realm and Social Organisations
In Association with the Globally Responsible Leadership Initiative of the UNGC/EFMD

Raising questions

Developing leadership

Engaging people

Sustaining responsibility

Contents (click on the links below to go to relevant section)


• Background to Inquiry
• About Collaborative Inquiry
• UKRLI 2006/07 Support Network
• Contact us to take part or find out more


The UKRLI was an opportunity for leaders, change agents facilitators and influencers to take part in the 2006 Inquiry into 'responsible leadership' - through collaborative approaches in practice. It was part of a global EFMD/UNGC initiative aligned with other development actions across continents.

The Responsible Leadership Inquiry outcomes were:

• To generate tangible and sustainable results for each participant in relation to key issues in their own context and practice - whether at an individual, role, team, organisational or planetary level.
  
• To gain increased capacity to work with the complexity of the leadership role you fulfil in an uncertain and interconnected world.
  
• To contribute new learning about the development of more collaborative, enlightened and responsible leadership for:
• those directly involved
• their organisations and
• the wider context - social, ecological, human and economic.
  
• To create opportunities to join with other influencers in promoting the practice of responsible leadership development and collaborative ways of working.
  
• To develop a greater awareness and appreciation of the possibilities and challenges of a collaborative approach to leadership in the public and private realms as well as in social organisations.
  
• To influence wider responsible leadership discussions and developments via the UNGC/EFMD/collabor8 networks through their relationship to globally responsible leadership initiatives and actions.
  
• To enhance the overall development of training and education for leadership – at centres for learning, leadership schools and in the public realm and organisations serving the public realm, by informing and influencing both the Globally Responsible Leadership Initiative and UK based learning organisations including The Oasis School.

The Oasis School is now contributing to or is the partner in: leadership programmes within UK-based social organisations; part of the team introducing and integrating new global partners into the GRLI; working on the prototype Executive Leadership Programme in Brazil sponsored by Petrobras; developing dissemination initiatives with collabor8 to ensure the learning from the UK Responsible Leadership Inquiry will continue to bring influence to the wider world, including the publication of Working Relationships for the 21st Century: A Guide to Authentic Collaboration.

Leadership in focus
The organisational context is becoming more complex and there are new demands on those who hold positions of responsibility and direction for the development of their organisation: an increasingly interconnected world where so many things can go wrong in so many ways, calls for a greater collaborative approach between groups and individuals that may have little history or practice in dialogue; the increasing trends of globalisation which brings with it consequences of inequality and instability; the call for new kinds of international and local co-operation; the rapid depletion of the planet's natural (often non-renewable) resources; the development of globally responsible leadership and the appeal for business to widen its purposes - are some of the well-publicised indications. 

Few people in senior organisational positions or those involved in leadership can afford to ignore the need for changes in roles, relationships, capacities and accountabilities. Regardless of whether you are in a NGO, the public or the commercial sector these changes demand more from the person, the organisation and the kind of leadership needed to meet circumstances that are altering at great speed. 

The demand of organisations across public and private sector realms for 'responsibility' and 'leadership' has created a raft of approaches and answers that rather than being transformational in their outcomes run the risk of only reflect ways of working from the past.  'Leadership development' that really develops, makes sense of an uncertain world and makes a difference in practice seems in short supply despite the term being rampant in most educational and consultant settings.



However, how to develop these often eludes development programmes, and from the work of the GRLI it has emerged that the organisations involved are looking to offer approaches which seek to embrace more whole person learning. 

New approach to learning
When so many are talking of corporate citizenship, global awareness and responsibility an inquiry based approach offers those involved the unique opportunity to bring their own interests and concerns in order to deepen their understanding and practice by working in collaboration and alongside others who have they own similar but still unique experience and learning to contribute and to gain.

Responsibility, like leadership, is a contemporary focus for the public and private realm.  As the intended and unintended consequences of the actions of leaders, governments and business impact on our lives there is a sustained call for those in power and with power to be accountable for their decisions and subsequent impact.  The questions arising from how public sector organisations address and work with the wider responsibilities of their actions, and what responsible leadership means in practice is central to the UKRLI inquiry.

The inquiry approach itself demands that those involved are individually and mutually responsible and accountable for their learning, so in this way the method mirrors what is called for in life more than many processes that centre on leadership.  Perhaps this is in part what attracts inquiry and whole person learning to more individuals and organisations.

Collaborative Inquiry, using a whole person learning approach, is a method that suits the times with the questions that it raises stretching understanding and deepening practice. It is an approach that mirrors the call for more innovative approaches to learning.







The Inner Experience of Leadership
The learning method provides opportunities to engage with the inner aspects of leadership as well as the more external consequences, skills and knowledge.  All leaders work with themselves.  No decision is based on informational analysis alone - less and less does the information point to any clear answer; more and more the emerging leader is someone who has to learn the art of balance - of weighing the options and considering implications of choices that are never settled.  All choices bring consequences and those consequences are increasingly visible for all to see.  How do leaders reconcile the outer demands of the work with their inner values and sense of personal purpose?  In short, how do they learn to deepen their capabilities and to identify development needs that go beyond programmes and courses?

