The Leadership Game – an experiential learning event to address challenges and start a change

The Humanitarian Leadership Academy’s adoption of Eco-Leadership focuses on the holistic perspective, recognising the importance of addressing both the immediate crisis impact and the root causes. Eco-Leadership’s flexibility and responsiveness to local conditions complements the HLA’s efforts in diverse regions like Eastern Europe. It’s about enabling the development of tailored strategies that resonate with local needs. This approach addresses current humanitarian challenges and prepares leaders for future crises, emphasising adaptability and forward-thinking.

People who prefer technical or hierarchical leadership styles or cognitive classical classroom learning will be challenged to steer their direction of travel, take responsibility for the chances and risks taken or avoided, and eventually, might fall disengaged. Ultimately, experiential learning is for everybody, as learning occurs on a personal and group level and provides opportunities to question the usual ways of working and the habits people are holding onto to date.

The event tries to open a space where people can learn differently. I’ve been in leadership education for over 20 years. Even though working on concepts and sharing ideas is good, you can’t learn leadership from a book. You can only learn it from experience, and it’s not easy learning. What often happens at these events is that people who found it difficult or even say they didn’t like it so much still learn something. They go back to their workplace, see something that reminds them of something that happened at the event, and they make a connection and learn.

The goal is to uncover shared themes, symbols, and patterns that may emerge from the free associations. The matrix helps reveal patterns and themes that may be implicit or unrecognised in the group’s conscious discussions, and they are often linked with creative thinking and problem-solving, offering unique perspectives and solutions to collective challenges. This reflective process works towards resolution and improved collaboration. Finally, the practice fosters a sense of shared experience and connectivity among group members.

There were so many ideas that emerged during these days. The beauty of doing this in the free association matrix, where there is no judgement, no right or wrong, and being able to freely express created a phenomenal power of connectivity in that room. I am leaving the event so much richer and more energised. I’ve learnt an incredible amount in the last three days.

One of the things that struck me within this space, that was different from other events, was the amount of silence within the group. I don’t know if that is a reflective or a fearful silence, whether it manifests the system or the context we are in at the minute. But it is one of the things I took from the event in terms of people’s ability to sit comfortably, or sometimes uncomfortably, in silence.

The event encouraged us to experiment with different roles in leadership and followership, providing a real-time understanding of how team dynamics evolve under various leadership styles. We engaged in a variety of activities, working in small and large groups, which allowed us to explore the deeper dynamics of teamwork, authority, power, and the impact of emotional intelligence on leadership. For me, one of the most impactful learnings was the emphasis on distributed leadership and active followership. These are fundamental elements of eco-leadership, where the focus is not just on leading but also on enabling others to lead, creating a more adaptive and resilient organisational culture.

I always talk about re-enchantment in opposition to disengagement. While smaller NGOs are often adaptive and entrepreneurial, bigger organisations can often be too bureaucratic, making their employees and partners work like machines and feel like no one listens to them. So, there is quite a disenchantment with the system. This kind of event re-energises people because they get an opportunity to meet other people and share their challenges and best practices. They can learn from each other, and they can learn from experience. There is no good in saying: “You should do this; you should do that”. If they are not re-energised, it won’t happen. I talk about re-enchantment because, in this, people find new energy, find their passion, rediscover their purpose, and then change will take place.

I think that change doesn’t come from the top down, or if we wait for it to come from the top down, we can wait for a very long time. I offer the participants to give a leadership questionnaire to their teams to think about where they are now and where they need to be. Let’s start by putting the idea of eco-mutualism at the heart of the work and question the power structure. So, you ask who is at the table, who is not at the table, whose voices are and are not heard. How do you engage people in the ecosystem? For example, how do you engage aid recipients in co-producing their own aid rather than just donating? How do you engage civil society organisations to work in partnerships and collaborations? So, you are starting to ask these questions about the ecosystem of your own team, and this inherently makes you think about where power lies and how you can make it more equitable.