Be a Better Leader

Anj is along standing friend and the Founder of Inspiring Women Changemakers (IWC), a global, inclusive movement of people who want to see the world become a safer, fairer place for women, wherever they live and whatever they do.

She is dedicated to promoting the rights of women at all levels of business and society.

She is also a lobbyist who has undertaken diplomatic assignments in employment and skills policy.

She is multilingual (German, Punjabi, French, Hindi), speaker, writer and NED with international experience at Board level.

With 20 years' experience in the field, her professional experience is grounded in a deep understanding of Good Governance, Employment Law and digital systems. As Chair of Freedom Studios and Governor of Leeds Arts University, she specialises in arts sector leadership.

We talk about:

• Lockdown
• Disrupting poverty
• Leeds Migrant Access Project
• Skills and diversity in the boardroom,
• Roots, rootlessness, identity, anchoring and nourishment
• FGM campaigning and Masai Cricketers
• Sally Kohn and Emotional Correctness
• Privilege and Choice
• Head, heart AND Soul
• And being fully human...

Tom tells the story of his sister, Alison Bell, and her family's uncovering of the truth about what happened to her in the care of an NHS Trust. He describes the nature of the various investigations that were held into Alison's death and the role of the prevailing cultures within the public sector organisations they have dealt with; the NHS, Police, CPS and Regulatory Bodies.

This true and ongoing story shines a light on the personal, emotional and financially costly impact that public sector service cultures can have on the lives of their service-users and their own bottom-line.

Tom’s lived and current experience will help us to explore the implications for our own practice and the organisations we might seek to influence, manage and lead.

If you would like to support Tom's efforts to develop honesty and integrity in public service then please visit https://www.hipss.co.uk/

You can also join Tom and myself in a workshop to explore the implications for our leadership development from his experience on October 22nd.

David Lumb - is an Independent Urbanist seeking redemption for having been an architect for most of his life. David moved to Chapel Allerton in 1969 and founded the Leeds Sustainable Development Group based on the Freiburg Charter. Having heard the episode with Tom Riordan, David was keen to have a natter.

He talks about his activism around transport and pollution, his role in developing the Leeds South Bank including getting £23m from a certain Michael Gove to build a Free School in South Leeds and the ensuing big and little p Politics.

We talk about housing policy - to buy or to rent? Rachel Unsworth's influence on us and the city, Bernard Hare, Urban Grimshaw and the Shed Crew...

And the possibility of a more committed group to develop a dialogue on development in Leeds...

John works as an independent consultant / critical friend to individuals and groups working across all sectors but primarily with NGOs and public sector organisations. He has over 40 years of experience working in post 16 education. His particular passion is understanding and learning about collaboration from individuals learning together to organisations wanting to work in 'partnership'. He is attached to three UK universities and sits on the Global Advisory Board of the TELLAL Institute based in Dubai.

In September 2020 he was due to be taking a train from Los Angeles to Orlando for a month to write about the conversations he has as the USA goes through the 2020 Presidential Campaign.

He is co-editor of the Sage journal Teaching Public Administration and co-editor of an international book series for Palgrave on Community-University Connections. He is fascinated too by both what we learn when we collaborate as well as what we unlearn.

In 2013 he was the Founding Director of Edge Hill's Institute for Public Policy and Professional Practice (I4P) - now the Institute for Social Responsibility. I4P was set up to provide a bridge from the university to the outside world and to support connections going the other way. Imagined as a cross boundary multi disciplinary initiative it acted as a hub for shared learning and knowledge exchange. How we imagine such developments philosophically, intellectually, ethically as well as practically has, always, intrigued him.

We talk about:

• American literature and politics,
• Manctopia/Mancmageddon and East Manchester regeneration under New Labour
• Obama, Trump and Hillary and Bill
• Cultural shifts (Clinton nearly lost the democratic nomination because of an affair - Trump builds an election campaign on the back of them)
• American Presidents and the Rapture...
• Personal Experience, Data or Science - what do we follow?
• NHS Improvement or Transformation - lessons from Covid
• Schools and Education - what do they actually teach?
• The role of imagination in transforming public service
• Words you don't see in public policy position statements
• Marmot and widening inequalities
• The role of interdisciplinary explorations and imagination
• How might we relocate power through networks and alliances of influence
• The post pandemic context and why we might not reach it
• Stranded in the strategic high peaks

You can find John on twitter @ProfJohnDiamond

Mo originally trained as a clinical psychologist. He has a BA in Psychology, an MSc in Clinical Psychology and a second Masters degree in Creative Conflict Transformation through the Arts. For 25 years, Mo has worked with organisations to deliver innovative and professionally-rooted leadership development and coaching programmes. His main area of expertise is Organisational and Personal Transformation, with a particular focus on authentic leadership and narrative approaches to communication and conflict transformation. Mo works with InterBe.

