Day: 2 December 2022

Nour Sidawi

This is both an account of the experience of being on a very specific leadership development scheme – in this case for the ‘future leaders’ of the civil service – and at the same time a universal forensic deconstruction of the very idea of attempting to mould people into a single pre-defined model of leadership. 

Anybody who has ever felt pressure to fit in to get on will recognise the picture drawn in this post. It is not a pretty one. At its root is, perhaps, a singular inconsistency. In a working world where some forms of diversity are ever more celebrated, other kinds of diversity are seen as problems to be homogenised away. That should be unacceptable, but it is barely even seen.