Welcome to Sync
Sync is interested in the interplay between leadership and disability; it aims to energise, inform and ultimately change disabled and Deaf people’s relationship with leadership, by offering information and support, encouraging dialogue and designing leadership interventions.
Find our more about Sync...
Julie McNamara
The word disability used to mean something that disqualifies us from entering the game. How could we raise a banner proclaiming ‘Proud to be Disabled’, if it truly meant: ‘proud to have my power taken away’?
David Quarmby
The biggest barrier for disabled people in attaining leadership is the attitudes of others around them. Many of these attitudes are subconscious and are therefore difficult to change.
Leah Noel
I do believe having a disability/health issue changing how someone leads because I think they bring different qualities to leadership… I think that someone who is passionate about the task in hand whatever that might be, can overcome theses challenges by planning different and unconventional ways of leading.
Philip Patston
Leadership is often mistaken as a quality that only some people possess when in fact it's a quality of which everyone is capable. Even deciding to change the TV channel is leadership. Take a lesson from your own inner couch potato and see what potential you have to change the world.
Caroline Cardus
I believe there is a cultural side to shared experience of barriers and experiences of life, and believe a non-disabled person cannot imagine this. A disabled leader who has experienced barriers will be knowledgeable about where they exist.
Stephanie Fuller
Both disabled people themselves and other people seem to find it difficult to believe that they could be a successful part of the mainstream. Having an impairment seems to locate you within a particular part of the cultural sector (access, diversity, disability arts), which it is hard to move beyond.
Esther Appleyard
…often having an impairment encourages growth in communication and innovation skills which are also essential in leadership. However, disabled people do not always recognise this in themselves.
Liz Crow
The experience of exclusion and (lack of) involvement could go either way – it’s made some of our strongest and most belligerently effective leaders, but it’s held back many others who doubt themselves so deeply that their leadership potential is swallowed up.
Sarah Davidson
I have found having a hidden disability very challenging as obviously people are not aware that there's anything wrong. However, the more I have explained to people what my disability is, the more I have found that they are willing to help and 'look out for me'.
Nick Apostolidis
Is leadership different for disabled people? No, I believe it isn’t. You're either born to be a leader or not. A good leader will find ways to compensate for issues such as exclusion.
Nicholas Mcatamney
I think having an impairment or health issue is likely to impact in some way in every aspect of life including leadership... There are a number of potential spin-offs as we go about making positives out of negatives.
Sarah Pickthall
Ambition is all about hunger, so how do we feast when sometimes, we don’t really know what’s on the menu and if we do, we don’t know how to eat it without people staring at the way we are eating!
Sarah Scott
Attitudinal issues experienced through life undermine our sense and appreciation of self. It takes much conscious work and ‘the right conditions’ for us to breakthrough in spite of all this.
Tony Heaton
I think the barriers within ourselves and the barriers we face outside ourselves get incredibly mixed up and I think… you try and interact with the external world and you come across many barriers, and in the end you end up feeling a great sense of defeat...
Rachel Bagshaw
Disabled leaders have more pressure on them to be successful; it’s not possible to be just good at what you do - you have to be outstanding…
Michael Mitchell
My view is that life is a process and that leadership is one facet of it. How I relate to myself; my inner feelings flow out into the world and create my engagement with others, its a dance of contact reflection relating and learning. The world is my teacher, so are you.
Robert Softley
The biggest barrier that I face is probably being taken seriously – I hope to have a style that’s friendly and approachable but this can sometimes be misinterpreted, due to my impairment, as being slightly infantile. Trying to keep this balance is tricky.
Lady Lockwood
After I got into the House of Lords I joined the all party disablement group not because I thought I was disabled, but because I thought I ought to do something. Just as for sex discrimination, disability discrimination was another kind of discrimination that I was interested in. It wasn’t because I thought I had been discriminated against, I don’t think I have.
William Wardlaw Rogers
Barriers to leadership are the very hurdles that flex the muscles towards becoming a leader. I have found greater potency in the stride of challenged leaders than that of those who are delivered the role through privilege or the effort of others.
Rachel Feldberg
The first time I had an episode it came completely out of the blue and was ridiculously dramatic. We were waiting for an Arts Council team to carry out a major appraisal. As they walked in, I collapsed and was hustled out and the rumour ran round the small Yorkshire arts network that I had had a heart attack - completely untrue but a great story!!