These types of rarely explored questions led Oasis to develop its inquiry based approach to enable leaders to explore their questions within the company of like minded and committed peers.  That interest shaped the first successful UKLI.

Backed by the Globally Responsible Leadership Initiative (GRLI)
The UK inquiry was recognised by the EFMD (European Foundation for Management Development) and the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC).  The Oasis School was selected as a founding member, and is an active member of the GRLI Assembly.   

The GRLI link offers the twelve UK inquiry members a chance to contribute to the emerging understanding of the impact of the global environment upon the personal practices of leaders and to reassess the place of the organisation at a time of planetary crisis.

Background to the Inquiry and the GRLI

Globally Responsible Leadership Initiative
During 2004/5, the Oasis School of Human Relations took part in a jointly sponsored UN/EFMD Inquiry into Globally Responsible Leadership with 22 other global partners. Following the successful completion of the inquiry and the publication of its report, the initiative has moved from strength to strength both in terms of partners wishing to join and the actions bring progressed around the world.  In 2006 Oasis became a founding member of the GRLI General Assembly which works internationally from its unique experience and understanding of the global dimensions to influence and shape the emerging responsible leadership agenda. 

Oasis Contribution
Oasis brings nearly twenty years of experience in organisations, developing leaders, managers, change agents and facilitators with a sustained focus on leadership and dialogue in practice. Together with a commitment to developing active planetary citizenship and offering transformative approaches through whole person learning we continue to engage in the personal and systemic issues our local and global work represents.

The lead role for The Oasis School in the UNGC/EFMD international initiative involves developing further inquiries around the world over the next five years, as well as facilitating the introduction and integration of new global partners.

UK Leadership Inquiry 2004/5
Whilst partnering the UN/EFMD inquiry, we offered UK leaders the opportunity to become involved in an innovative learning process.  The process aimed to evolve new learning in the field of leadership and leader development, whilst at the same time, employing the emerging participative research paradigm of cooperative inquiry - reflecting a commitment to collaborative learning and leadership. 

The invitation resulted in a co-operative inquiry with individuals representing organisations from a range of settings and holding roles from CEO to Project Leader. All were involved in organisations interested in exploring core questions of responsible leadership for themselves as well as for their organisation. It enabled those involved in the inquiry to explore leadership and how it lives in the role of leaders, their wider work and in the influence they bring.

"In essence the approach brings a high level of relevance to the real issues leaders have to contend with and has given those taking part an opportunity to move beyond theory and practice and to look at the living experience of what it means to be a leader." Bryce Taylor

As a result of the research approach which the Co-operative Inquiry uses, the participants have been able to deepen their appreciation of their leadership approach, widen their contextual understanding, develop new course of actions and shape their future direction.



About Collaborative Inquiry as the Approach

Those in leadership positions face a time of increasing challenge - about the scale and implications of decisions, about their own practice as leaders and about the conduct of their organisations. Those decisions also demand increasing alignment with a variety of progressive and often conflicting expressions of a changing world.

These include: 

• increasing transparency and accountability
• demonstrating corporate social responsibility
• changing conceptions of human rights and labour relations
• environmental awareness
• dilemmas involving freedom and accountability

All these contribute to the complexity leader’s face.

New approaches for new challenges
A survey in 2001 by The Institute of Management observed:

". . . the quality of leadership overall did not receive high ratings. Over a third of all managers, and almost half of junior managers, rate the quality of leadership in their organisation as poor. Public sector leadership received lower ratings."

The more recent report also made clear:


"What matters is not just the goals and performance of leaders at the top, but the quality of their relationships with the rest of the organisation."

And went on to highlight how organisations and leaders struggle to develop different approaches to leadership, approaches which would fit better with flatter organisational structures, reflecting the difficulty of putting new forms in place using old methods. 

The 2004/5 UNGC/EFMD inquiry highlighted the need for new forms of learning to match the new context in which we are working, both nationally and globally. Whole person learning was the primary approach named within the paper.

Broadening approaches to learning

Rather than relying solely on the cognitive acquisition of knowledge, experiential, presentational, propositional and practical ways of learning must be integrated into the globally responsible leader curriculum. In all of these, the human learns not only with his or her rational abilities, but learns by responding with all of his or her senses and abilities (practical, affective, conceptual, imaginal) – a ‘whole person learning’ approach (see quote below). This involves enabling the globally responsible leader to discover more of their inner dimension, learn from first hand experiences about the social and environmental consequences of business decisions and to face the intended and unintended consequences of the choices they make.
Recommendation from 'Developing Global Responsible Leadership' report to the UN Global Compact.

Collaborative inquiry is one form of expression of whole person learning that offers a potential tool for organisations looking to develop new methods of learning and to encourage new forms of leadership.

"Emphasis upon training the intellectual and decision making capabilities of those within business schools will need extending. It will need to embrace and to integrate emerging pathways of development that include the inner dimension of the person. This educational orientation calls for recognition of the need for a new form of engagement with other aspects of the individual, reflecting a whole person learning approach."

