Lina Patel On How Leaders Can Harness Their Power And Forge Teams With Purpose

Lina Patel is a Facilitator, Collaboration Designer, and Coach whose mission is to alleviate needless workplace suffering and bring more kindness into the world, one team at a time. Her speciality is getting things done, calmly.

She has 25+ years experience working across all tiers of government; a variety of industry sectors; and in a range of operational functions. She has designed and led events, workshops, and retreats for a variety of community groups, government and private sector organisations. Having been part of 65+ different teams and facilitated close to 500 gatherings, she brings this wealth of experience to each group she works with.

In her work at Revma Consulting, Lina provides a supportive space that enables people to ask deeper questions surrounding their own intentions, boundaries, and the broader purpose of their work – at both an individual and organisation level. Drawing on a broad range of approaches, Lina helps people define their direction, with a focus on what energises and motivates them.

Lina discusses How social entrepreneurs can use relationship building to encourage the development of positive team dynamics and the nuances of power for individuals in the workplace.

Highlights from the interview (listen to the podcast for full details)

[Tom Allen] - To start off, can you please share a bit about your background and what led to your passion for helping purpose driven organisations?

[Lina Patel] - Whenever I hear my professional bio being read back to me, I think to myself, "oh my god, that's a bit too long!" I started work in the corporate sector and got my professional grounding within professional and then financial services.

I'm thankful for the professional work experiences and opportunities I had, but there was a lot missing from that work. My bank balance was high while my soul was quite low. Money can certainly buy you some forms of happiness, but you do get to a point in your life where you realise no amount of money can fill the gap in your soul.

About a decade ago, the somewhat predictable thing happened; I got to the point in my career where I wanted to do a leadership program. At that point in time, a lot of my colleagues were going off and doing their MBAs. Something about that did not appeal to me, so instead of doing an MBA, I did a leadership program with a small organisation.

That experience fundamentally shifted my idea of leadership, and it was also my first proper introduction to purpose driven organisations through meeting other participants who worked with these organisations.

Over the course of a year, I saw what the world could be like, and I realised rather than supporting some of the industries my financial services work did, these were the people and leaders I wanted to get behind and put my skills and talent towards helping. I realised it was possible to support people like this after spending a year with people who were living the work life I wanted.

Tell us more about the projects you're involved in and the work you're doing now?

For the last decade I have been an independent facilitator. I've done this work with different organisations, and for the last five years I’ve worked for myself through my business, Revma Consulting.

The work that I do I have captured in my mission statement, to alleviate needless workplace suffering. Whatever that might mean to somebody, it is in the zone of work I do.

I should mention (because it often comes up) that I don't work with conflict. When people are at an all-out war in their workplace, a whole other skill set is required. There are other people are exceptionally well trained in conflict management, and I don’t have the skills for that yet.

Anything around teams wanting to improve how they work together or manage the direction they're headed in, that's my zone of joy.

What activities does your work involve and how do you navigate unique team dynamics?

In a way, what my clients are buying first and foremost is my presence. Secondly, they are buying the process that we run through. There's a wide range of specific outcomes organisations are trying to achieve, and I'm domain agnostic.

I don't specifically work industries. I have my no-go zones (which might sound obvious like weapons, armaments defence, alcohol, tobacco and gambling; the hard lines I've drawn for my work.

What my work looks like (and this is the bit that's in a way our new standard is we spend quite a lot of time up front working out if we're a good fit with our client. Essentially, through a series of conversations, you work out if I'm a good fit for you while I work out if you're a good client for me.

I'm only interested in partnering with organisations who want to bring me in, so if I get the sense I'm being brought in as just a contractor, supplier, or vendor, then I'm probably not the facilitator for you. I'm much more interested in joining you as a temporary team member to deliver an important and strategic moment in the life of this team and organisation.

If I don't feel like I'm being treated that way, then we will refer you on to another facilitator or consultant who might be better suited for your way of working. This is not to say it's a bad way of working, it might be completely necessary.

Through a series of conversations, we work out together what it is exactly you're trying to achieve and what that is worth to you. An interesting part of my work is I do values-based pricing, which means I don't work with rates because what I offer is not a commodity.

Basically, we have a minimum price aligned with the liveable income rate according to the government. Of course there has to be a number I can’t go below because I need to live! But then there's no ceiling to the rate, and this ceiling is set by the context.

For our approach, we spend time figuring out what our work is worth to you. Based on what it's worth to you, we will then discuss the share of value that's due to me, establishing the arrangement as a partnership.

We continue to use this method to decide on the specific work we will do, whether it's a one-day workshop or a multi-day event involving lots of stakeholders. If I'm dropping in on a leadership day, the work gets finalised as we go so the shape of it is tailored to people’s needs.

I'm most interested in the processes we go through to gain clarity and then finding out what that clarity is worth to others.

At the Newkind Conference you facilitated an interesting workshop helping people to reflect on and form healthier relationships with power. Tell us a little more about that session and some of your takeaways from the Newkind Conference?

A big chunk of my work is around power, and it's such an enormous topic. To be specific, I'm interested in individual power, so people understanding their own power, it's application and effects. I'm also interested in how people interact with power within workplaces.

Yes, there are bigger ways in which you can think about power, but I'm mostly interested in this form because my unit of change is within teams. I'm interested in how power plays out at a team level, and while that team could be a whole organisation the fundamental level is do you even understand your own power?

