Why Ordinary Leadership?
Thank you for taking an interest in Ordinary Leadership.
I care deeply about leadership as a vehicle for improving the world. Not the heroic, visionary sense of leadership but the ordinary leadership that people exhibit daily when they take responsibility for making change.
​I’m an International Coaching Federation coach with an MBA and Master’s in Development Management. I have 20 years of experience working on change management in the public sector, international development, and business.
I balance forward-thinking strategic advice with unconditional respect for my clients, their organizations, and their challenges to help you create pathways for positive change.
Before becoming a leadership consultant and coach, I worked in both the public and private sectors in countries as diverse as South Sudan and Papua New Guinea. My work exposed me to different perspectives on organizational change, team building, and effective leadership. I've met and worked with many inspiring ordinary leaders who worked hard to unlock the potential of their organizations and help people succeed.
The more organizations I have worked with and the more I have studied leadership, the more convinced I have become that it is the everyday leadership displayed by individuals at any level or in any role that truly drives positive change. I have also realized that the vast majority of leadership and change advice on the market is designed for large companies.
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In 2021, I asked myself how I wanted to use these insights and my experience to make a tangible difference to as many organizations and individuals as possible.
​Ordinary Leadership is what I landed on.
Today, I bring my ability to understand and transform organizational cultures and a cross-cultural understanding of leadership and organizational change to my leadership consulting and executive coaching work, specializing in supporting established and emerging leaders in medium-sized organizations. Each Ordinary Leadership client I take on advances my knowledge and thinking about leadership and how best to support individuals to take on leadership responsibility in their team, organization or community.
I enjoy my work and the contribution it enables me to make. When I’m not working, I enjoy running, photography, mountaineering, my friends and family, and my dog, Twiglet.
​I see mountaineering as an excellent metaphor for leadership. Time and time again, I have witnessed the transformation that happens when organizations stop viewing leadership as a single peak, which those with drive and initiative will naturally want to climb and start seeing as a mountain range with many paths and possibilities – and enough space for everybody.
What it looks like in practice
Information Gathering
Interviews or surveys to understand challenges
Ideation Workshops
Understanding the 'as is' and identifying the gap
Project Management
Pragmatic support to implement the change
Coaching
Develop skills for new behaviors
Practical Insight
Insights, resources, and tools to help address key challenges
Training
Leadership training and development on ordinary leadership
New Ideas and Thinking
New perspectives on leadership and change
Team Facilitation
Facilitating team on ways of working
Information Synthesis
Analysis to make sense of emerging themes
The origins of the Ordinary Leadership Project
Ordinary Leadership arose from frustration with how leadership is defined and portrayed. It came from a realization that the portrayal of leadership as heroic, transformative, consistently successful, and usually male doesn’t match up with people’s day-to-day experiences.
There is a disconnect between this idea of leaders and leadership and what we respect and value in our lives, homes, schools, communities, and organizations. Most leaders with seemingly endless motivation, who often influence and inspire, would never be featured in a leadership book. They don’t have the highest salaries, run global businesses, or command countries. Yet, they frequently change our lives.
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At its core, leadership is about taking responsibility. It is about noticing what needs to be altered, improved, or repaired and deciding to take on the challenge. It can be demonstrated through small acts of compassion, building coalitions for change, or remaining committed to organizational or personal values. That’s why ordinary leaders, acting in quiet service of their colleagues, communities, and families, often go unrecognized.
The goal of Ordinary Leadership is to acknowledge and foster leadership in all its forms by challenging our widely held view of leadership. I want to understand how teams, organizations, and businesses thrive by looking beyond the top performers and loudest voices to the everyday places where leadership happens and is anything but ordinary.
Follow my evolving thinking on my blog, or contact me if you want to participate by being interviewed or contributing ideas or tools.
Let's connect
Are you trying to bring about change?
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Do you want to work with someone who looks outside the box?
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Are you looking for someone who will adapt to your needs and way of working and won’t bring in 'fix' or standard frameworks?
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Would you like to work with someone who gets the challenge of balancing the practical realities of working in a medium-sized organization with the human side of leading day to day?
Then, let’s connect.
I’m here to listen, focus on understanding your challenge, and provide practical insight on where to go next.