We devoted our last call together to looking through different lenses at the learnings from the expedition. Three explorers had written a beautiful piece beforehand, gathering their threads together. Their piece gave us the skeleton we needed so that we could concentrate on emphasising the big messages and spotting the thoughts which might have been missed.
This is what I heard them saying about leading as a philanthropist:
Know Why You Are Doing This
As a philanthropist you need the constant reality check of knowing why you are giving and leading. Without this the priorities will become fuzzy and also the motivation.
Explorers were very clear that you need to be honest with yourself that you are doing this for yourself. If you expect gratitude from others, you will be forever disappointed. If any gratitude does come your way, you will be lucky and surprised. Focus instead on the joy of the philanthropic journey, the joy of giving rather than taking, the spiritual nature of this, and enjoy the small moments on the way.
Carry A Realistic Load
Only take the load you can carry. Be realistic and discerning about this. Be kind but firm. Balance your energy, there will always be a demand for more. Every action will relate to your energy and the wider energy around you.
Don’t turn every curiosity into a commitment. Direct your energy carefully, maybe less is more more. Be aware of what fills you but doesn’t go over the brim.
Be You
Don’t bend to fit in, stay with your opinion even if you are not in the majority.
This requires a degree of self-awareness, of understanding what works for you, of both exposing your own vulnerabilities and forgiving them in yourself. After all fitting in is almost the opposite of belonging. For example, if motherness is a key part of your Essence, lean into it.
Don’t Think You Have The Answer
Remember that the solutions and answers mostly lie with the people you serve, not you. Get good at questioning to elicit the answers. Have the humility to know that if you do have a solution, it is almost certainly not the only one.
Stick With Enlightenment Not Moral Superiority
Our explorers confessed to occasionally sliding into moral superiority, to thinking themselves above others because of their roles as philanthropists. They said that they had to check themselves sometimes. And in doing so, they almost ask themselves why they feel the need to be superior, even righteous.
Having said this, they talked about combining this with believing in yourself and being enlightened enough to bring universal values to light. Know that what you do matters, it’s important and you put your neck on the line to do it. Even if you quietly know that you are still a small piece in a huge puzzle, it’s the ego check.
Open Your Eyes To Power
Recognise that philanthropy is driven by the power of money and it creates a power imbalance. Know that when you walk into a room people look to you for your money.
Know that you need to actively diminish this power imbalance so that you can develop a healthy relationship and gain trust. You need to acknowledge that the richest is not necessarily the smartest in the room.
Remember Networks Compound
Always remember the power of networks, especially networks of people on the same path. And the power of networks compounds. Use your networks to make things happen
Use Conflict As Precursor To Harmony
Don’t crush discord. Use it as a necessary precursor to harmony. It’s your approach to conflict you need to manage, give it enough encouragement to give it air and yet keep enough distance to avoid deep anger. Anger needs space but should not dominate.
Go Deeper
Slow down, take a breath, leave space between stimulus and reaction. Only in this way will you avoid missing the blindingly obvious, failing to engage with people and falling into traps set for ‘doers’ who jump too fast to action.
Going too fast undermines the sense of safety and respect that effective philanthropy is built on. This is a tough requirement of people – often from the corporate world – who drive change and push hard for results. For them, speed and strength create a blind spot.
Getting the pace right is crucial to going deeper so that the philanthropy has a more sustained impact. It also allows the social connections to develop; this is needed because philanthropy doesn’t happen in isolation. It has to co-exist with the rest of life happening.
Accept Visibility
For all explorers there was a realisation that visibility is essential even if uncomfortable. Philanthropists need to know what season they are in, whether it’s time to step up or back. It was very clear that of all the elements to combine, those of humility and visibility will probably be the hardest.
And these were only the points we added to the beautiful paper penned by our fellow colleagues! Over the next few weeks, we will pull both together.
On our call, once we had captured the insights, we then talked about how to share and disseminate them widely. We talked about a booklet or book, yes this will happen. We talked about Explorers presenting the ideas at the forums they belong to, yes, we will create a beautiful PowerPoint to support this. We talked about another expedition but this time for young philanthropists, mixed thoughts on this but the youngest explorer on our expedition knocked it on the head when she said that one of the delights of this expedition was the mix in ages. And we talked about a series of podcast episodes with Explorers sharing their thinking, yes, we will make this happen.
And then? Our finale! We listened to a most beautiful piece with music composed and performed by a fellow explorer accompanied by poetic words written and delivered by another fellow explorer. It was joyful, spot on and inspiring.
It was – without any doubt – the power in the last time we met that made it so hard to finish.
About the Author:
Julia Middleton is the host of the Women Emerging podcast and a best-selling author of “If that’s leading, I’m in” as well as two previous books: “Leading beyond Authority” and “Cultural Intelligence”. She is deeply committed to helping people from all backgrounds to find their own approach to leading. In 2020, Julia launched Women Emerging and in 2022 she lead an expedition of 24 women to find ‘an approach to leading that resonates with women’. She now leads expeditions with women all over the world based on 4Es methodology, discovered in the first expedition.
Prior to that, Julia was founder and, for over thirty years, Chief Executive of Common Purpose, which grew to become one of the biggest leadership development organisations in the world. Julia is also an Ambassador for the Aurora Prize based in Armenia, on the boards of Alfanar Venture Philanthropy in the Arab World and Equality Now, which operates globally, and on the Advisory Councils of Fundacao Dom Cabral in Brazil and Synapse in Pakistan. Born in London and brought up in New York, Julia was educated at French Lycées and graduated from the London School of Economics. She is married, with five children and seven grandchildren.
