Some things shouldn’t wear the makeup of buzzwords. Some things are just messy and ugly, from beginning to end. The experiences of a child should never be material for the personal growth of an adult, and no child should ever feel like they have to be the grown-up. I struggle to resonate with the vocabulary we are meant to use, it lacks the unbearable emotional weight of having been there. Still, I will try to take you there, but we can only look from afar.
Reflection
When I left for Cape Town, I expected my Leadership in Action (LiA) to be relatively straightforward. I would work with children, develop workshops and contribute to their education and wellbeing. I expected the experience to be challenging in the ordinary sense of living and working somewhere unfamiliar, but I did not anticipate that the placement would become an experience of serious safeguarding concerns, institutional conflict and prolonged uncertainty.
One of the first things I noticed was how quickly the children began to trust us. They would seek us out, sometimes just to talk about their day, sometimes there was a bit more to it. At first, I understood this mostly as a positive part of building relationships. Later, I understood it as a responsibility. When a child sees you as a trustworthy adult, what they tell you can create obligations that go well beyond the role you originally imagined for yourself.
The safeguarding situation was the clearest example of this. I had never been in circumstances where decisions I made, or decisions I participated in making, could have consequences for a vulnerable group of people I personally knew. I had also never experienced a situation where the morally appropriate course of action was not obvious in terms of its outcome. We could report concerns and escalate them, but we could not guarantee what would happen afterwards. Eventually, we could not even continue seeing the children. The period in which we were unable to return to the centre was particularly difficult. We felt angry, worried and powerless. There was no workshop to improve, no immediate task that would make the situation better and no clear way to regain control. A large part of what we could do was support one another and wait for decisions to be made.
Paradoxically, I came away more optimistic about the possibility of creating change. This might seem surprising given how little control we ultimately had over the most serious events of the placement. However, the experience was the first time I had been close to both the people affected by decisions and the decisions themselves. I had seen positive change before, but generally from a distance or as a passive helper. In Cape Town, I was personally acquainted with the people affected by the situation and had genuine agency in how I responded.
The vision-care proposal reinforced this. A child mentioning that text was blurry or too small during a reading workshop might easily have remained an insignificant comment. Instead, I recognised it as potentially indicative of a broader problem, investigated it and developed a proposal for Head Office. The solution was not revolutionary: basic screening, professional assessment and access to glasses where needed, supported where possible through external partnerships. Meaningful change can begin with simply taking a small problem seriously. This has changed how I think about my own ability to help people. I do not necessarily think that I left Cape Town with a completely new collection of leadership skills. Instead, I became more confident in skills and judgement that I already possessed. I discovered that even when I was in an unfamiliar situation, with consequences extending beyond myself and involving vulnerable people, I could make decisions without falling into panic or selfishness.
The Laidlaw framework
My relationship with the Laidlaw values, the 3Cs and the Oxford Character Project is considerably more complicated. I was already sceptical of these frameworks before going to Cape Town. I found the idea of reducing complex experiences of leadership and character to a collection of predefined traits somewhat artificial. This experience did not remove this concern, rather it strengthened it. The problem became particularly obvious during the safeguarding situation. Looking at it retrospectively, I could describe our behaviour using words such as courage, integrity, empathy, resilience, determination or good decision-making. These words are not necessarily inaccurate. However, none of them captures what the experience actually felt like and reduces the magnitude of its importance to buzzwords.
At the time, I was not thinking about demonstrating character. I was thinking about children who trusted us and about what our responsibilities were towards them. We were not attempting to prove that we possessed integrity or courage. We were trying to make responsible decisions in a situation we had never encountered before. This distinction matters to me because I think there is a danger in making human experiences primarily about the development of the person observing them. The children we worked with were not there to provide us with opportunities to demonstrate leadership or develop character. Their experiences existed independently of our personal development.
I therefore remain critical of the 3Cs and the Oxford Character Project as explanatory frameworks. They can provide useful vocabulary after an experience, but I do not think that the vocabulary itself necessarily explains the experience. Calling something “resilience” does not tell me what it was like to be unable to see children I had developed relationships with while worrying about what was happening to them. Calling a decision “courageous” does not explain how a group of relatively inexperienced volunteers worked through uncertainty while prioritising the children.
At the same time, I can recognize the qualities they attempt to describe were present in some way or another in our actions. We needed to communicate carefully, work together, listen, remain calm and act responsibly. My objection is therefore less to the existence of these qualities than to the idea that naming them is sufficient reflection and pretending that by reading them we are transmitting the totality of the experience. For me, the experience demonstrated that character is most meaningful when it is exercised without the comfort of knowing which character trait is being demonstrated or whether the decision will produce a positive outcome.
What I now understand by leadership
Before Cape Town, I probably associated leadership more closely with action, initiative and the ability to produce outcomes. I still believe those things matter. However, I now think leadership also involves restraint, uncertainty and responsibility. Acting responsibly does not guarantee a satisfying result. We did not get to return to the centre. We could not resolve the safeguarding problems ourselves. I do not know what happened to the vision-care proposal after we left. If I measured the experience purely by visible outcomes, parts of it could easily be considered failures.
Sometimes the appropriate decision is to stop. Sometimes the best thing you can do is report something and accept that someone else must take it further. Sometimes you identify a problem without knowing whether the solution you propose will ever be implemented. Having agency does not mean having control over the outcome. This is also why I am leaving the experience more optimistic about change rather than more cynical. I saw how difficult institutional problems can be, but I also experienced what it means to have proximity to people and decisions and to contribute meaningfully to what happens next. Change no longer feels as distant or abstract to me. I am more confident that I can act responsibly when I do not know exactly what I am doing, when the situation is emotionally difficult and when other people are depending on me.
I went to Cape Town expecting to learn how to create impact through a planned project. I left understanding that impact can also emerge from paying attention, responding when circumstances change and being willing to act when an opportunity appears. Most importantly, I learned that I do not need to be certain that I can solve a problem before I take responsibility for trying to improve it.