What My Fellowship Year Taught Me about Ethical Leadership and International Decolonial Solidarity

During my fellowship year, the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity program provided a platform for solidarity, a sense of community, learning and sharing, and transformational leadership needed to navigate these uncertain times, writes Mohammed-Anwar Sadat Adam.

Because of the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020 was the most challenging year for humanity with many lessons. It was a year of exhaustion but also renewed confidence and strength for social activists and change-makers like me. The pandemic revolutionized our lives and compelled us to creatively rethink our ways of engagement and readjust to the restrictions that came with COVID-19. Moving everything in the fellowship program and my professional work to online platforms was one of the biggest adjustments I have had to make in the last year. This challenged me, the other fellows, the program managers to act in a more agile, coordinated, and focused way. The AFSEE program provided a platform for solidarity, a sense of community, learning and sharing, and transformational leadership needed to navigate these uncertain times.

Admittedly, I had mentioned in my application to the AFSEE program the challenge of dealing with cultural relativity when working within multi-cultural and diverse environments. Interestingly, the program offered very useful sessions on personality traits and how to deal with cultural and individual differences. This coupled with the coaching and action-learning sessions, undoubtedly, contributed to us building a very strong sense of community and solidarity. Working in small groups, we developed deep bonds united by a shared passion for challenging and transforming inequalities and successfully supported each other in navigating through our individual and collective challenges as a community.

Deepening my Understanding of Inequalities and How To Tackle Them

The academic content and the mode of delivery by faculty were very enriching and thought-provoking. They provided an inclusive intellectual and practical framework encompassing history, power, politics, policy, and alternative narratives on how to address the root causes of intersectional inequalities experienced across the globe. This reinforced my position that to address the deepening global inequalities, we need to leverage policy-relevant research, decolonized international solidarity, alternative narratives and meaningful public mobilization to ensure wealth and opportunities created through public and social policies do not only benefit the few but the majority. The part that inspired me the most was the conversations we had with academics and practitioners about the relationship between social movements and social policy, exploring how social movements engage with, contest, and seek to inform and shape social and economic equity policies and the factors that enable or hinder their ability to influence policy process and outcomes.

I could not have asked to be a fellow of the AFSEE program at any more pressing time than when the world was faced with a pandemic that exposed and reinforced the underlying structural and systemic inequalities and social justice issues of our times. The fellowship year provided me, and I believe my colleagues within our cohort an opportunity to speak to and reflect on critical questions of the unfair COVID-19 vaccine manufacture and roll out regime marked by deepening inequality in access to resources, health, rights, and wellbeing of many in the global south. Engaging with academic contents and practitioners during my active fellowship year and within the context of COVID-19 and the global trend of shrinking space for civil society, which today is compromised in about 154 countries globally, broadened my world view on how systemic and overlapping inequalities create barriers to achieving a fair world.

Improving my Leadership and Communication Skills

As my fellowship year progressed, I was given further opportunities to hone my leadership skills. I found myself nominated to be a moderator for a panel session at the 2021 LSE Africa Summit, which happened online due to the COVID-19 restrictions. I worked with the organizing committee of the summit to design the synopsis and guiding questions for panellists to speak on – COVID-19: African Road to Recovery. The opportunity to contribute meaningful insights on developments on the African continent, meant a lot to me. The process was facilitative, supportive, and with feedback that has helped immeasurably in shaping my communication and facilitation skills.

The fellowship has also developed my ethical leadership skills and practice. Being involved in a fellowship project and reflecting on ethical questions allowed me to gain experience on how to deal with the inherent power and privileges which could have implications for dealing with inequalities and social justice issues. I have learned to constantly reflect on my own values, power and positionality and to take up the ethical responsibility to remain sensitive to, and cognizance of, power relations as well as identity, contexts, and audience in my personal and professional life. Engaging with ethical leadership right from the start helped me to get a good handle on what to do throughout my active fellowship year and beyond without reinforcing existing inequalities and power imbalances in my personal and professional life.

Media training and hands-on practice provided to fellows on how to engage in media and public debates were one of the most challenging and enjoyable parts of my active fellowship year. The program shared media and communication strategies to shape public and policy priorities while educating diverse audiences and to help us amplify our work and voice through diverse dissemination networks. In these sessions, I learned how to reach, inform, and influence broad and diverse audiences.

My Key Take-aways From the Fellowship Year

While I oversaw my fellowship project with some degree of independence, I received very constructive feedback and support from both my mentor and academic coordinator through the monthly one-to-one meetings that we had. The support I received was so important, as there were times where I felt overwhelmed meeting deadlines for my fellowship project and my daily work. This is why I think mentorship is one of the most rewarding aspects of the fellowship programme.

As I transition to the next phase of my fellowship as a senior fellow, I look forward to drawing on my experiences for personal reflections and professional growth in the field of social and economic inequalities with a special focus on the politics of inequality. I am excited to continue working with the professional network of social change leaders, practitioners, and academics that I have gained through the fellowship in the fight against inequality.

I would strongly encourage everyone to apply for the programme. You will find the learning journey and experience immeasurably enriching for both your personal and professional leadership development. You will also complete the program with very clear and creative tangible impacts of your project based on the kinds of insights you might generate.

Applications for the 2022-23 Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity programme close on 10 January 2022.

The views expressed in this post are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity programme, the International Inequalities Institute, or the London School of Economics and Political Science.