Be authentic, dare to challenge one another, and “show up”, leadership summit told

“In thinking about leadership, we will also reckon with what this time demands, personally, of all of us,” she said. “About our own experiences, our life story, the personal and professional resources and influence we bring, and most importantly what we choose to do with them, and how we show up in this moment.

Participants reportedly expressed enthusiastic surprise that the need for leaders to display emotional skills was so central to the summit’s discussions.

Canada’s Professor Thomas Homer-Dixon, an invited speaker, said the “polycrisis” the world faces demands leadership that the public can trust.

“There’s a huge premium at this moment on people in the public eye who are honest and authentic,” he said. “Good leaders help people be more comfortable with the uncertainty of our world and also help us understand that challenges can also be emancipating – that uncertainty creates possibility.

“Good leaders model the idea that the unknown is not always scary – it's also the space where great hope and possibility lies,” he said.

According to Giving News, one speaker spoke about the need for the sector to combine resources, connections and influence, saying it was a time for mass leadership, rather than leadership among the few.

“The personal is political, the personal is philanthropic. There’s been a lot of vulnerability,” another speaker said, adding that the gathering felt like a “generative community of people really trying to figure it out”.

Or as Gillard said, philanthropists needed to “fund the glue” in communities – connecting organisations and groups around programs that could create the best circumstances for success.

Sidey told the gathering, “I have hope, as do many of you, that we can have a deeper, richer, more real conversation about power and influence, and wealth and generosity and what we do with it.

“Julia asked us if we were up for having the hard conversations or if we are just going to be nice to each other, and while I think she has a real point, I would say it slightly differently. So often in philanthropy we sit behind the work, we talk about investing in leaders, fostering and developing leaders, and backing people not projects. But what if in doing this we are missing an important opportunity to reflect on our own leadership? What if in seeking out and funding agency and impact in others, we might be avoiding reflecting on our own power or thinking deeply about the agency we have and the resources we influence?”

Speaking outside the sessions, Philanthropy Australia’s executive director of policy and sector development, Krystian Seibert, said, “My hope is that the personal stories of leadership that are being shared will prompt our movement, our members, partners and others to think about what we can do differently now if we really want to take philanthropy to the next level in terms of its support for leadership in Australia.

“It’s essential, given the polycrisis and all the challenges we’re facing. Philanthropy has a key role in supporting responses to that.”