4 October 2020 |
What kind of leadership will see us through the new normal?
For ECA Alumnus Liam Mayo, the way we have been called to lead through Coronavirus is a reflection of a deeper change that has been happening across society for decades. As the head of community planning and development at the Sunshine Coast Council, with a PhD in Futures Studies and Strategic Foresight, Liam brings both academic and real world insights to the discussion of contemporary leadership and how we can be and do better as leaders into the future.
Listen now to the fifth episode of Leaders Matter, featuring Liam Mayo, Branch Manager of Community Planning and Development at the Sunshine Coast Council.
ECA’s Executive, Emerging Leaders and Masterclass programs may provide credit towards Postgraduate Diplomas, Masters and Doctoral qualifications. To find out more, contact us.
“Traditionally we’ve looked at leaders as sort of these pillars, these stalwarts,” says Liam. “People who are strong. People who aren’t afraid to give direction when they need to. People who are unafraid to be compassionate and empathetic when they need to. People who are unafraid to be relational. But what Coronavirus has shown us is that you kind of need to throw all those ways of thinking and being out the window. We need to take a complete review of what all those things mean, and then start afresh.”
For Liam, this inevitable evolution and renewal of our traditional concepts of leadership is exciting, and has the potential to drive outcomes at a grass-roots level. He points out an example during COVID-19 where a project sought to support people experiencing homelessness on the Sunshine Coast.
“Leaders from the state government and council approached a community organisation to put some wraparound supports in place for people who were sleeping rough during the COVID crisis,’ he says. “We had hospital staff calling the community organisation saying we know this person’s sleeping rough, we’re worried about their health, and we know they sleep down in this area, can we get someone down there. And the community organisation would get them the support they needed, referring them onto the Department of Housing. Council was able to offer spaces for people to get that wraparound support. And that was all stuff that was just coming spur of the moment. Every hour, things were changing as more information came out about COVID.”
Liam sees this leadership in action as a more effective model for change and community outcomes.
“That was real leadership,” says Liam. “People who, in a hierarchical sense, in that sort of traditional institutional sense, potentially didn’t have the power and the influence that you would expect a leader to have. But because of the relationships that they held, and that real, genuine passion for community outcomes, they showed their leadership.”
It’s almost a democratisation of leadership, where people who are service users are given a seat at the table and contribute their lived experience to ensure service design or interventions are helpful.
“Talking to people who were sleeping rough, talking to people who were in that lived experience, they provided leadership as well,” says Liam. “Because they were able to say what was happening on the ground, they knew the places where people go when they’re feeling unsafe and uncertain. And we were able to follow those leads, find people and offer them support as well. Knowledge is coming from really new and different spaces. And I think that a true leader through this uncertainty will listen to that knowledge, embrace that knowledge and then work out what to do with it when it’s in front of them.”
The success of this collaborative, community leadership approach has reinforced for Liam some of the failings of our old ways of doing things; the flaws in our notions of traditional leadership ruled by hierarchies, bureaucracies and stagnant decision making processes.
“If you’re putting up briefing notes, if you’re looking for budgetary implications…if you’re waiting for permission to make decisions when you know, and your instincts or the people around you who are impacted by that issue, know and tell you that we don’t have time to wait for those decisions to be made…I think you’re failing effectively as a leader,” says Liam. “I think that anything that puts more rigidity around notions of leadership are probably going to fail us into the future.”
For Liam, COVID-19 has given leaders an opportunity to unlock people’s imaginations about how we can do and be differently in the world and how we can bring diverse perspectives to those conversations.
“The opportunity to open up the way we make decisions, the way we plan, the way we do strategy, and invite new forms of knowledge into those conversations will be really important into the future,” says Liam. “If we can be open to those things, and if we can be open to that diversity, we’re going to be better equipped and more empowered to provide leadership.”
Liam points out the competing narratives about returning to normal after COVID-19, versus the opportunity of shaping a new normal. Perhaps not surprisingly, as a student of futures studies and strategic foresight, he is an advocate of a new normal.
“We can’t underestimate that mythology and that pull to the past,” he says. “This strong desire to return to normal, to get the economy back on track, to get life back to where it was before the pandemic. But that’s a really dangerous story to be telling. We need some strong leadership around that, for people to put up their hand and say, actually I don’t think we want to go back to the way we were before. We probably need to think about doing and being differently.”
Through ECA’s Emerging Leaders and Masterclass programs, Liam had the opportunity to continue his postgraduate studies. He has since gained his PhD in Futures Studies and Strategic Foresight and is an adjunct industry fellow for the School of Social Sciences at the University of the Sunshine Coast. He’s also a fellow with the Center for Post Normal Policy and Future Studies.
Liam describes his involvement in ECA programs as a profound experience.
“There’s a really human centered design process to the whole ECA challenge,” he says. “It forced me to put a mirror up to myself and say, what is it that you want to be? And how do you want to do it? And do you think you have the tools that you need to do it?”
The thirst for insight and wisdom that drives Liam has meant that his ECA journey has been much more than professional development. It has been a journey of personal transformation; a quest to be and do better.
“I want to be one of those people that’s doing it differently,” says Liam. “I just don’t want to do it the way that it’s always been done.”
Liam is deeply committed to supporting the leadership journeys of others. He’s doing that now with a community leadership group on the Sunshine Coast that has emerged as a way to harness some of the leadership and initiatives that have emerged through the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We’re meeting monthly to hold leadership conversations… …to think about the transition and what happens on the other side of this transition,” says Liam. “It’s been really exciting for me because it’s a space where there’s no hierarchy. We’ve got people there who are really high-level executives. We’ve got people there who are community workers. But when they come into that space, we ensure that it’s a space that’s hierarchy-free. There’s no power. We want people to talk at a human to human level.”
“To be quite frank,” says Liam, “(the community leadership group) is almost a direct translation of the learnings I took from ECA – bringing people together to have conversations about leadership, replicating that ECA environment at a local level. It’s only in its infancy at the moment, but it’s a really inspiring space to be in.”
Listen now to the fifth episode of Leaders Matter, featuring Liam Mayo, Branch Manager of Community Planning and Development at the Sunshine Coast Council.
ECA’s Executive, Emerging Leaders and Masterclass programs may provide credit towards Postgraduate Diplomas, Masters and Doctoral qualifications. To find out more, contact us.
About Liam Mayo
Liam is the head of community planning and development at the Sunshine Coast Council, a role he has held since early 2017.
Liam has also worked for Multicultural Australia (formerly MDA), and gained international experience a decade ago with work in Bolivia and Argentina.
Liam specializes in helping people navigate transformational change. He’s especially passionate about working with marginalized communities and vulnerable people in complex environments to achieve sustainable, just and desired futures.
As a consultant, Liam has extensive international experience working with governments, the private sector and non-government agencies to incorporate community engagement and development practices in the design and delivery of policies and strategies.
Over the years, Liam has expanded his work to integrate strategic planning and foresight methodology in areas including education, health, housing, employment, domestic violence, youth, refugee and disability services.
Liam is a fellow with the Center for Post Normal Policy and Future Studies, and an adjunct industry fellow for the School of Social Sciences at the University of the Sunshine Coast.
In addition to all of this, Liam has participated in Executive Challenge Academy programs as a leader committed to his own ongoing growth and learning, but also to the ongoing development of others. In handing forward to others, he’s built a local network of senior leaders committed to supporting future leaders. He’s been a sponsor, a learning partner and a presenter of his own leadership story.
