A Polyamorous Relationship to Work and Leadership
After much procrastination, I finally shared the news of my latest role evolution on LinkedIn two weeks ago. Making it ‘official’ via social media has somehow solidified what has been a live dialogue and transition over the last few months. This shift is not in isolation but is part of a realisation of my changing relationship to work and my identity. Here, I want to share some insights as a way of me making sense of this, but also in case it resonates with how others are feeling about work.
Polyamorous Relationship to Work
As part of this transition, I’ve been using the metaphor of a polyamorous* relationship to describe my work life. It’s subtle and may seem insignificant (or even a bit crass) to some, but it’s been a crucial reframe for me and how I see myself. I’ve had to acknowledge that I’m no longer part-time or freelance — I’m fully committed to multiple relationships. While I’ve made one public shift in role, this period has also been part of doubling down on several different work relationships and commitments simultaneously. I’ve realised I have a strong loyal trait — so it’s also part of me owning that, too.
Multiple Committed Relationships
While Thirty Percy is my primary work partner for now — largely because of the amount of my work time this takes up — I’m also committed to supporting and enabling The Decelerator to evolve over the coming years, encouraging Iona Lawrence’s leadership, supporting high level decision making and vision and direction setting while being a supportive presence for the growing team and network. This work is also a practical manifestation of a larger exploration for me. Alongside this, I have a decades-long inquiry with Anna Birney on what it means to truly live change, using the School of System Change as a platform to experiment with various initiatives, including the upcoming Changemaker Writing Retreat. My commitment to these relationships may be less in a time sense, but the value I gain from each of them is equally significant. I feel the need to play a part in all these areas to do the work I do effectively.
I’ve always operated on the fringes, bridging between things, but now it feels different. There’s nothing in the shadows. People across these places and spaces know each other, have met each other, and I’m already seeing the benefits and cross-pollination between them.
Beyond Monogamy
I’ve been fortunate to find flow and creativity with a range of people, and I’m realising how unusual that is. Healthy working relationships shouldn’t feel scarce — I’ve experienced their abundance and my expectations are now high. Building strong relationships and mutuality takes time and openness, but it’s worth it. This approach counters the assumption that one must lose oneself fully in one organisation, embracing a non-monogamous work relationship.
Beyond Monogamous Leadership
I’m not underestimating the current challenges of leadership and I feel as much daunted as I do motivated by it. Leadership shouldn’t be about losing oneself in one organisation, but about benefiting from cross-pollination between various spaces. I’m aware of the need to call in a whole ecosystem of support. Leadership has never been about one person — it requires a network of people and support coming together.
My comfort zone is living into big questions and possibilities, finding ways to bring these ideas to life. I need the expanse and richness of different connections and stimulation to fuel lateral thinking and innovative approaches.
Transitional Role
With my primary work relationship I’ve taken on a transitional role. Why? Partly because Thirty Percy has some choices to make about its ongoing shape and form. And I’m not assuming I’ll be the best person to lead whatever that might be, but I am well placed to explore what it could look like. My work at The Decelerator and around endings suggests that it’s healthy not to fix things in place and assume they’ll last perpetually (and I’m grateful to Naomi Hattaway for recognising how this small action of a role title hints towards that). It also helps me not to feel trapped. And to keep focusing on the needs of the organisation and what comes next.
Yes, there might be some personal commitment issues thrown in, as well as hang-ups from being part of one organisation for too long, but that’s mine to work with…
Inside/Outside Leadership
I’ve always played around with how we best organise people and work, how we constellate change. So in taking on organisational leadership in a more transitional sense, I’m playing with this too. Through both the work at Thirty Percy and The Decelerator I’ll be testing out what it means to work in a more networked way: having core teams but a wider network of people who come in and out of the work. As I’m part of the wider School of System Change network, which allows me to bring that perspective in. Time will tell if it’s possible to be straddling across organisational and ecosystem approaches…but I’m excited to see what can be learnt from it.
In many ways, it would be much more straightforward if I just had a job in one place, without the responsibilities of leadership thrown in. And of course, there are shadows to all of this, as with anything. I have a whole other post about the paranoia that can creep in when stepping into a leadership position, especially when working as part of a funding organisation, but that’s a story for another day….
But right now, the good days feel great, and the hard ones are bumpier than I’m used to. Yet, through all this, I feel extremely alive — like I’ve tuned into a new frequency of living.
*Thanks to the Greater Than Network for seeding the idea of polyamorous relationships in a work context, and a coaching session with Sarah Gartshore who really helped me solidify this as a metaphor. And thanks to Anna Rose Hughes for the gift of editing support.
