Starting the Process of Stepping Down
Jess, Euella and the team hosting a leadership lab discussion in January 2025 with members of our community at Unit 8 Studios.
You may have seen that we’re recruiting people to form a steering group that will shape and oversee our next leadership transition. Here, Rising’s Co-Directors, Jess Bunyan and Euella Jackson take the time to share the thinking behind setting up a steering group and their hopes for the process.
What does it mean to truly create space for new people to lead?
How do we design recruitment processes that are affirming, human-centred and caring?
How do we create space for people to end-well and transition-out of an organisation they’ve led?
STARTING THE PROCESS…
Every five years Rising transitions its leadership to hand over to new leaders. Why? Well, as an agency for young people we think it’s important that we’re led by young people too. It’s something we’re proud of and a story we love to tell. This intention was set by our founder and current non-exec, Kamina Walton, who handed the leadership to us in 2021 and since then it has been embedded in the DNA of the agency. Next year, we will be coming to the end of our 5 year term and will be handing Rising over to new directors. Wild.
Even though it feels natural to us, this is still considered radical - particularly when the status-quo is centred on hoarding power and offering limited progression routes into leadership for people who aren’t the “usual suspects”.
CREATING OPPORTUNITIES FOR YOUNG PEOPLE TO LEAD
When we talk to people about us inevitably stepping down, they either get really excited or terrified. On the surface, they appear to be nodding along but at the back of their mind they’re distracted by the thought of what this might mean for them and their own positionality. For us, it’s simple; having a transitioning leadership model is part of our genuine and ongoing commitment to creating more opportunities for young people to genuinely lead in the sector and to present a challenge to the current state of leadership in general. Plus, who doesn’t like a bit of a shake up?
When Kamina invited us to step up as Co-Directors back in 2019, we were already young members of the team and in many ways the transition felt easier for us because we already had a strong knowledge of the agency and could nurture our working relationship in the lead-up to stepping up. This time we want to do things differently.
Leadership Transition Community Lab January 2025
WANTING TO DO THINGS DIFFERENTLY…
Our aim is to design an open recruitment process so that the opportunity to be a Co-Director of Rising will be open to the Rising team, community and other young people who might not even be engaging with our work right now. As an agency so focussed on transparency, inclusive recruitment, access and care, it feels important to us to try and make this process open to everyone - particularly those who have never led before - and pilot a model that can be replicated by other organisations. Being a Co-Director is such an incredible opportunity and a privilege that so many don’t get to experience; we want to change that.
The first step will be bringing together a steering group of peers and community members to help us design and oversee the transition process. We have some idea of how we want this process to feel (e.g care-centred and radical) and we’ve learnt a lot since the last time we transitioned, but we still have questions about how to design an open process like this; who needs to be part of it, how to make it feel good / not labour-intensive, how o ensure there’s enough safeguarding and support in place and how to share our learnings more widely. We’re hoping that the steering group can help bring a level of objectivity, curiosity and momentum to this process - especially as we’re trying something new.
Here are some of the questions / tensions we’ll be exploring:
How to hold the tensions of the team and community who want to be Rising’s Directors before the decision is finalised and after if unsuccessful
How to design an open recruitment process for Co-Directors (eg do we ask people to apply together, matchmake etc.)
Who makes the recruitment decision of the new Directors
How to transition in a way that is sustainable for the people involved and the finances available
How Rising’s current board, non-exec Directors and Co-Directors are involved in the transition process
During our time as Co-Directors, we’ve done some incredibly exciting things. From running billboard campaigns and writing a youth-led cultural strategy for a Northern Devon town, to paying people to rest and celebrating our community. But now, we’re excited to get into this process and let go of any notions about what might be next. Who knows who the new Co-Directors will be, but we do know that it starts now. If this is something that excites you or peaks your interest, we’d love to hear from you!
This is just the beginning.
The deadline for Expressing Interest to join the Transition Steering Group is 11:59pm on Sunday 6th July. Head here for more information on how to apply.
If you’re interested in hearing more about our transition, sharing your experiences of leadership transitions or feeding into the process in any way, get in touch with the co-directors Euella and Jess at euella@rising.org.uk and jess@rising.org.uk
