Chasing the light on the Future Leaders Scheme (FLS)
Writing about what needs to be written most
“Future Leaders Scheme is building a diverse, robust pipeline to senior roles. You’re part of the high potential, talented civil servants who can get there.”
The Future Leaders Scheme (FLS) is one of the UK Civil Service’s Accelerated Development Schemes, aimed at high-potential grade 6 and 7 civil servants. You can read my previous reflections on the scheme here:
Hello dear reader,
Most of you know me as the person that writes these blog posts. But before I was the person that wrote these blog posts, I was many things. Maybe I’ll be those things again.
Writing helps me survive my time here. It allows me to cut through the noise, to sit with my fears and anxieties that show up all over the place. When I think about writing all I know is that it feels so real to me. Because I’ve been absorbing a lot of stuff on the Future Leaders Scheme. And that has really taken it out of me. The moments of spontaneous warmth were short-lived here. As my time here draws to a close, I’m learning how to find the light again.
So, here goes.
This blog post consists of:
- module 3 on DELTA (Disability Empowers Leadership Talent) — a series of tailored workshops which aim to address individual development needs and potential barriers specific to disability.
The story I will tell, about what it’s like on the scheme, is mine and mine alone.
These are notes to myself, and possibly you.
I write things sometimes, and sometimes these things I write are good. I write out of a desire to see myself more clearly. I write about them with my head, my heart, and my hands. I wouldn’t say the things I write about are mundane, but aren’t always easy to reach for others, even when they resonate deeply.
I’ve been meditating on the tidal waves of grief, on writing, and on writing about all these things. Sometimes I show up a shell here, grieving for the parts of myself I’ve lost. It’s hard not to see what’s in the mirror reflecting back at me everywhere I look. All my most tender parts came out of hiding on the scheme, even when I tried my best to avoid them.
Because in hindsight, I see someone who was scared to be who they genuinely were and coped with that fear by retreating into themselves. I didn’t want to be who I truly was because I didn’t want to “just be a disruptor”, or “just be a changemaker.”. I wanted to be something else. All to keep my sense of self safe here.
It’s always a decision to stay, as much as it is to leave. In the quiet, tender moments with myself, I recognise the scars as symbols of experience and all I’ve faced. Feeling all the emotions that rise up deeply within me does not always feel inviting. To sit with grief in the face of loss, to let fear in when unsafe. Even these quiet words, typing to you now, feel hard to write.
It takes practice not to hold things alone, to reach out. Whenever I have chosen to share something, I remember why it is crucial to be seen up close, to let my struggles be witnessed by others. I think about the messages, emails, and comments I’ve received from friends and strangers sharing their resonance, gratitude, and generosity with me (and I’m grateful for all those of you who messaged to ask if I am ok). It has taken me places I couldn’t possibly predict or have ever imagined.
Surviving in dysfunctional systems
I have spent months and months trying to distil the scheme. I keep asking myself what the point of any of this is, questioning everything with nowhere to sink into. I’ve invested time and thought to engage with how it changes. I’ve discovered turning points, how people become who they are, how they adopt new thought patterns and selves.
But I still don’t understand this world or have any sense of how to positively impact it. It is depressing and dysfunctional, incomprehensible and unchangeable. I feel a profound sense of hopelessness and anger over what to do. Maybe I chose wrongly, over and over again.
There is no secret about how to be a human on the scheme. I didn’t miss the memo. Some of the deepest relief I’ve felt is letting go of this belief. I have been walking into the unknown and stumbling along the way — full of unimpressive moments, making mistakes, and forgoing my intuition in favour of what I think I’m supposed to do at times. Being a human in a place that wants you to have it all figured out isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
But I did the best I could with my tsunami of feelings, even if that “best” actually felt pretty bad. It frustrates me that something wields so much power over me. What gives me hope is that I might slowly find myself outside of it, even just a little bit. That I can look behind the curtain and realise that there’s no reason to let one chapter tell the story of my life.
The dark side of resilience
I have previously written about this thing called ‘belonging,’ which is a tricky idea for me to grasp. Equally frustrating is the concept of ‘resilience.’ I find it jarring that not enough attention is paid to changing conditions that require resilience in the first place. Band-aids don’t fix gaping flesh wounds. They don’t solve the fact that I feel lonely, burnt out, overwhelmed, or traumatised here. Or that my body is deeply exhausted from too much of it.
What’s wrong with resilience training (or conversations)? Well, it pushes too much emphasis to be well wholly to the individual, telling us to sharpen the tools in our tool belt to include things like setting boundaries and self-care. But the problem isn’t my lack of self-care. These things don’t work because they aren’t enough to combat such a harmful place. I wonder, has the scheme ever truly been a place of care and safety for all?
I don’t need to be more resilient, to learn to take anything this place throws my way. I need to be supported in being human instead. I’m curious, without the stress caused by my time here, that I might discover how I could actually take care of myself. If we really want people to be well, then let’s stop creating and maintaining an environment that makes them ill.
So no, I don’t want another round of resilience training, thank you very much.
The world is a scary place, but I have armbands
“It’s an act of rebellion to show up as your whole self — especially with the parts that are complex, unfinished, and vulnerable.” — Courtney Martin
I think about the versions of me that show up in different spaces. I think about my current self on the scheme who feels unable to access some of the things I normally reach for with ease. My strongest emotions are part of my personal power. But here, my light is dimmed. Not gone — but noticeably lessened. I question myself more — question what it’s all for.
Maybe I’m a square peg that is trying too hard to fit into a round hole. You see, I like difficult spaces. I like the tingly feeling my brain gets when it’s pushed to its edge. I like doing things that take considerable effort. I like momentum, the way I can shoulder it. I admire human willingness — it is a glimpse of something so profoundly real. I believe in boldness.
I have the courage to speak up — and I have experienced the pain of doing it in environments where there is no psychological safety (read here). I didn’t feel the system had space for someone like me, which was saying, “whatever you do, don’t ever dare to be different…” Maybe I should have known better. Sometimes it scares me that I have so much agency over my choices, all the time. I’m still figuring out how to relate to the hard stuff I struggle with, to do it with more curiosity, kindness, and compassion — if not always, then sometimes.
What I really want to say is that I carry all these things unseen. When I share parts of myself, it’s simply a sliver of the whole. There are nuances to being open about who you are, a spectrum for how much I open up. The scheme isn’t designed to enable self-expression, to live out the questions. It is training people to think in a particular way and behave in a way that supports that thinking. But to go outwards to find answers that can only be found in our inner worlds only complicates the process of becoming.
Weaving myself back into wholeness
To speak is still a bold act.
I’ve tried to write this ending too many times now. How much resolution does this story need? For now, I’ll end with this reminder to myself and perhaps to you: it is only through this experience that I know things I know now, that I could not know otherwise, that I am (mostly) grateful to know. Would I do it all over again to know? I don’t know.
And what do I mean by ‘know things?’ I don’t mean things like where I want to go in the Civil Service or that I’m supposedly a bonafide future leader now. I mean things like what I value or how I want to spend my time or who I want to surround myself with. A plethora of information about what I want, that surfaces because I experienced what I did not. That the things I did not want are gifts in their own way.
I hope, sometime soon, I can embrace it.
You can read all my reflections on the scheme here:
