'Aye been? We can't go on like this'
SELKIRK has been urged to face the future with 21st-century ideas and not with the foundations that served the town in the past.
The plea came from Provost Jim Henderson – head of the Common Riding Trust – when he spoke at the Merchant Company dinner.
At the dinner, as The Wee Paper reported last week, John Smail was the first Standard Bearer to be appointed this year.
Provost Henderson continued on the theme that featured in many of his Common Riding speeches last year – that of leadership.
Effective leadership, including civic leadership, he said, was intrinsic to the proper functioning of any community. And Selkirk was no exception as it faced the manifest challenges of the post-industrial and information ages; new concepts of leadership had to be addressed.
He declared: "Some of us have been around long enough to remember when Selkirk was well and truly part of the old industrial age – when thousands were commanded by the sounds of hooters and the demands of time-clocks to make their daily penance to the needs of industrial society. Management was always based on hierarchies of power; command was always top-down.
"Mirroring the industrial model, Selkirk Town Council, with provost, baillies, magistrates and all, gave us another kind of top-down leadership – one which was never challenged in the industrial age and one which, though democratically elected, perpetuated the idea of a civic leadership which embodied power in individuals."
And, holding his chain of office, he said: "This chain is a symbol of hierarchy in leadership, though I would prefer it to be seen today as symbolic of the Common Riding Trust as a whole, rather than the person of the Provost."
And he rhetorically asked why this was so out of date and irrelevant to the needs of today's world.
"Because hierarchical leadership and the concept of a civic head are closely identified with the predominance of one particular personality," he said. "They are heavily encumbered with pride in office, and dependence on process and control. They are ranked and graded and redolent of ideas such as precedence, compulsion and deference. They often subordinate the creative power of individual talent. They can deny collaborative power, they tend to foster bureaucratic solutions, and, in particular, they threaten flexibility in decision-making, vital if we are to confront the complexities, the ambiguities and the rapid nature of change in this information age."
He went on: "Whilst it is easy to understand why we cling to the familiarities and comforts of what has aye been, the industrial age and all that went with it are long gone. The challenges of the past were faced with the ideas of the past – today we face different challenges and must come up with different ideas to confront them.
"Selkirk Common Riding Trust, for example, operates in a radically different way from the hierarchy of the old Town Council. Maybe, just maybe, we can serve as a pointer to a new kind of leadership in Selkirk. Our membership consists of the elected members of Scottish Borders Council and the representatives, all duly elected within their own constituencies, of the Common Riding organisations.
“Collectively, the members bring to the Trust a multiplicity of knowledge and experience. Most have served in leadership positions within their own organisations, often for many years, and together we practise partnership in decision-making. We are a practical example of shared leadership in which the Provost is merely the mediator of debate and the spokesperson for a team. We represent collegiate or collective leadership in action.”
And he asked why the burgh itself could not do the same. Again, he answered his own question: “Talented leadership is not a problem. We have an abundance of leadership in Selkirk. We have leaders in commerce and industry; in arts and in music; there is no shortage of leadership in our associations, societies and in the ancient crafts; we have community leadership; leadership in education and health; environmental leadership; political leadership; spiritual leadership; sporting and youth leadership. Why can’t we harness all this talent for the benefit of our entire community? Why can’t we cooperate a lot more?
“Why don’t we set aside that old and worn idea of personal civic leadership and embrace the 21st century with the new and progressive concepts of collaboration, networking and sharing in collegiate styles of leadership?”
And he said it just could be that the organisation for Flodden 500 would provide a good example and urged everyone to give that initiative their full support.
Provost Henderson was replying to the toast to Selkirk Merchant Company and the Royal and Ancient Burgh proposed by former High School pupil and now a South of Scotland MSP, Derek Brownlee .
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Weather for Selkirk
Sunday 05 February 2012
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Temperature: 1 C to 6 C
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