Shearer West: The Leadership You Recognise as Your Own
This week sees new cohorts welcomed into the global Laidlaw community, a network spanning partner universities around the world. Few people are better placed to speak to scholars at that threshold than someone who leads one of those universities and has spent her career thinking about what authentic leadership asks of a person. Shearer West, Vice-Chancellor of the @University of Leeds, was asked in a Leadership Lab last year what she would say to young people who want to lead but fear the scrutiny that comes with it, and she returned to the idea of authenticity:
Shearer West: "We need to hold onto our authenticity of leadership... rather than particular stereotypes of leadership. The more we can all do that, the more the diversity of leadership will be accepted."
A Leader Who Changed the Conditions, Not Just Herself
West built her career in art history, writing nine books and leading the History of Art department at Birmingham before rising through Provost at Sheffield to Vice-Chancellor at Nottingham and now Leeds. That is already an unusual path to the top of a university, but the more telling part is what she did once she held the role. As the first woman Vice-Chancellor of Nottingham, she led the equity and inclusion work that made it the first institution to win the Gold Athena Swan award for advancing gender equality across higher education and research. Holding onto your own authenticity is one thing when you are the only person it costs. West used her position to change the conditions so that the next person leading as themselves would face a little less resistance than she had.
The Leader You Already Are
West's advice to anyone entering leadership is to resist the instinct to perform a borrowed version of authority, because the version of you that leads should be recognisably the version of you that exists everywhere else. It is an easy instinct to give in to, especially early on, when sounding like a leader can feel safer and more credible than simply being yourself in the role. The leaders who hold their nerve and lead as themselves tend to be the ones others actually trust, and the freedom of not maintaining a performance leaves far more attention for the work that matters. Whether you are beginning the programme this week or are already some way into it, the use of hearing this from West now is that you can notice the instinct in yourself and decide, deliberately, to lead as the person you already are.
Values in Focus
West's message speaks to the Laidlaw value of being #Brave and the Oxford Character Project virtue of #Integrity. Being brave means resisting the pull to lead as a borrowed version of yourself, particularly when the established image of authority looks nothing like you. Integrity, in West's framing, is the quality of being authentic and consistent across every setting you lead in, so that the person in charge is recognisably the same person underneath.
A Call to Reflect
As you consider Shearer West's words, we invite you to reflect and share in the comments: when have you led most as yourself, and what became possible because you did?
Listen to the full Leadership Lab conversation with Shearer West here, where she makes the case for arts and humanities, talks through leading under financial pressure, and reflects on what a global perspective gives a leader. And stay tuned, the Labs have something new in store, and we cannot wait to share it!