Do you have a framework by which you can form a healthy relationship with it? Unfortunately, many people have a checkered or patchy relationship with power tending towards the negative, and because of that, we don't often tap into our own power. My aim is to help people understand the power they do have so they can reckon with the intended and unintended consequences of their own personal use of power.

I was surprised at Newkind Conference because I didn't expect as many people to come to my session as did. I underestimated how interesting this topic would be to others, and I've invested a lot of my time, energy and attention into learning about it.

I love learning from other people experiences. I thought maybe 15 or 20 people would attend the session, but there ended up being 50 of us!

It was great hearing people’s perspectives on the topic, and at the end of every session, meeting, or workshop I run, I ask people two questions, first, “what did your find useful and valuable?" and secondly, “what did your find surprising or unexpected?”

Reading through the feedback from the Newkind Conference, what stood out for me is something I've never encountered with any other group. For this group, it was new for people to hear that there's no such thing as a harmless act, that every act and use of your power will have both a good and a bad effect. There is no such thing as a harmless act, you just must deal with the consequences.

There is this popular idea that you can use your power for good, but you also can't expect there to be zero harm. That is not the reality. The notion that there's a version of using power in an entirely good way is interesting.

Power is about intention and impact, and everybody there had the best intentions. Everyone at Newkind is very pure of heart I would say, but that doesn't mean your impact will be 100% good.

What are the most important traits of impact led leaders or entrepreneurs working in this business for good and social impact space?

Predictably it's related to power. An important trait for leaders is to understand you’re in a role of leadership. The role of leadership demands some things which might go against your personal preferences. It's a role, so you're in a role and there are expectations of leaders.

For many years, we've had this idea around understanding your leadership style and shaping your role to your style. One thing that's been lost along the way (and this is very influenced by the work of Julie Diamond) is that there are expectations of a role.

There's this great question Julie Diamond wrote in an article, “what is the noble goal of your role?” The noble goal of a teacher is to educate for example, and this question is something I would invite people to ask themselves. You’re not asking this question of yourself as a person but of your role.

What is a noble goal of a general manager, an operations manager or a CEO? Be super clear on your role’s definition and play that role. That role might require you to avoid your preferences, being conflict avoidant is an example of this.

Your leadership role might need you to address and move towards addressing conflicts on your team. Otherwise, you could let things slide by not addressing things properly because you’re conflict avoidant. That's one thing I'm slowly starting to weave into my work.

What can happen in purpose driven organisations is that leaders over identify with their role and then they aren't able to perform. Leaders usually shy away from conflict or making a key decision because they think it will make them unpopular, but the role of the leader is not to be a friend to everyone.

That's quite unhelpful to your business. You cannot be a friend to everyone, as a leader that's part of the role.

What have been the biggest challenges you've come up against and how have you worked around them?

I was reflecting on this question with a colleague as I was working yesterday, but it’s hard to be mad at the world when you're in such a beautiful place like we are here [at the Newkind Conference]. To describe it to the people who are listening, we're on this beautiful property with this huge olive grove. There's a light breeze, the sky is blue, and the world feels pretty good!

In terms of challenges, I am again going to link it back to the workplace. The biggest challenge is when I'm working with organisations, and they look at people as resources (like when we say human resources). There isn't any attention being paid to the relationship with team members being an asset. These people look at individuals as cogs grinding up against each other, and this mechanistic notion of what's happening on a team is opposed to a more relational view.

My view is that the currency of my work is relationships, so my biggest challenge is when I encounter this attitude that my work has been commissioned to sort people out. Change management is now in this space, and it’s helping people through focusing on relationships. That's my biggest challenge, how do you shift from a mechanistic view of teams to an organic or relational system’s view?

What inspiring projects or initiatives have you come across creating a positive change?

I want to shout out an organisation that has existed for quite some time. Flat Out are based in Victoria, and Flat Out is an abolitionist organisation working with women, trans, and gender diverse people in prison. They are helping them get out of prison and to then stay out of the carceral system.

Flat Out has been around for ages, and they're a staunch intersectional feminist organisation. That's been inspiring because I'm early on in my learning around abolition and what that means in terms of my practice. For some people that might be prison abolition, but there's a broader school of thinking around abolition.

Flat Out have been around for way longer than I've been alive, and they are still going strong. I have a soft spot for organisations who are punching above their weight class, so any small outfit doing incredible work.

I’ve encountered organisations like this at Newkind as well, there are a lot of people who say, “wow, you're doing unbelievable work, that's beyond what I could imagine a two- or three-person team doing!” People at Newkind are humble doers, and Flat Out is the project or initiative I’m in awe of.

To finish off, what books or resources would you recommend to our audience

I want to share my favourite book about power, and it's called Power: A User's Guide. It’s written by Julie Diamond, and you could probably find it in your local library, that's at least where I found the first copy I read.

The work I do with power is largely based on the ideas in that book. That would be the first place I’d start, and then Julie Diamond has a newsletter which are like mini versions of her work.

I also think more people should just read poetry, and I don't know what kind of poetry you might specifically be into. I'm a poet and I gain a lot from being immersed in poetry, and I would say just go and find poetry and a way for it to be part of your life.

There are so many ways you can do this with newsletters, your local library or poetry journals. The world could do with more poetic practice.