Thinking about leadership

In addition to working with individuals and considering systemic and politically informed lenses, counselling psychologists commonly find themselves taking on leadership roles in the applied psychologies, healthcare, and education. Such roles might include managing psychological services or teams, providing supervision, being involved in professional bodies or learned societies, being engaged in consultancy activities, or sharing their expertise with others as a lecturer or researcher. This chapter will reflect upon this rich variety of leadership roles and considers how they might be engaged with in ways that are aligned with the core values and ethics of the profession. We suggest that counselling psychology leadership should be relational, reflexive, and anti-oppressive. Empathy and dialogue are important, especially in cases where we must manage difficult conversations and take difficult decisions. Finally, we reflect on the need for an understanding and management of the power relations in our work leading others.