Nabil Shaban
I don't consider myself as a leader...in fact, I find that whenever I have to be in authority, that the role is rather embarrassing, particularly as I see myself as a rebel, an anarchist...
Sophie Woolley
There are societal barriers but the PM is disabled, and there have been other disabled leaders, so it is not impossible.
Jayne Earnscliffe
It’s empowering as a disabled person to be helping to break down barriers, forcing some of this country’s leading designers to revisit their grand designs. Because I won’t be compromised. I have to start off from a strong position and bargain my way through. If I start off being tame, I’d just get squashed.
Laura Cream
…most of all you have to remain open minded at all times and fight the tendency to view the world solely through your own personal experience of being disabled.
Anonymous one
A very narrow view of leadership which limits leadership to formal roles, and is based upon normative standards of non-impairment (and which lead to disability) create barriers for disabled people.
Simon Startin
Disability promotes the idea of being an antagonist rather than the protagonist. It makes me snipe from the outside rather than getting involved. It makes me a good critic and can see problems very clearly. It also makes me a good satirist.
Zoe Stead
As someone excluded from meetings because of my deafness, it is hard to take a lead, to listen to everyone, sum up comments and make strategic initiatives happen when you are desperately trying to follow a conversation!
Andy Kee
When I was a young person, and I was in a disability youth scheme, I belonged, of course. When I went back to some of the same places – some people made me feel I didn’t belong. It ruffled a few feathers: someone like me shouldn’t be in that space, and certainly not in control or running sessions.
Karen Sheader
Experiences of exclusion can make one more determined and tenacious, but also turn one into a bit of a show-off in order to prove one's worth.
Anonymous two
I just think sometimes it is more the case that people with disabilities don’t feel confident to put themselves forward and take lead. They may assume they are unable to provide good leadership and that people may look down at them.
Jenny Sealey
Can we be leaders based on our artistic merit, passion, sensitivity and understanding for diverse platforms and us to be seen as leaders across the arts spectrum rather than segregated to lead only in our own cultural spheres?
Penny Pepper
Having a disability means to experience entrenched barriers, which hinder progress within any mainstream structure that might nurture standard leaderships skills… We come from backgrounds of exclusion and isolation, yet our perspectives can be revolutionary and energising, when these old fashioned rigid systems are brave enough to support us and allow us in.
Colin Hambrook
I've worked in Disability Arts for a staggering 14 years now. I was baptised with fire and brimstone under the sign of LDAF. I've looked back lots of times - mainly because although I kind of made myself into a leader by virtue of wanting to do a good job I've never actually considered myself a leader - or even what I do as a career.
Philip Channells
A person with an impairment probably works harder to achieve the recognition they deserve because of the way the environment contributes to their disablement.
Anonymous three
I’m not ‘out and proud’... because on occasions that I have disclosed professionally I’ve felt too many assumptions are made about what I can and can’t ‘cope with’, that I’m no longer a ‘safe bet’ for that challenging piece of work and that sometimes decisions about what I do and don’t do have been made for me.
Bobby Baker
Secretly I’ve tended to view leaders as grown up versions of head girls and boys – with the potential to be bossy, ‘busy and important’, dogmatic. It’s a bit simplistic I know but I certainly don’t want to be like that. I don’t really want to be a leader – unless it means ‘leading by example’.
Holly Meiszner
Just because you have a disability they think you are incapable and they don't listen. At the moment no one is listening or taking action. You really have to speak up and if you don't nothing will get changed.
Jeff Banks
There are many leadership techniques and strategies that disabled people simply cannot employ. … long hours, stupidly tight deadlines; I can’t shmoose and network during breaks… but more than all this, in our society disability pushes someone down the social and power structure and this really impacts on our image and credibility.
Steve Wilkinson
The business world is still not 100% ready to accept that disabled people can lead. It's important, therefore, that those of us who are or aspire to be leaders are willing to put our heads above the parapet and be seen.
Jez Colborne
I think leadership is a very big thing. I mean I have always been led so its very nice for me now to be a leader because now I can show other people that its not scary and I’m not a scary person even though I am being a leader.
