Suzanne Bull – Celebrating 21 years of Clore Leadership
Clore Leadership alumni and Founder of Attitude is Everything, Suzanne Bull reflects on her Clore Leadership Journey 12 years later.
12 years ago I was lucky enough to be accepted on the 2-week residential Clore Leadership course. In reality, I’d already been a leader for four years. When the pilot programme that I’d been project managing for the previous eight years became its own charity, I was asked by its new Board to become CEO.
I wasn’t sure what to expect from the course, so I was a little nervous. I sensed that my Board wanted me to learn how to lead in a specific style. I thought that I might find this difficult to fulfill because I always brought my whole self to everything that I did in life, including work. Like many disabled people, I’d taken an entrepreneurial route into employment and ended up founding my own organisation, because of the lack of the employment opportunities in the arts that were open to me as a disabled person. Therefore, I’d not had much formal training in management, and I always led using my gut instinct.
The Clore Leadership course transformed my attitude towards leadership. It showed me that I could be a #QuietLeader which is much more authentic to my true self (and the Clore Leadership model is focused creating #AuthenticLeadership). I completely bought into the Clore Leadership concept of “DoingThingsDifferently. I understood it. My whole life has been about adapting and doing things differently because I’m disabled.
The idea of adapting things to fit around me started at school. I was part of a trial in the mid-1970’s which saw Local Authorities place disabled children in mainstream schools. There was no plan or structure to this new programme – schools, parents, teachers and kids just worked it out together as we went along. I had to do pretty much everything differently. During the Clore Leadership course, we had to give an example of a time when we might have had to do something differently, so I told the group about when I wanted to play hockey at school, but the sticks were far too long for me to hold. My PE teacher cut down the stick to my height and sent me off to play hockey.
I think I’m right in saying that I still hold the position of the participant who had the highest access requirements on the residential course. I had to wait for a place to come up at a venue which was wheelchair accessible. On the first day of the course, I traveled up early to the venue and spoke with the course leaders before the programme began to make sure my access arrangements were understood. I discussed how the course was structured with Clore Leadership colleagues and we arranged to change it up where necessary – occasionally I didn’t participate in the evening activities so I had enough energy to get through the next day. Course participants were meant to “Walk And Talk” through stuff in the grounds of the hotel to have some privacy, but I had a room instead where participants would come to talk privately with me. Otherwise I wouldn’t have any privacy as I needed my Support Worker to push me through the grounds. Due to the length of the course, I needed two Support Workers who swapped over halfway through. As a result of Clore Leadership meeting my access requirements, I had my best learning experience, ever.
I still implement what I learned from the Clore Leadership course today and I often refer back to the resources provided. I’ve grown in confidence and become ever more ambitious for the organisation that I co-lead (I changed roles in July 2021 to become Founder). I’ve also supported a few disabled people to apply to the course.
But what brings me back to the Clore Leadership course is thinking about all the good friends that I made, the fact that I’m still regularly in touch with many of the group, and that we’re all enjoying successful careers in the arts.
#Clore33CraxtonWoodForever!
Themes Alumni Journeys 21st Anniversary
