How do we know we are doing good work?

Collective leadership feels timely and important in an uncertain, fast changing, and challenging world. This report comes at this heightened moment of urgency and appetite for renewal, bringing potential to do things differently in public services and communities. The opportunities and challenges of true collaboration-in-practice, in the absence of blueprints, mean that it has never been more necessary to change ways of working and foreground learning. As outcomes remain important, and time and resources are scarcer than ever, the approach of collective leadership makes the creation of impact a shared, conscious, and actionable choice. A pathway to ultimate impact at scale is co-created through dialogue about expectations and contributions, and by design, not assuming change will happen because we have good intentions. Collective Leadership for Scotland (CLfS) has a strong vision and enjoys continuing active interest, drawing together participants from a variety of agencies working in public services. People are looking for fresh thinking, space and time for reflection, connection with others, a chance to think about how to tackle difficulties, and to test out what it takes to do, and continue to do, the work of collaborative public service. These motivations are deepened and brought into sharper focus by the pandemic, with an added interest in developing skills in online facilitation. CLfS contributes to building a critical mass for system change, to help to sustain the ambitions of the Christie Commission and the delivery of the National Outcomes for Scotland. There remains further potential to realise wider and deeper impact amongst organisations, communities, and wider systems. The conclusions of this report are likely to have wider resonance beyond interests in the CLfS programmes. This report deepens understanding of some of the challenges of commissioning, convening, and the scope for deeper impact through building reflective and relational leadership practices. It also outlines social and experiential sensemaking and facilitation practices to strengthen the action inquiry approach as a deliberate learning strategy, building cultures that support new forms of collaborative inquiry and systemic action research.