In 2008 I set up a grassroots initiative in my local high street. My experience of working with SME’s gave new insights into team building and motivation. Its subsequent success transformed my views on leadership and inspired a passion in me to support other leaders to work with the resource they already have to achieve sustainable growth without the need for huge budgets.
After running my grassroots initiative for 2 years I was approached by several local authority leaders keen to replicate my success in their communities. This experience exposed an underlying challenge in the leadership approach, stifling development of grassroots potential, which then became the focus of my MA in Leadership. My approach now draws from inspiration my own insights and experience, and is designed to help leaders find their hidden potential, inspiring greater innovation and organisational stamina.
In the last few years my work as a consultancy has led to training as a coach, and becoming a member of the Professional Speakers Association where I was recently awarded Emerging Speaker of the Year 2020, requiring mastery of the online delivery!
My first success was in designing and developing the high street regeneration model, thecrouchendproject without the benefit of funding, or resource of any kind . Within 18 months the project had attracted over 100 businesses and organisations to re-engage the community reframing where value of the high street lay. A unique business collaboration and collective high street brand. From this grew my consultancy, and my speaking platform.
I have learnt that for meaningful change to happen you first need to delve below your assumptions to discover the true nature of your potential and challenges. From this base develop a learning culture that articulates clear direction but is able to remain ‘open to the route’. Small actions strategies enable ongoing learning, reflection and critically involve diversity of people.
It is incredibly important to curate time to allow for proper reflection , review and a recharge of creative batteries . Otherwise you risk running on empty and not achieving your potential.
Currently we are all facing dynamic change in an uncertain world. Grassroots innovation thrives in this scenario so has a lot to offer leaders, individuals and organisations to navigate this skillfully, with resilience and agility to achieve sustainable long term results.
The key is to be clear about your direction but open to the route.
My hope is that we all use these times to properly reflect on what we value, what is important and what is urgent. I hope to re learn to identify the huge hidden potential that exists in the world and adopt a more open approach to how we release that potential to the benefit of us all. Ultimately we all need to adopt the approach, if not this, then what? Keeping the mind open, and engaged to the opportunities that exist even in the most challenging of times.