Unintentional leadership

It’s happening again…

When I was 16, I joined a Parish group. Although having been in the Parish for years, I was a newcomer as I had never attended any group there, or taken any active role. The following year, I was asked to take charge of the children’s group, and I accepted.

Fast forward a decade and, after taking part in a Bible Study Group in my Cambridge Parish for a year, I was asked to be the group leader as the leader was quitting due to family reasons.

In 2011, I had barely joined CILIP, and in the bat of an eyelid I found myself in the role of Vice-Chair of the East of England branch. I thought I was going to skip the subsequent chairing task the following year, due to my maternity leave, but somehow I became, nevertheless, chair (not on my own. But still).

And some days ago, I was with my 15-months-old daugher at a playgroup for Italian children in Cambridge, when suddenly the lady running it turns to me and says: “Maria Giovanna, why don’t you take the group on next year?”.

I think there is a pattern here, and I’m going to call it unintentional leadership. It’s when you don’t do anything specific to be noticed, but people somehow see you as the most likely person to take something on and carry it forward, trusting you will do a good job. And actually I always did a good job: groups generally thrived under my lead, and people were happy. I quit when circumstances brought me to (moving to a different town or Country; organisational change; family or health reasons) or when I felt it was time to leave the group in someone else’s hands, especially as people were starting to take my leadership for granted.

Unintentional leadership is also when you don’t truly believe in yourself, but others do, and this gives you confidence and strenght. It is a gift, albeit an unintentional (and sometimes unwanted) one!

But unintentional leadership means also that you don’t really realise what you are doing; you are not fully aware of your skills and capabilities; and when you do lead, you still see yourself as the one that got the position by chance, or luck. It’s as if you are playing the leading role while at the same time believing you are playing the supporting one. You are not in tune with the situation. You learn things but they don’t stick. You let things happen, instead of driving their course. And subsequenty, you don’t fully enjoy what you are doing.

I don’t want to be an unintentional leader. I want to be an intentional one. I want to see opportunities and take them on with an awareness of my reasons for doing it, and my skills. How? Maybe accepting that I am a leader, or that at least I have some traits of a leader somewhere within me. Stephen Abram would say that leadership is something you learn, not something you naturally have. Although I feel that I “have” it somehow, I certainly need to learn how to 1. Recognise the skill 2. Stop shading away from it 3. Use it to its full potential.

Any other unintentional leader out there? Would love to hear from you, to know whether you are working on becoming an intentional one, and how.