It’s a pretty punishing time, some might say ‘impossible’ moment to be a leader in local government.
As the demands on public services intensify — with rising inequality, fractured social trust, and complex place-based challenges — the resources to meet them continue to shrink. Add to that the organisational instability brought on by successive waves of devolution and reform, and the challenge becomes not just technical, but deeply human: how do you lead when there’s seemingly no room to move?
Systems in Survival Mode
Many leaders find themselves in a bind. On one side, they face urgent financial pressures requiring service cuts, restructures, and rapid internal change. The result can be a weary pragmatism: doing what’s needed to “keep the show on the road,” leadership can become reactive. The calendar fills with crisis meetings and firefighting. Space for reflection, strategic thinking, or community connection starts to vanish.
On the other hand, leaders know that real progress — particularly in building trust and legitimacy with communities — depends on engagement, continuity, and long-term thinking. But while the challenges are real, this doesn’t have to be the end of the story.
This is a key driver behind our ‘Leading the Impossible’ programme – supporting leaders to bridge the gulf that can exist between the day-to-day realities, the pull of the reactive cycle – and forging alternative paths to lead with courage and intention.
Choosing to Lead Anyway
I spoke to Amanda Askham, Strategic Director at the London Borough of Ealing, about how they work with the tension between managing pressing realities and working towards a long-term community centred vision.
Amanda described how the tension can be particularly acute for Directors and Assistant Directors where the expectation is to both manage and lead complex services, but also to take a corporate or strategic perspective.
‘It can be a hard moment for people. You’ve often got where you are through being a brilliant technical and operational expert – you want to stay grounded in the services you lead, but at the same time you are being asked to take a strategic perspective and not just defend your area. At Ealing we really recognise that this shift often requires support and training – that it requires a humility to admit that some of what you are doing is new and that you won’t always get it right. We encourage our directors to prioritise that corporate perspective – we work hard to create a culture that values experimentation and puts residents at the heart of what we do. If we didn’t do that we would revert to a situation where our leadership meetings were pitting silos against each other and that’s not what residents in the borough need.’
Amanda described the work that she has led at Ealing to create the culture of putting citizens at the heart of their work.
‘What has really started to create a shift is our move to being human-centred. Putting in place regular 3-day design sprints where we include residents’ and young peoples’ voice alongside a wide range of our partners to work on the most complex challenges. We’ve also created a team of 25 community researchers who are continuously gathering stories from people directly affected by issues we are working on – we map these into pathways. It’s hard to ignore these stories, they have a real power to them, and when you start from there you open up so much possibility.’
‘I’ll be honest, we still meet cynicism, but when difficulties emerge you are working from a place where people have a new shared vocabulary; where they have met and forged understanding so when difficulties do emerge there is a much better basis to work through them. It wasn’t overnight, when you are doing something like this you have to keep going – you won’t necessarily get immediate results, sometimes it won’t work but to change the DNA of the culture you need to persist. I sometimes think I am a broken record when I ask officers ‘how many residents did you speak to – who did you involve’ whenever they present a report or idea. But it’s the basis for our council working in collaboration with our partners and community – without the persistence we are just seen as a ‘funder’ and you cannot meet today’s challenges in that way.’
Leading the Impossible
When I asked what enabled Amanda to persist and keep going she cited the two hours she took every Friday for reflective practice, a skill that she admitted had not come easily but had been honed over years and one which she encourages her leaders to adopt.
‘I started many years back when I realised that the chaos of holding everything in my head was overwhelming, that I was often asking at the end of each week what value I had brought. Reflective practice really helps you consider how well you are spending your time, what is bringing value and what perhaps isn’t. It really has been the biggest change for me that enables me to do the work I do as a leader.’
We have seen this happen on the Leading the Impossible programme where our first residential session offers the chance to step back and experiment with different types of practices that support people to lead with intention, integrity and courage. Amanda’s comments also reflect what the rest of the programme is about – that you need to ‘keep going’, ‘to experiment’, ‘to get things wrong sometimes’ and to persist.
At the Leadership Centre we know across our programmes, that when leaders are given space to step back, connect with their peers, and reflect on what really matters they rediscover their ability to act. Not from a place of panic, but from courage, clarity, and care.
Anna Mouser – Programme Director for Leading the Impossible