Nick Ellerby, Director, The Oasis School of Human Relations

From 'Developing Globally Responsible Leadership', a high impact paper to the UN, 2005

Membership
To gain significant and focussed learning the inquiry group is limited to twelve participants.

The Method
Collaborative Inquiry is an evolving participative approach to experiential research. Human based inquiry has been under steady development from its inception in the early 1980s. Collaborative Inquiry is a name we give to the particular approach growing out of the international work of Oasis in this area.

How it Works
Individuals respond to a ‘call’ - the inquiry topic or theme.  The group gather with those initiating the inquiry who outline:

• The evolution of their interest in the inquiry topic
• The way the method (CI) works
• The outlined timetable
• The key ‘negotiables’ and the ‘givens’

Group members then take some time to clarify any questions or concerns about the information they have received. Commitment is established and the inquiry process gets underway with individuals working out their own ‘angle’ or focus of interest within the general theme of the inquiry itself. Through discussion and exploration each individual clarifies and refines their 'question' or theme until they recognise they are ready to take it out into the 'field', their forum of application, (in the context of responsible leadership it is likely to be organisational life) and outline to themselves through their discussion with others how they intend to monitor their 'research'; what notes or records they will keep; what criteria they are employing and so on. The collaborative discussions about these aspects of the inquiry begin to shape what may begin with a relatively vague area of interest into something more tangible and capable of deeper observation and more rigorous and systematic effort.

The researchers then go off to their sites of action (work places) and begin to implement their agreed action cycle. 

At the following meeting the researchers come together and begin by sharing the data; identifying what happened and sifting through the raw material of their exploration before deciding on whether to refine the question they have been following or changing it for some other related theme. Settling on the learning from any given cycle often emerges as result of the dialogue and responses that participants offer one another in the review stage. 

Inquiries benefit from approximately six cycles of planning action review and assessment of the findings.  Too few and the process rarely generates data that has real depth; too many and the group is like to lose the rigour of the inquiry process. 

At the close of the inquiry cycles the researchers have decisions to make about the results of their work.  They may simply retain personal possession of their own research; they may decide to collaborate together on producing some shared documentation; they may use a rapporteur’s notes as the basis for an account they all assent to or reserve commitment to; they may use any combination of the above.

Inquiry cycles
Individuals may follow a line of inquiry of their own and refine it over a succession of cycles.  They may develop a common question with some or all of the other researchers pooling their findings about the common theme; they may follow parallel tracks of different but related themes throughout the inquiry using each other as assistants to refine their work.

Findings
CI has four main outcomes:

1. personal change of those taking part – the process is not easy  and is a form of experiential development at a considerable level
2. presentational forms of account – ways of giving expression the learning achieved (this may or may not take traditional forms of accounts etc)
3. Propositional results – individuals may well be able to formulate their learning into working arrangements that inform their practice in clear and desirable ways
4. Practical applications – the implementation of inquiry learning in the form of day to day ways of acting and arranging events etc.
   
   





UKRLI 2006/07 - Support Network and Advisory Group

The UK leadership inquiry facilitators acknowledge with thanks the support, guidance and influence of the following mentors and speaking partners:

• Anders Aspling           
  Chair of Globally Responsible Leadership Initiative for EFMD.  Core member of Foresight Group - international specialist in intrepreneurship.  Anders is the director the leadership development for global companies in Sweden and acts as an advisor to many development initiatives worldwide. (Sweden)
  
  
• Gay Haskins                    
  Director of External Relations at London Business School, with responsibility for the School’s special projects in the Corporate Responsibility area.  Earlier Gay was Director General of the European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD) and continues to be a keen facilitator of women's development (UK).
  
  
• John Heron                
  Researcher and international pioneer of peer inquiry approaches - Centre for Human Inquiry.  John founded the first human potential centre in the UK and was based at the University of Surrey.  He is the inspiration behind whole person learning and Co-operative Inquiry. (New Zealand)
  
  
• Mario van Boeschoten
  International development consultant, guiding peer for the Oasis School and founder of Transform and The Centre for Social Change.  Mario mentors a range of change agents and has worked extensively in Africa and Europe with organisations such as British Gas, Trebor, Walls etc. (UK)
  
  
• Peter Block                
  Consultant, author and developer of 'Stewardship' approach to leadership and alternative forms of leading. Peter was one of the early supporters of the UKLI initiative and has sustained an interest since the beginning. (US)
  
  
• UKLI 2005       
  The ten leaders who become the co-researchers in the first inquiry in the UK have given a great deal of time, talent and tenacity to ensure the work has been promoted and evolved from their initial decisions to face the challenge of becoming involved in what was a risky and uncertain enterprise. (UK) The 2005 inquiry resulted in the formation of Collabor8. A group of public sector leaders and initiators working together to promote collaborative and responsible leadership in the public realm.

For Further Information

Contact Nick Ellerby at The Oasis School. 

nick@oasishumanrelations.org.uk