The Entrepreneuring Identity by Jon Fish Hodgson.

“Identity” is often divisive — in politics and corporate “diversity” projects. But our contested collective identities are renewable resources for transformation.

“leaders […] don’t think ‘I’. They think ‘we’”, Peter Drucker said. And Peter Senge describes leadership as “the capacity of a human community to shape its future”. Still, most of us attend far more to the individual leader (and their “authentic self”) than collective capacity. But leaders are not interchangeable across contexts. And leadership talk gives nearly no attention to who constitutes any (organisational) community — and the fact that “community” implies an in-group vs an out-group.

In contrast, contemporary social psychology (especially Haslam & Reicher 2020) illuminates collective identity as leading’s medium or substrate. “Categories create constituencies” in a world of contending collective identifies in flux. Contestation over collective identity is struggle over who gets to decide and define “we” and “our”. These are complex inter- and intra-group dynamics and politics.

We will explore leading as a social process and practice of identity: from prototyping to realising and championing to re-crafting or “entrepreneuring” identity. Who are you following, and which identities are you working to realise or transform? What is the identity of the Dialogic Drinks community? What do these insights this offer us in practice across contexts?

Jon Fish Hodgson

Jon Fish Hodgson collaborates towards freeing human potential across contexts through organisational and social development. Jon is a curious practical strategist, working and learning in organisational and systems change for social good. Jon works through integrating innovative insights, people, and processes — adapting to contexts with agility.

In recent years, Jon has established the OD function at a national network pursuing scaling and systems change; led the creation of a new national policy framework & tools; and crafted a bespoke sector strategy for Africa’s largest economics-based consulting firm. Jon also works as an education expert with diverse facilitation experience.
 

Jon is committed to all people's living the pleasures of learning; and everyone's enriching our human knowledge commons. Beyond work, we need to build a world that's entirely otherwise for all of us.
This DD introduces part of a project synthesising research on significant socio-cultural and organisational change — through self-reinforcing interventions in institutions and social norms.