The right wing view is that leaders make history. Our view in the labour and trade union movement is essentially the opposite – that leaders are created by history. They emerge in conflict and are developed through their role as activists in the process of challenge and change.
The moment for leaders to look for new leaders is during these moments of conflict at work and in communities – and having identified activists, use our campaigning to help them develop their leadership skills further in a planned way. Our training and support for activists is often focussed on these principles and should continue to be.
Our workplace and community organising work cannot be merely a vanity project for self-appointed “leaders” or paid organisers – but deeply rooted campaigns led by people affected the most by the issue. The role of effective organisers is to find and develop leaders through conflict and then step back – creating space for them to lead
To drive the change we need to make, a key step is for unions to acknowledge and recognise is how some of our methods have acted in the past to disempower union members and work against the emergence of activists and their development as workplace leaders. We will encourage a decline in the numbers of workplace leaders if we continue to approach people with the “recruit and then service” union model or continue to act as an organisation selling a set of services in return for a fee, campaigning for people and not with them.
Avoid doing anything for a member that they can do for themselves
A more powerful stance for a union, although difficult, is to encourage and train activists to avoid solving problems for members and demonstrate how they can instead work with members to campaign to find better solutions. This approach in itself is a powerful conversation to start with activists as they develop leadership skills.
And a fundamental truth still holds – members become activists when they are given a task to do. And activists become leaders at the point they begin to allocate tasks to new activists.
Seven Effective Leadership Tasks to ask activists to do to develop as leaders:
1. Grievance and Disciplinary Handling – ensuring activists take the lead in advising and representing members at work and representing them with the employer ensures they achieve credibility through a working knowledge of the workplace and community issues.
2. Practice Questioning and Challenging the employer – a leader helps shape the narrative in the workplace and this is best done if they are involved in challenging the employer directly at meetings, in writing or through social media.
3. Creating Visibility – a workplace leader should be committed to taking steps to be known by everyone by sight and by contact details through workplace social media, noticeboards and newsletters
4. Creating a Line of Activity – to have a plan for each member in their “constituency” to develop them into potential leaders through a programme of escalating activity starting for example with simple tasks such as managing a noticeboard or distributing union material, through representing members, calling meetings and organising picket rotas.
5. To demonstrate a commitment to members democracy – adopting tactics such as member lead permanent mapping of the workplace; collective all member bargaining with the employer and continual testing of workplace union structures and leaders through actions.
6. Difficult Conversations - to take the lead in reaching out to unrepresented groups of people in the workplace and to those hostile or uncommitted to the union to identify leaders and ensure the union represents people fully
7. Choosing Leadership Styles - only one leadership style tends to be recognised by the right wing and employers - the autocratic approach – “Do as I say as I am in charge”. Effective community and workplace leaders know that in most circumstances their power lies in personality than position.
As a tool to help develop effective leadership conversations with activists, six main approaches to leadership can be defined as commonly found in the trade union movement. Each has specific advantages, pitfalls and risks. With training and coaching, workplace and community leaders can become skilful at analysing their own approach and adopting different leadership styles as each situation requires.
Changing the T Shirt we wear as needed. But avoiding the trap of defining ourselves as a “type” of leader.
