Bridging Leadership

 is the capacity to make it possible for people

to come together across divides and work as
partners.

 It aims to create and sustain effective

working relationships among stakeholders
whose collective input is needed to make
progress on a given social challenge.
1. Ownership

 segment of the process is focused on self-

awareness and involves developing a sense of
personal ownership.

 The bridging leader acknowledges the range of

his assets (i.e. values, education, experiences,
family background, etc.) which when
accumulated comprise his leadership capital.
 Knowing his capital, the leader examines
how these assets are put to use to benefit the
wider society.

 This brings the leader to a deeper

understanding of the societal problem, its
underlying causes and his possible
contribution to it.
2. Co-Ownership
 getting stakeholders together to deepen their
understanding of the issue, to recognize how they are
part of the problem and the solution, and to
acknowledge the need for collective response.

 involves convening various parties to the issue (including

those who are in conflict with others), facilitating
constructive dialogue to arrive at a common
understanding of the issue, managing conflicts and
coming up with a collaborative response.
 3. Co-Creation
 the actual work of collaboration.

 The commitment to work collaboratively is

translated into clear goals, outputs and targets that
will lead to the resolution of the problem.

 The sustainability of the initiative also ultimately

rests on the capacity of the leader to nourish himself
and renew his commitment to his personal mission.
Bridging Leadership Framework
 Bridging Leadership is a leadership style or
approach to tackle complex and systemic
social inequities:

 That are beyond the capacity of one sector alone to

resolve.

 That need collaborative action of all sectors –

government, private sector and civil society.
 Around which resolve to redress social
inequities must be nurtured and shared by
the multiple stakeholders.

 Around which bridging leaders can convene

diverse stakeholders to own the issue and its
resolution.
What do bridging leaders need to
BE?
1. Self-Aware of Character and Values
 Recognition of one’s character and values and how
strength and inspiration can be drawn from these in
facing the challenges and uncertainty that come with
complexity
2. Strong Sense of Purpose
 Clarity of what should be done and how it can be done
in order to be purposive and strategic in addressing
complex inequities

3. Capacity to Transform
 Willingness to work with others, in a way that taps
their greatest potential, toward collaboratively finding
and implementing solutions to the inequities
What do bridging leaders need to
KNOW?
1. Systems Thinking
 A new perspective, a specialized language, and
a set of tools that can be used to understand
reality as a whole – the relationships among the
parts of a system – rather than the parts
themselves
2. Multi-Stakeholder Processes
 Setting up and facilitating dialogic processes that
bring together diverse stakeholders into
constructive engagement, dialogue and collective
decision making

3. Creativity
 ‘Emergent processes’ i.e. tools and capacities to
discuss how one can sense the future as it emerges
or sense it from the pieces of the future held by
other stakeholders
What do bridging leaders need to
DO?
1. Strengthen will to lead through self-awareness
 Articulation of the leader’s set of values and
capital as well as the leader’s understanding of the
inequities being faced as input for verbalizing and
concretizing the personal response that the leader
commits to
2. Convene a multi-stakeholder group that
is built on trust
 Engaging diverse stakeholders and building
trust among them toward reaching a shared
vision on how to address the current reality
of inequities
3. Change institutional arrangements
 Leading the collaborative implementation
of innovative programs that will result to
societal equity and that are based on new
institutional arrangements that make
institutions responsive and empower
citizens