Mandy Legg
Sometimes feel you have to prove yourself 10 times over to be seen as an equal to non-disabled people in leadership positions
Alison Wilde
There are many barriers to leadership that non-disabled people don’t face. Perhaps the most crucial of these, affecting us all, is disabling attitudes.
Nick J Field
Disabled people are accustomed to overcoming obstacles, to challenging paradigms, to being determined, and to having a good understanding of the human condition. These things might be true, and they are qualities that inherent in a good leader, but that’s not always enough.
Howard Hardiman
I think that leadership qualities do not change in a leader who has an impairment or health issue, nor do I think necessarily that facing those challenges makes you a better leader or person, but I think it's exceptionally important to have role models in whom we can see aspects of ourselves.
Johnny Crescendo
…Non disabled people are seen as smarter, cleverer, more resourceful and more often than not take over leadership even if they don’t mean to. Disabled leaders need pride in themselves as do disabled people in general to resist this. We have enough non disabled leaders - we need more of us…
Maria Oshodi
People feel our lives are denied in some way because we don’t have certain faculties but I that that they don’t think that we are poor and suffering because of their lack of being able to meet us halfway or have any awareness about our needs they think that we are suffering because of our bodies they don’t think we’re suffering because their attitude could be different.
Danny Braverman
When the country’s finest surgeons whipped out my large intestine, it was a significant moment. For the previous 12 years I’d been sabotaged by ulcerative colitis, but I never considered myself disabled. I spent four years in and out of hospital – frustrated by a body that wasn’t allowing me to work and very worried whether I’d be working properly again at all, let alone being a leader somewhere.
Melissa Mostyn
I fervently believe that, if you have an issue that you want to address, and you have an idea of how to do it - and are not afraid to try - then you already have potential to be a leader, and no-one can stand in your way.
Belinda Harries
The barriers to leadership for us are summed up by 'I am not a label or diagnosis, I'm a person'.
Anonymous five
Having a disability definitely changes the experience of leadership as it is a constant reminder of vulnerability and difference, especially when the 'issue' is not always visible.
Moya Harris
Is leadership different for disabled people? Hmmn, tricky one. Answer: Not necessarily! But from a personal perspective and coming down from the fence, exclusion from a mental health perspective is a very particular exclusion.
Christoffer de Graal
…we may have a radically and potentially significant and innovative way of looking and/or approaching things, potentially new and amazing solutions for societal or global challenges or ways of living life.
Dali
… an issue raised within DALI is about having that knowledge that we have the right to those leadership roles; we are ‘entitled’ to leadership. This discussion arose following a session exploring ‘networking’ … Whilst we as disabled people (in reference to events peopled by non-disabled people) felt we were wearing a ‘cloak of invisibility’, other people would seem ‘entitled’ to be there, comfortable and confident. We felt that we need a ‘cloak of entitlement’.
Hannah Reynolds
As my physical mobility decreases with each year I become more conscious of roads not taken and of the reasons why. I know now that following your own paths and being your own leader does not come with age. It’s a continuous process of un-learning old myths told by others about what is possible and what is not.
James Aldridge
I believe that to become a good leader, you need to be able to reflect on your experiences, both positive and negative, in ways that are useful to you and use the insight gained to inform your work with others.
Kathryn Braithwaite
I have found it incredibly important to not allow this idea of being "impaired" to undermine the abilities I possess.
Anonymous four
I would like a disabled leader to come from a different space - equal but different. To lead from a kinder, more considerate space … This is the gold of our sometimes very tough experiences.
Patricia Collins
Is leadership different for disabled people? Yes. Having less energy and time available means I have to be more focused. Needing to work on-line requires new skills. I have always been a people person; working digitally is different.
Jon Adams
Of course your experiences shape your self confidence and self worth and because of that the hiding is about not wanting to come forward and expose yourself, who you really are, because it's so painful but imagine, if you don’t take that risk and stay stuck in a place where you can’t 'do your life'.
Caroline Bowditch
I think there is something scary about the word ‘leader’ and about seeing myself as one. Every now and then I think “oh maybe I could put that hat on” and then I think “oh I’m not quite sure, am I good enough yet to actually consider attaching that label to myself?”
