Systems Leadership for Sustainable Development Lisa Dreier, David Nabarro and Jane Nelson (September 2019)

Abstract

The 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda includes 17 inter-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), each representing complex systems — such as climate, food, health, cities — with myriad stakeholders.

Achieving progress on this agenda requires a departure from traditional top-down, hierarchical and linear approaches to implementing change.

Instead, it requires innovative and adaptive approaches that engage broad networks of diverse stakeholders to advance progress toward a shared vision for systemic change.

This approach is called Systems Leadership.

Authors

Lisa Dreier
David Nabarro
Jane Nelson

Paper

Systems Leadership for Sustainable Development

Comments

The concept of systems leadership has much in common with my thinking on Conversational Leadership. This is an excellent paper that describes the concept and the history of systems leadership in some depth.

Systems Leadership is about how you lead across boundaries – departmental, organisational or sector.

It’s how you lead when you’re not in charge, and you need to influence others rather than pull a management lever.

It describes the way you need to work when you face large, complex, difficult and seemingly intractable problems; where you need to juggle multiple uncertainties; where no one person or organisation can find or organise the solution on their own; where everyone is grappling with how to make resources meet demand which is outstripping them; and where the way forward therefore lies in involving as many people’s energies, ideas, talents and expertise as possible.

Credit: Debbie Sorkin