We are delighted that following the invitation from the British Council to pilot a new Leadership Qualification and Award, written submissions and interviews by a British Council panel have taken place, and… the first two candidates from our community have been successful! They can now call themselves: “senior practitioners in intercultural leadership”.

Congratulations to Messrs KT Rajan and Sandeep Silas! According to the British Council both candidates scored strongly in applying the five SLP competencies in initiatives they are advancing in their professional and community work. What do the candidates and the British Council say about the experience?
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KT Rajan: Director in global pharmaceuticals, leader in blood donation initiative

Cases: Multi-Disciplinary Teams in SE Asia; Enrolling Voluntary Blood Donors

My ecstatic reaction to winning drew curious glances as I was boarding a flight! It certainly is a great feeling to be with the first winners in this pioneering initiative!

The award process was a culmination of learning so far and a commitment to the well-being of this global community. My SLP journey started in Dubai in March 2012, when I was quite sceptical, but it grew on me, and has moulded my leadership style.

Through SLP I have become less directive and much more open, spending the time to listen and bring people together into a more collaborative and potent team. By being more myself, showing emotions and short-comings, team members start to genuinely care and share too, giving everyone greater confidence to take up daunting challenges. Taking the learning further I am now introducing tools for the team to try out and plan to slowly get ‘advocates’ to reach into their larger teams and beyond.

With a generous medley of concepts and tools, the focus at every stage is on experiential learning, looking afresh at live situations facing colleagues you can gain a brilliant view of the range of social problems across the globe and how highly motivated individuals are solving them. Many thanks to the British Council for conducting the interview so thoroughly. It was a wonderful experience and I thoroughly enjoyed the interaction, plus your diligent analysis and concrete comments to augment my learning. I just did not realize how the 90 minutes went by.

Summary of KT’s case submissions
1. While managing cross functional projects in the Asia to attune to national cultural & social differences (race, religion, gender …) bringing people into a team from quite diverse backgrounds.

2. To increase the availability of blood in hospitals from voluntary donors brought him to enrol software and services professionals in a Bangalore IT hub. These young people, highly focused on their work with little time for other pursuits, soon became donors, and they also created an enabling environment connecting and enhancing one another in all sorts of other ways: to develop free apps, and new leisure pursuits in hiking, biking, sharing technical chats and gizmos.
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Sandeep Silas: Peace Activist, Strategist, Poet & Lyricist, also Civil Servant

Cases: Capacity and Life on the Mumbai Railway; World Peace Heritage Sites

What inspired me to commit? It was challenging to share with intellectual honesty the initiatives taken, the enrolment, the imagination involved, the meaningful work completed so far and further lines of action. I was excited by the pursuit of solutions to issues affecting the larger humanity, professional competence, global peace, universal brotherhood, and poetry.

The Break Through Initiative (BTI), is I feel a very powerful concept that encourages us to grasp issues by the horns and then to set about simplifying, clarifying, enrolling and working with a team. Many pass through life without being aware of their own potential and capacity, so how important is the Self Awareness component!

I am grateful to British Council for starting me on this journey way back in 2002 when they stirred my mind like stirring sugar in a cup of tea. Thank you to the MiDDLEGROUND team’s painstaking efforts and wonderful work with leaders across country and organisational boundaries.

Summary of Sandeep’s Case Submissions

1. An organisational example of creating an enabling environment for 28,000 railway staff in Mumbai division. Through Monday meetings forming a well-knit team, and educating the officers in tools learned at SLP, Sandeep was able both to increase capacity on the railway by 30% and reduce the daily lives lost when passengers stray onto the tracks.

2. A global peace initiative called Garland of Peace that designates war ruins worldwide (from Belgium to Hawaii) as world heritage sites. Today Sandeep is not only an acknowledged public affairs administrator, public information specialist, but also a poet, lyricist, travel writer, photographer, tourism promotion enthusiast and an ardent peace activist. Find more details at http://www.garlandofpeace.com/
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Colin Jacobs: Head of Governance and Civil Society, Awards Assessor at the British Council What I would say is that although we are at an early stage in the British Council’s Inter-Cultural Fluency programme, the results of this awards pilot were encouraging. They showed it is possible to agree inter-cultural leadership competencies and through interview and a written submission to assess candidates.

There are benefits all round. The process added to the candidates’ experience by allowing them to reflect on their learning, consolidate experiences around key skills for leadership in a complex, diverse world. Through feedback they were challenged to go an extra mile and improve in one or two areas, which can make them even more effective.

We look forward to bringing more candidates through this pathway in the future.
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At MiDDLEGROUND we remain committed to building a vibrant global community of leaders who are inspiring one another and spreading their leadership and learning more widely. The new awards can support this so we look forward to inviting and encouraging many more graduates of SLP Modules A and B to submit evidence of applying their SLP learning. Further details are available from the MiDDLEGROUND team. Tony Page and Christina Tyson, 27th October 2014