Anna Wallbank
Is leadership different for disabled people? Yes, I guess it is. If you are lucky the experience of exclusion can make one a fighter.
Marc Brew
An individual's vision of themselves as a leader can be shaped by their experiences of exclusion and involvement as it may effect ones confidence, pride and feeling of self worth and ability to offer and share their experiences and knowledge with others which is what being a leader is about.
Ramon Woolfe
As a deaf person, I would imagine the access to information or communication would pose an issue but providing a sign language interpreter does not necessarily eliminate the issue as the qualities and performance of the interpreter himself would have a huge impact on the overall result.
Jo Verrent
Accepting yourself as a disabled person, for me, is as much about a state of mind as it is about your impairments. I see myself as a whole person, equal to others, with requirements in some areas. To meet those requirements, I need other people to take their responsibilities seriously and provide support, equipment and space. Being a disabled person and owning that label isn’t something I see as negative, because I don’t believe that there is anything in that label that says I can’t do things.
Lynn Weddle
I think experiences of exclusion can give you the fighting spirit to push to your goals but I feel it is challenging because of a lack of self-esteem, in my case anyway!
Sas
My own experiences of exclusion and involvement throughout childhood made me aware of these issues in the team I led and meant that I worked hard to ensure everyone was listened to equally.
Danny Start
The one-dimensional view of a leader as some Henry V figure rallying the troops - does get in the way. A demagogue's good entertainment value sometimes - but you wouldn't you rather have the calm voice, quietly winning the day (with the odd joke thrown in)?
Leading Edge
Before Leading Edge, there were no learning disabled leaders in the mainstream, even though some learning disabled people were working in leadership roles in specialist companies. Leading Edge challenged the idea that learning disabled artists cannot be leaders, and looked at ways to help artists with a learning disability succeed in leadership roles.
Rachel Gadsden
It is interesting to consider how the characteristics that make for successful leadership are perhaps also some of the personal characteristics that have enabled me to survive, literally.
Caroline Churchill
Experience of disability and adversity through illness can empower someone (eventually or at some stage) so they can be a great inspiration to others (disabled or not).
Chris Tally Evans
Having an impairment gives leaders positive qualities. It gives us practical skills in problem-solving, finding creative solutions and thinking round the corners. Overcoming barriers enables us to cut through the crap dished out by authority figures, bureaucrats and retro ivory-tower dwellers eager to maintain their historical position.
Marc Steene
I have struggled to assert myself in an art world that encourages a public persona and values confidence and an academic and 'bright' mind. It took me a long time to realise that I have something far more valuable to contribute: me, my life experience, creativity and values.
Peter Street
Do disabled people experience barriers to leadership that non disabled people don’t experience? All the time, with everywhere you go… They think they know best. Because they may know one disabled person, they think we are all the same.
Catherine Beedell
Is leadership different for disabled people? I am not sure. Possibly it makes for better leadership as it makes you stronger and more empathetic to others and the issues and barriers they face.
Graeae Associate Artists
As the UK’s foremost disabled-led theatre company, Graeae has long been involved in the development of disabled artists. Over many years, these artists have become leaders in their own right, many of those becoming Graeae Associate Artists.
Marion Barnett
I think an individual's sense of self is shaped by their experiences, and that has to shape their vision of themselves as a leader. Being excluded is only my issue if I allow it to be; the loss is on the part of those doing the excluding.
Jo Paul
People are surprised by the amount of experience I have… I never push it forward, I don’t think to, I think that people recognize it in me, but of course they very often don’t. They see a disabled woman 5 feet tall before they see or think anything else.
Tanvir Bush
Without accessible, practical and integrated working practices people with health issues or impairments can become exhausted, disorientated, depressed. It is hard to continue to be inspired and be innovative when constantly faced with the general daily battles of exclusion and ignorance in every day life.
Cathy Woolley
From an early age I realised that if I was going to achieve anything I would have to do it on my own. You have to persevere, to keep trying, to keep battling to get somewhere, even if people aren’t on your side or giving you the responses you want.
Michael Lynch
There is one thing I have found common to people with all kinds of disability - they understand what perseverance means. That you actually have to be able to go that little bit extra, you’ve got to be able to try harder, you’ve got to be able to do a little bit more.
