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Leadership in Complex Systems: It’s Time for a Different Kind of Strength

Sara Hashim
Jul 28, 2025 8:24:27 PM

In public-impact roles leadership is rarely straightforward. You’re expected to deliver bold outcomes… while navigating bureaucracy. To work across silos… while managing legacy systems. To champion equity and innovation… without always having authority, budget, or clear direction.

This is leadership in complex systems. And it demands more than resilience, it requires a different kind of strength.

Why Leading in Public Service Is So Complex

Public-sector leadership often means:

  • Influence without control: You’re leading people or systems you don’t directly manage.

  • Conflicting accountabilities: Political, community, and policy expectations rarely align.

  • Chronic resource constraints: You’re solving 21st-century problems with 20th-century tools.

  • Change fatigue: Teams are tired, trust is low, and transformation can feel like a constant buzzword.

So how do you lead with purpose, clarity, and impact - especially when the system itself feels like the biggest challenge?

 

A Different Kind of Strength

We believe that women leading in these spaces bring a unique kind of strength - one grounded in clarity, collaboration, and community.

Here are three mindset shifts that we think can help:

Lead with Systems Sight

Zoom out before you zoom in. Understand the forces, loops, and incentives shaping your organisation. It’s not always about making change, sometimes it’s about revealing the patterns holding change back.

Don’t Do It Alone

Complex problems require collective intelligence. Build relationships across teams, sectors, and silos - even informal ones. Relationship capital is often your most powerful currency.

Invest in Your Inner Capacity

Navigating ambiguity takes more than strategy. It takes stillness, stamina, and self-trust. Invest in spaces that fuel your clarity — from coaching to community to restorative pause.

Join the Conversation

This November, we're bringing together bold women navigating these exact complexities - in policy, procurement, education, health and beyond.

We’ll unpack:

  • Systemic blockers and how to work through them

  • Leadership in uncertain and politically sensitive environments

  • Cross-sector collaboration that actually delivers

  • What it means to lead with care, courage and clarity

     

    This isn’t a conference. It’s a space to think differently, connect deeply, and lead with more power and less burnout.

CivicaNet | London | 20 November 2025
Registrations open now

Join our WhatsApp Community to connect with like-minded women all year round. 

Take a look at our ongoing Webinar Series that brings women together monthly for leadership development.

Let’s lead the future of public service together.

 

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