Comment: This captures the essence of leadership as influence rather than authority. Systems Leadership and Conversational Leadership both depend on the ability to convene, listen, and connect across boundaries.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
Posts where this quotation is embedded
- Systems Leadership for Sustainable Development Lisa Dreier, David Nabarro and Jane Nelson (September 2019)
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Photo Credits: Pixabay (Pixabay)
In-person, 7–11 September 2026, Warbrook House, Hampshire, UK
We are living and working in conditions of uncertainty, complexity, and rapid change. Many leadership approaches still rely on control, expertise, and tools that no longer fit the realities people face.
This week-long immersive workshop brings people together to practise Conversational Leadership as a shared, lived experience. It is not a training course but a space to slow down, think together, and explore how leadership emerges through dialogue, responsibility, and real engagement.