ReLEAD | Meet our facilitator: Shawn Westcott
In this edition of ‘Meet our facilitator’, Shawn Westcott reflects on his experience in democratic politics in the United States and what it taught him about leadership, resilience and wellbeing. He explains why the ReLEAD wellbeing module focuses on practical tools, relational practice and sustainable leadership in difficult times.
1. What is one personal experience or moment that inspired you to work on strengthening civic skills or community engagement?
“I spent nearly a decade in democratic politics in the United States — working on presidential and gubernatorial campaigns, and eventually serving as a Chief of Staff. I believed deeply in the potential of electoral democracy, and saw firsthand the value of engaging citizenry as a means of addressing people’s needs in a personal and productive manner. But over time, I kept running into the same wall: the skills our leaders needed most — to listen deeply, to sit with uncertainty, and to hold conflict without hardening — weren’t being cultivated anywhere in our civic institutions. We were training people to win arguments, not to tend relationships. That gap never left me. It eventually led me away from formal politics and toward asking a more fundamental question: what does it actually take to show up with integrity for the communities we serve? That question has shaped everything I’ve done since.”
2. What’s the most powerful thing participants will learn from your module?
“That genuine resilience isn’t a personal achievement — it’s a relational practice. We’ve inherited a model of leadership that treats stress as a performance problem to be managed, and wellbeing as a private responsibility. What I offer in this module is a different foundation: that our capacity to lead well in difficult times depends on the quality of our connections — to ourselves, to each other, and to the living world around us. Participants will leave with practices they can use immediately, but more than that, they’ll leave with a different story about what sustainable leadership actually looks like: less armoured, more rooted; less optimised, more alive.”
3. Why do civic skills, and programmes like ReLEAD, really matter today?
“Because the crises we face — ecological breakdown, social fragmentation, democratic erosion — are not technical problems waiting for better solutions. They are symptoms of a deeper disconnection: from each other, from place, from any sense of shared life. Civic skills, at their best, are the antidote to that disconnection. They are the practices of showing up — in neighbourhoods, workplaces, institutions — with enough courage and care to make something together that none of us could make alone. ReLEAD matters because it takes this seriously in a context — the workplace — where it’s rarely been tried. That’s not a small thing. That’s exactly where the work needs to go.”
