Opening up Leadership: Changing how we think and talk about leadership

At Macc we are focusing on shifting the conversation about leadership

We think leadership is not only about job titles, positional power and authority – we believe that leadership is about relationships, values, behaviours, trust, and how we work with others to create change.

This means that some of our most effective leaders within the VCSE sector probably don’t recognise themselves as leaders at all. These are people who are leading change and who are strengthening the sector in lots of ways within and beyond their organisations. In this kind of space, leaders aren’t the people who are ‘in charge’. These are the people who people know, people trust and who can bring people together through a vision of what is possible based on their ability to connect with others.

This is a different approach to leadership, and we’d like you to join us as we mobilise the sector to agree some new priorities about working in this way. We’ll have things going on to really help us think about:

  • How we identify and connect the people who think differently
  • How we re-write the existing ‘rules’ about leadership
  • How we reorganise ourselves around networks that are based on trust and kindness
  • How we share power
  • How we tell the stories that make a difference

Macc’s priorities around leadership are:

  • Supporting existing leaders to lead well
  • Developing those moving towards leadership 
  • Increasing the diversity of voices in leadership
  • Place-based leadership: how leadership works in Manchester and the VCSE sector’s collective leadership role in the city

These are the priorities that Macc is currently working towards but this is a conversation that we want to have with the sector, so don’t be surprised if these change over time! We want to reflect the priorities of the sector, not just Macc’s priorities.