Quiet Leadership - leadership in the smallest of actions

An exploration of how our culture contains shadows, and how we each cast them.

Considering how we act in the light, but each cast a shadow. Understanding how our impact is felt.

There is a gap between our ‘intentions’, the actions that we take, and the impact that we have.

Explaining our Quiet Leadership Questions

Why bother to take small actions? If we cast a shadow, should we not simply deploy more lights and make them brighter?

Quiet Leadership may feel a bit like chipping away at a glacier with a toothpick. How can I possibly hope to influence or rebuild a culture when I have so much work to do on myself?

We can start with the smallest of . . . words. Words count. Words are powerful. Consider your use of words: how you use language, where you use words of condemnation or gratitude, vulnerability or fear. A single word can make a difference.

For example, I have been trying to avoid using the word ‘guys’ when I talk to my team. I always used to use this term to encapsulate everyone, but since reading Caroline Criado Perez’s work on ’Invisible Women’, I have realised that my language took something away. My language degraded the ecosystem. Changing it may only have a tiny effect, but it matters. It’s not necessarily that my language alone polluted the system, but my language reinforced and perpetuated a dominant narrative that was invalid or outdated. So, through my action (using the word) and inaction (failing to change myself or challenge others), I degraded the system. I cast a shadow.

Words are good, but what about the smallest of actions? From picking up litter to washing a coffee cup, we make a difference. Perhaps the action you take is to reach out: to offer support, in kindness, to offer resource or challenge. Perhaps the action is to build or deconstruct. Perhaps it is to explore or debate, in search of new ideas or stories.

Even if you do not use small words or actions, you can still change something vital by taking time to think differently in the smallest of ways. By thinking differently, you can change yourself. Our fragments of thought create the ‘meaning’ and worldview within which we operate. Sometimes it is thought alone that fractures a framework and provides us with the space to truly grow.

With these thoughts, words and the smallest of actions, we can change many things.

• You can change one person’s day, through the smallest of things.

• You can change one inequality, through a small action.

• You can change one unfair outcome, through your powerful small words or actions.

• You can challenge a culture of fear, through a powerful word or action.

• You can change the world, if your smallest of words captures the imagination, inspires or promotes others, knocks down a barrier or constraint, is shared with authentic power.

And, you never know. If you are willing to make a journey into Quiet Leadership, to consider the very smallest of your thoughts, your words and your actions, you may even change the hardest thing of all.

You may change yourself

Sharing an overview of the research perspectives.

Introducing kindness, and how it acts upon our systems.

Looking at our responsibilities and the impacts kindness

Exploring how kindness changes the system.

Is it enough to intend to be kind?

Do we spend our kindness equally in all directions?

Some snapshots from our research.

Leadership in the smallest of actions, with every action counting

As you find strength, what do you do with it?

What is our everyday experience of fairness?

How is fairness split down the middle?

Sometimes we should look down.

Social Leaders seek to leave with less.

What the research tells us about Fairness.

A reflection on our leadership.

Losing the leaves.

We look up to the canopy, but the forest grows from the floor.

We all carry weight, for ourselves and others. But nobody can carry an endless weight.

To seek to leave with less.

What the research says.