Strategic leadership enabling collective leadership

We now know that there are the five enablers that create system change.

Over the last few years we have been learning more about how to change systems, culture and behaviour to enable more people to be active. We have developed five enablers of change, these are actions we know need to be taken in order for change to happen.

We will continue to test and refine these enablers to develop our understanding of what needs to be in place to grow change and why. By paying attention to the five enablers of change we can better understand how change happens to enable active lives, but also use them as a framework to plan what to guide our work and shape it.

One of these enablers of change is strategic leadership enabling collective leadership.

Strategic Leadership enabling collective leadership

New forms of leadership are required to motivate the workforce and local population to take action to enable active lives. Leaders – at all levels – not only have to be seen to be supportive but need to have an authentic interest and belief in the importance of physical activity.

This theme highlights the importance of engaging and continuously involving senior leaders and partners to align agendas. It also shows the importance of finding others with an authentic interest in the values, principles and ways of working.

Learning shared in the latest evaluation and learning report (April 2023) suggests the need for support of leadership to remain active throughout, via a spine and sphere of influence, to create the conditions in which people can act, beyond developing the skills and permission to work in this way (see examples below from GM and Stockport).

Strategic leadership enabling collective leadership in action

A fresh approach to leadership allowed GM local pilot forums to work together strategically and collectively, finding a way to give voices to the people who could drive real change.

Stockport are one of several GM localities that have been working towards absorbing the Local Pilot (LP) principles and values, ways of working, and prioritisation of physical activity into new embedded, integrated policy landscapes through the ONE Stockport: Active Communities Strategy.

Learn more about what 'strategic leadership enabling collective leadership' means

In this short video Dr. Katie Shearn, from the evaluation team, explains why you need both strategic and collective leadership in whole systems approaches.

We know there is a role for many types of leadership within the Local Pilot work, however we were seeing there was a lack of buy in from senior leaders constraining local pilot leads from creating change. We are now seeing progress where there is leadership capabilities at every level: local communities, leads in specialist roles and strategic leaders.