Do disabled people need a bespoke leadership development programme? In some ways, they don’t; all of the Cultural Leadership Programme’s opportunities are open to disabled people. But even if you putaside questions of access, there are some aspects of leadership that, for many disabled people, bear further exploration.
Sync is an exploration of leadership and disability that aims to take the lid off the debate.
So who is Sync for? Sarah Pickthall and Jo Verrent, co-founders of Sync are clear: “if we only pick up ‘the usual suspects’ then we will have failed – and not just in terms of reaching out to new people, but in relation to the depth of dialogue we can have. If the only conversations that happen are with people who all think the same, then where is the
learning?”
Sync needs to involve a wide range of disabled people, not just those with different impairments but also with different ‘takes’ on disability. This is why Sync is reaching out to capture different voices – from those who embrace the cultural identity their impairment gives them and those for whom their impairment is just a sometimes inconvenient part of their lives.
And the list of those coming forward to share their experiences is growing: from Nabil Shaban, actor, writer, founder of Graeae Theatre Company to Michael Lynch, Chief Executive of the Southbank Centre.
And now we need to pass the message on. We need to get Sync out there into the sector. And not just to those who ‘look disabled’.
Remember that statistics show that the most common types of impairment are those that are hidden.
To find out more about Sync, and how to get involved in the online training programme Sync 100, launched in May 2008, you can join the Facebook group ‘Sync’, email [email protected] phone/text 07504 794324 or go to the website www.syncleadership.com