The name InterBe is inspired by The Order of Interbeing, founded by Thich Nhat Hanh, Vietnamese Buddhist monk, teacher, author, poet and peace activist. We share his belief in the interconnectedness of all. In our experience, no change ever occurs in isolation. When we change, we change the people around us. Similarly, when the people around us change, we inevitably change too. Our work with businesses and groups of people focuses largely on the importance of the relationships with those around us, which are created by the stories we tell and the conversations we have.

InterBe’s work is influenced by many different thought-leaders, from ancient philosophies such as Taoism to modern day pioneers such as Sir Ken Robinson, Caroline Ellis, Warren Bennis and Michael White.

Tom Riordan talks about leadership and his career as a public servant including 5 years as CEO of Yorkshire Forward and 10 years as CEO of Leeds City Council.

Mistakes? Proudest achievements - and why they are not on his official Council Bio, Mayors and why they are good and bad, climate, inequalities and what on earth do we do...?

Can Kindness really be the answer?

Glasgow born and educated, David was the Chief Executive of GTG Training from 2004 until 2014 and a specialist adviser on Youth Training and Development to the Board of Arnold Clark Automobiles, the parent company of GTG Training, where he originally started work in staff development in 1999. Previous roles with Arnold Clark included Direct Marketing Manager and Sales Development Manager. Immediately prior to assuming his appointment at GTG Training he headed the project team responsible for the Arnold Clark Management Development Programme and subsequently championed the introduction of their highly successful Sales Academy in his capacity as head of Group Training & Development. David has been a member of the Goodison Group in Scotland since its formation in 2004 to bring together experienced people from the worlds of business, government and education to focus on particular themes to do with learning, skills and productivity and served on the Glasgow Employers’ Board/Glasgow Chamber of Commerce Youth Employment Advisory Group. He serves on ad-hoc advisory groups for Scottish Government initiatives such as the Scottish Business Pledge and is an assessor for business growth funding and support competitions such as Scottish Edge and the Unlocking Ambition Programme.

Some within the Scottish Business Community may also recognise him as Lieutenant-Colonel (Retired)

David Scott where his final appointment was as a Staff Officer at Brigade Headquarters prior to which he had been Commanding Officer of 51 (Scottish) Brigade’s Regional Training Centre, an Army Reserve establishment working to standards set and audited by the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.

Prior to 1999 David worked mostly in his own family-owned businesses in wholesale distribution to UK

FMCG clients and his own retail outlets. He funded his early years in more junior ranks within the Army Reserve by employment within the Financial Services industry.

When not working, studying or researching, David is a Marine Mammal Medic with British Divers Marine Life Rescue and a Level III trained specialist with their Large Whale Disentanglement Team. David has also served as a Sea Shepherd Cove Guardian with operational experience in Taiji, Japan, Seal defence campaigns around Scotland and as a member of Sea Shepherd UK’s covert operations team in the Danish Faroe Islands documenting illegal whale and dolphin massacres.

I met Ruby at the NHS Leadership Academy in Leeds where we both work on various programmes. Ruby is a talent and leadership developer an executive coach, facilitator speaker and pracademic - practitioner and an academic!

We come from different generations, different backgrounds, different cultures, and different cities. In this podcast we explore what has shaped us and what continues to shape us in our leadership practice.

We talk about doing and being, collusion, Born to Run, race, gender and what growing up taught us. We also talk about social mobility, straddling two worlds and the pain that can involve...

Mike Chitty and Brigid Russell in conversation about #spacesfolistening.

Rebecca is part of Kaizen Arts Agency based in York. Rebecca's mum has been a nurse in the NHS for 40 years.

Kaizen say of themselves:

"We are design activists.

Everything is both learned and designed.

Dogmatic assumptions inhibit enquiry.

We are the in between.

We are an ecosystem that spans planning, measuring, mapping + acting.

We won’t stop improving things, and we won’t ask permission or apologise.

 We design space and time. We are designers of the past, and of the future.

Art asks the questions, science sets the scales, design finds the balance.

We work on continued research and practice in interdisciplinary arts + science.

You might want to work with us on some of these examples, you might not. Whatever can happen will happen.

• we consult on strategic thinking and planning
• we cultivate and facilitate playful and meaningful projects for people and their spaces through continued public engagement and audience development - through constant and continuous exchange of power and perspective
• we empower organisations and communities listening to each other, and find ways we can work together to deliver lasting change with, by and for our ancestors
• we collaborate. we are collective - we are not just one, we are also one. we don’t do IP we do sharing. Trust is our only currency, and the only form we are willing to fill in 
• we design for distribution, inclusivity and with dynamic social purpose
• we work within the arts and sciences to find out what stories have been told, question perspectives, and we re-write"