Leadership in Canada – bad news and good news.

In an earlier post we shared evidence that Canadians favour participatory or shared leadership. Shared leadership involves: accountability, partnership, equity, and ownership. We’ve also spoken about Canadians' acceptance of transformational leadership. This leadership style concerns itself with changing what is e.g. institutions, circumstances and people, through a leaders ability to guide and inspire others to follow. Henein & Morissette support the attributes of these styles with a Canadian Leadership Brand of traits and characteristics (See January 7, 2011 post).

Given what we know about leadership in Canada and with a universal definition on the dashboard (October, 2010 post), one might expect leadership in Canada would be realizing encouraging results. However, socio-economic indicators suggest a gap between expectations and results . . .

- Canada's gap widened more dramatically in areas of development and poverty than most countries between 1995 and 2005 (OECD, 2008)

- We've slipped from 7th to 25th place on the World Economic Forum Gender Gap Index (Hausmann, Tyson and Zahidi, 2008)

- Canada can expect to have 15 million people 16 and over or 46% of the population with literacy skills below generally accepted levels to compete in a global economy (Canadian Council on Learning, 2009)

- Income, housing, food and employment insecurity are growing (Campaign 2000, 2000; Canada without Poverty, 2009; Make Poverty History 2009)

- The Conference Board of Canada ranks Canada as 14 out of 17 amongst its peer countries noting concerns such as: failure to innovate, demographic changes that pose ongoing challenges; looming productivity clouded by shortage of skilled people (Conference Board of Canada, 2007)

Such results move us from complex socio-economic challenges towards intricate polycrisis (Morin, 1999) that calls for leaders to guide, influence, inspire, motivate and enable us to find our way through what is, in pursuit of better returns on investment. An example of a polycrisis is the reality of more than 1.5 million Canadian households living with housing insecurity (Born, 2011). This result of poverty impacts every Canadian directly or indirectly. The human impact is shocking and the societal and financial costs are staggering –

- Between 1993 and 2004, Canadian taxpayers spent an estimated $49.5 billion maintaining the status quo on the homeless problem in Canada. (Red Tents, 2010)

- The cost of poverty to Ontario alone is placed at $32 to $38 billion – annually. (Canadian Without Poverty, 2009)

- It costs $48,000 a year to leave someone out on the street and around $28,000 a year to house them. (Standing Committee, 2009)

And now for some good news.

Leadership coalitions, shared-vision groups and interested stakeholders, are stepping up to fill the gap (Born, 2011). Participatory, transformational and shared-vision leaders are coming together to address local, regional or national concerns related to the social, economic and environmental well-being of Canadians. These formal and informal groups are as diverse as the needs.

Are you leading in one of these groups?

Would you be willing to participate in a national research project to help Canada and Canadians identify how your participatory, transformational or shared leadership group is working?

As a complement to our individual and collective research, Tim and I have prepared a focus group questionnaire and facilitator’s package to assist participatory, shared or transformational leadership groups answer some questions about leadership in Canada. It is anticipated that the results of this research (to be shared with all participants) will influence institutions and organizations that lead leadership in Canada.

Please contact Tim or myself if you would like to participate in this research project.

LINKEDIN

Born. (2011). Helping Cities to Reduce Poverty.
Campaign 2000. (2000). End child and family poverty in Canada.
Canada Without Poverty. (2009). Canadian Council on Learning.(2008).
Conference Board of Canada. (2007). How Canada performs: a report card on Canada. Ottawa, ON
Hausmann, R. Tyron, L.D., Zahidi, S. (2008). The Global Gender Gap Index 2008..
Make Poverty History (2009). Wouldn’t you agree it’s about time.
OECD. (2008). Growing Unequal?: Income distribution and poverty in OECD countries. 
Red Tents. (2010).
Standing Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology. (2009). In from the margins: a call to action on poverty, housing and homelessness.