To celebrate International Women’s Day and #WomenofKings, we have invited the panelists who will be speaking at our Elevate – Gender Equality Network launch, to reflect on finding their own leadership. Em Flemming, one of our Parents & Carer’s Network chairs, speaks about leadership as having a vision of success AND a strategy for everyone to be able to be part of it.
I never planned on finding myself in an official position of leadership, so sitting down to write this feels both exciting and a bit scary. Imposter syndrome’s whiny little voice loves to ask me why I think I have the right to hold forth on, well, any topic really but this one in particular is a doozy. What do I know about leadership?
I know what I value in a leader – someone who knows where they want to go, and is committed to bringing others along with them. Someone who can see the bigger picture, and communicate it clearly to those around them. Someone who is excited for the future, for change, but doesn’t forget that everyone will be at a different stage in the journey.
It’s a leader’s job to get to the top of the hill, check out the view on the other side and shout back to the whole gang to come and see how amazing it is. It’s their job to work out how everyone is going to get up there, and down the other side. Even the people who really hate walking up hills. Especially the people who really hate walking up hills. Good leaders look out for those guys.
Leaders are those people who see when things aren’t working so well, and bring people together to make them better. King’s vision is to make the world a better place, and mine is to make my bit of King’s a better place – whether that’s for my immediate team, for the part of the university I work in, or wider as part of cross campus initiatives like the Parent & Carers network.
So perhaps I didn’t plan on becoming a leader, but I know what kind of leader I want to be. And I was brought up in the Pennines, so I’m pretty good at getting up hills. Watch this space!