The gift that this work brings is the outside ear that listens and a consultant who asks curious questions, so that those things that are taken for granted by the company are valued and seen anew.

The idea that organisations are dehumanising shows up in their systems, which equate human beings with machines and expect them to produce and ensure profit as they give everything to the organisation. There is no place for human fallibility and fragility within these systems. This deep longing for consistency and predictability wipes anything that

Peter explains that what dehumanises organisations are the system’s design and requirements based on predictability, consistency, control and outcomes.

The Narrative practices see the client/community/organisation as the expert and respect their knowledges, traditions, language, histories and gifts. Practitioners enter with a not-knowing approach, where the meaning of even the most obvious act, word or behaviour is not assumed.

In this alternative story of leadership the so-called ordinary people are invited into the conversation as knowledgeable and as able to equally contribute. As a result, the distinctions between leaders and ordinary people fade and blur into emergence.

This particular lens on leadership understands and supports the craft and art of building relationships with the community, team or organisation, through transformational listening, asking questions and providing a welcoming space. Leading With Human

Leading then becomes something leaders do with groups/teams/communities and not a responsibility that is taken up on behalf of, for and over others.

According to Foucault, the “more one possesses power or privilege, the more one is marked as an individual”.90 Being marked as an individual elevates the leader above the rest of the community and gives them superhuman status.

Being an expert on the bodies of knowledge in the leadership field, without necessarily practising the art, creates a hierarchy of leaders who tend to use exclusive language to describe their position and justify their actions.