“...can a strongly assertive leader really authentically empower marginalised people?”

My childhood gave me a deep rooted fear of authority figures, particularly men, but also assertive women. Maybe in reaction, I developed a drive to deliver justice and root out oppression; increasingly channelled into participatory methodologies.

Now I've a quandary: some of my peers appear to control inputs, the outcomes of which I am accountable for.

• Is this just an impression arising from my history, and revealed as paranoia?
• Are they actually just being supportive?
• What good are 'silos' in networks anyway?
• And if I want to empower, what message is read by me circumscribing and defending my own powers and roles?
• According to Belbin I'm a 'resource-investigator'. Aren't I actually cannily, if subconsciously, using my colleagues to take responsibility for aspects of my job, freeing me for other things?

But maybe I really am being treated inappropriately - disrespectfully perhaps?

• Will it help me as a leader if people see that I can't even control my own spheres of responsibility?
• What if I allow my empowering agenda to be undermined by an alternative agenda - one that at times appears to try to centralise control, whilst paying lip service to devolved responsibility?
• I took this job because I thought I could achieve more for the inclusion of socially excluded people if I had some control over policy and strategy in a significant area of interest. Am I in fact abrogating an hypothetical responsibility to use my power to empower, or is that just false reasoning and self-justifying (learning-org has an interesting summarised thread related to this)?

Either way, if I say "no" or "stop it" to colleagues, it will both irritate them and stress me; do I need either? I know I have strong support to lead firmly in my area, but can a strongly assertive leader really authentically empower marginalised people?

"Should I embrace it with open arms or run away screaming, as fast as I can?”

We manage our own projects; we also channel privately raised funds from our network of over-developed country programmes, into our under-developed country programmes. There is also a corporate desire to devolve responsibilities from headquarters out into the regional and country programmes. This is taking multiple forms: the regions are already responsible (since two years ago) to coordinate the links between under-developed country programmes in their area, and over-developed parts of our global network. Last year, country strategy was devolved into the hands of the regions (with the expectation that they would facilitate but not control country strategy development). Now, moves are afoot to devolve the majority of funding decisions to the regional offices.

Should I embrace it with open arms or run away screaming, as fast as I can? In the past, funding decisions were made by a central committee. In future, it'll be up to each region to determine its own funding approval system, but based on central guidelines. But I feel like a fox being asked to guard the farmer's chickens: I value my project management support role most; I preferred the past when the field team included the regional leadership and we all ate humble pie together when a project got rejected by the centre. In future, I could be cast in the role of the judge; how can I simultaneously advocate for and support my own project staff? I will become one of 'they' – the ones who judge and approve/reject. And what of accountability, for I shall no doubt be enormously tempted to approve projects the centre might once have rejected? Or is my perspective so badly distorted that I just can't appreciate the obvious benefits, or am seeing problems which don’t actually exist?

"...some of my own country teams are for some reason deliberately side-stepping our own organisational Goal and Objectives..."

I am vexed: What is an NGO's country strategy? I want to devolve decision making to our country teams; I have ensured that my regional strategy does not step on their toes, but supports what they think is necessary. But preview drafts suggest I may have made a basic mistake.

NB: some of our country programmes are independently registered local NGOs with their own governing boards. Others are implementing arms of our global organisation. Up till now, I expected that independent NGOs would exhibit some gaps in their strategy, i.e. my expectations would not exactly overlap their aspirations. But naively I had not expected the same for our own managed country programme teams (apart, perhaps, from programmes which had somehow 'missed the plot' and needed some management 'support').

Back at the main question: some country strategy drafts from some of our own managed teams not only have apparent strategy gaps, but have clearly been well thought through and participatory. In other words, some of my own country teams are for some reason side-stepping our own organisational Goal and Objectives, to some degree. What should I do?

At the moment, it looks like I will have to recognise that devolved decision making can lead to significant autonomy: if I wish to encourage this, I may need to recognise that whether we govern them or not, any country team with sufficient autonomy is liable to gaps in their country strategy. (This perhaps represents their self-referential thinking related to self-assessed measures of capacity and their balance of hope/despair.)

In my regional strategy, I am beginning to think that I must do three things: Firstly, the regional strategy should state how many gaps a particular country team strategy has (in other words I may have to add to a particular country strategy with reference to the country needs assessment and to other potential additional partners who could help fulfil 'my' country strategy). Secondly, I must consider whether my own country team leaders can represent me in designing country strategy, i.e. can they both facilitate their own team's autonomous 'country strategy', and consider the remaining gaps and how to fill them? Thirdly, a country manager (or myself) may have a broader 'shadow strategy' yet with gaps in the visible one. For example local stakeholders may unreasonably resist elements of the shadow strategy if they were made public; I may need to recognise that a sufficient strategy may actually have to have hidden elements.

But are these reasonable conclusions, I am asking myself? They make me slightly uncomfortable!