{"id":22345,"date":"2025-11-25T16:53:03","date_gmt":"2025-11-25T16:53:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ulexproject.org\/?p=22345"},"modified":"2025-12-08T07:54:31","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T07:54:31","slug":"holding-responsibility-in-horizontal-contexts-reflections-from-a-leadership-retreat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ulexproject.org\/es\/holding-responsibility-in-horizontal-contexts-reflections-from-a-leadership-retreat\/","title":{"rendered":"Holding Responsibility in Horizontal Contexts: Reflections from a Leadership Retreat"},"content":{"rendered":"

In social movements, leadership is a contested term. <\/span><\/h2>\n

Many organisers avoid it altogether, wary of hierarchy and the risks that come with formalised authority. Years of confronting hierarchical organisations, charismatic-leader dependency, and informal yet unaccountable power have produced a justified scepticism toward anything that appears to centralise authority. In our Leaderful Organising work, we engage directly with these concerns. Building on frameworks such as <\/span>Ella Baker<\/span><\/a>\u2019s <\/span>group-centred leadership<\/span><\/i>, we focus on what it takes to cultivate organisational cultures in which power is consciously distributed, accountability is embedded, and leadership is understood not as an individual attribute but as a collective capacity \u2014 sustained by appropriate structures rather than personal heroism.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nevertheless, even groups that are explicitly horizontal generate roles of heightened responsibility. Certain individuals become the ones who hold strategic coherence, relational infrastructure, institutional memory, and the emotional texture of the group. They often do so without formal recognition, and sometimes while actively resisting the idea that they occupy a leadership position at all. Yet their influence is real, and their labour \u2014 frequently invisible \u2014 shapes the political possibilities and qualities of the collective.<\/span><\/p>\n

We designed our recent Leadership Retreat for people with these kinds of experience: those carrying substantial responsibility, often without dedicated space to reflect on what it asks of them. Rather than offering them a skills-based course, we set out to create a structured while spacious environment for reflection, peer support, and honest examination of the assumptions and pressures embedded in movement leadership.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\r\nWhy a retreat, not a training<\/b><\/span><\/pre>\n
We knew that these participants would bring significant experience and knowledge from their organising contexts. What they would lack was not information, but space to interrogate their own mental models, creative reflexivity and relational awareness. To question how to manage projection and pressure, how to balance holding others with care but also with mutual accountability.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
A retreat format allowed us to shift from delivering content to enabling participants to surface and explore aspects of their experience already present but rarely examined in the rush of day-to-day activism. It also meant we could focus on meeting them where they were, rather than having to work to a predefined agenda.<\/span><\/p>\n
This approach was grounded in a core assumption: that the effectiveness and resilience of social movements are shaped not only by strategy, but also by the internal cultures, habits, and invisible beliefs, carried by everyone, but especially by those in positions of responsibility or influence. Creating conditions for people to reflect on these deeper layers \u2014 individually and collectively \u2014 was central to the rationale for this retreat.<\/span><\/p>\n
\r\nHow we structured the time<\/b><\/span><\/pre>\n
We intentionally reduced the pace and density of sessions and content, as compared to our usual training rhythms. Each day began with quiet awareness practice, followed by individual exploration of thematic questions. Participants could choose different modes \u2014 writing, movement, audio-guided reflection, crafting, or simple contemplative time in the \u201cbath of possibilities\u201d \u2014 depending on what enabled them to be most present, resourced and available to their process and experience.<\/span><\/p>\n
Late morning sessions shifted to collective exploration. Using a mix of methodologies, including holistic approaches designed to bring a broad range of capabilities and senses online (eg. movement, sound, image work, theatre-based techniques, and embodied sculpturing\/proxemic exploration), we supported the group to draw out patterns, contradictions, and insights from their individual reflections.<\/span><\/p>\n
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The early days focused on broader questions around leadership in movements:<\/span><\/p>\n