Summary

Leaders are expected to be active, but this is not a binary topic. While it’s seldom helpful to be in the lead and to be a bystander are you a Thoughtful Activist?  

Before we get into this, let’s understand what a Thoughtful Activist is. 

A Thoughtful Activist stops to consider the impact of their actions, balancing passion for change with a reflective approach.  

Consider these three steps, they will help you when in a situation that could be calling you into action as a leader: 

1. Pause to think first about the situation…to see what you are really faced with

2. Understand its impact, on you, how you feel about that and its impact on other people

3. Choose what you will now do, bearing in mind this simple range of options that will cover most routes you could take: keep out / stand by / get ready / step in 

In more depth 

What is your gut reaction to the blunt question – Activist or Bystander? It maybe you are one or the other, it may be that your answer is along the lines of “it depends on the situation”.  As covered in the summary, leaders are expected to be active. 

Let’s expand on this with an exercise that you can use just for yourself and then even better, use it with colleagues. 

Exercise – How would you react as a leader? 

Consider the table below and then, for each given situation at work, answer two questions: 

• Select which of the options provided best describes how you would react: 

keep out / stand by / get ready / step in? 

• Add a comment in the right column to explain your selection for each situation.

How did you get on? 

As you can see, it really does depend on the situation and that’s where a whole raft of leadership qualities come into the mix, including: 

• Judgement
• Awareness of self and of others
• Big-picture thinking
• Purpose
• Managing relationships
• Delegation and Empowerment
• Communicating, not least providing recognition and asking difficult questions …and so on.

On the Actif4 Leadership Programme we work with you in the real world to help you blend the right mix of these qualities for your development and the success of what and who you are there to lead. You can expect to learn plenty about yourself around questions like Activist or Bystander? We explore how far you are in control of your mood and mindset on such questions, as it has such an influence on what you do, how you do it and the impact on those whom you are there to lead. 

The Thoughtful Activist

Sometimes we need to get active immediately, but in the main we have time to think it through. Whether it’s urgent or not, there is benefit in having a brief pause to check and adjust your mood before diving in. It only needs a few seconds and that way you become a “Thoughtful Activist”.

Consider these contrasting stories: 

Bad outcome
Approaching the runway prior to a flight taking off, the man next to me on the A350 was using his smartphone online constantly, ignoring the instructions to put phones into flight mode. It’s a common problem and some of you reading this maybe do the same.

I was annoyed and with little thought, stepped in to ask him to put the phone into flight mode, as all were being instructed to do by the crew. It went badly. He got very angry and his hostile reaction turned into a bit of a rant. Eventually he calmed down (I think I stayed calm throughout) and no further words were exchanged between us over a 7-hour flight.

Good outcome
Covid-19 lockdown declared in March 2020. It was clear that nothing was in place in our small town in Scotland to support self-isolating people to get food and prescriptions to them.

I lead a small team, all of us volunteered to do something about this. We got ready fast and put a plan together. 55 local people responded to our call for help, a support helpline was set up to take orders and provide support; a safe process for shopping and prescription collection was put in place and a volunteer rota was organised for taking calls and making deliveries to people’s homes.

We moved at pace, but only started our deliveries when we knew we had a safe process in place. A necessary pause for a few days. Three months and hundreds of deliveries later we had made a big difference and the legacy of that intervention remains today, not least in the form of a food bank and community garden, complete with its mini allotments.  

 An Activist was present in each story, but a Thoughtful Activist only turned up in one. Same person, different outcome. 

Call to Action

Think about where you really can and want to make a difference. For example; at work, what really needs to improve / is broken / is bad?

Use the three steps at the top of this blog (pause -> understand -> choose). They will help you to be in control of how you act when the urge is there to take the lead.

Get active and do it in a thoughtful way!