A Black woman smiling in a field or pueple flowers with a purple wrap around her head, representing the reclaimation space for calm, rest, and intention.
Image credit: Zac Wolff on Unsplash

This article is the first article in what will be a recurring NPQ series on liberatory leadership.

Over the past several years, more leaders in the social justice sector have explored aspects of liberatory leadership as a solution to many of the issues we see in our oppressive systems. Amid the chaos of our present political landscape, adopting a liberatory leadership practice becomes even more essential. In the current “time of monsters,” it is imperative that we adopt principles, policies, and practices that equip us to confront the challenges we face without resorting to oppressive behaviors ourselves. In other words, we need to fight the monsters without becoming monstrous.

Liberatory leadership empowers us to pursue just work in just and joyous ways. It prioritizes tools for holistic care that enable us to not only survive, but to thrive in the midst of turmoil. Liberatory leadership fosters connection and collaboration, standing in stark contrast to the forces of othering and isolation that seek to divide us. By its very nature, liberatory leadership requires a prefigurative mindset; it invites us to use our imagination and experiment with creating new possibilities. As significant changes occur, leading with a liberatory approach provides opportunities for the emerging world order to align more closely with our visions of liberation.

We need to fight the monsters without becoming monstrous.

Through this series, we plan to share aspects of Leadership Learning Community’s (LLC’s) Liberatory Leadership Framework, which builds upon the work we’ve done in collaboration with the Liberatory Leadership Partnership. This work is also informed by our experiences learning from and alongside liberatory practitioners, funders, network members, nonprofit leaders in our communities of practice and affinity groups; our internal organizational experiments with new policies and practices; our conversations in conferences, trainings, webinars; and our exploration of liberatory leadership in our annual virtual learning series.

This four-part liberatory leadership series includes our definition and broad understanding of liberatory leadership, the foundation of liberatory leadership through our exploration of leadership and race, our learnings on holding space for and with liberatory leaders, and a guide to practical applications of liberatory leadership.

An Invitation to Breathe

You most likely came upon this piece in the middle of some other form of hustle. Before we dive into liberatory leadership, we invite you to breathe.

In this time when we are scared and constantly forced to react to chaos, when everything is urgent, when we are enraged and fighting or experiencing a desire to go numb, how dare we demand liberation…rest…joy? In this time when people are being detained and deported, losing jobs, when the laws of the land are drastically shifting, how dare we take a moment for a deep breath? And yet we must.

Inhale 1. 2. 3. 4. Exhale 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Repeat as many times as needed until your heart rate slows down, your shoulders drop, and your stomach steadies into your knowing: a knowing passed down from the people who came before you and will continue on to those who come after you, that there is a deeper power present here. It is not a power that requires the oppression of others to be valid. Instead, it is the power found in our love, wholeness, and interdependence.

Harness your breath as a tool to recenter on ways of being in right relationship with yourselves and one another, moving beyond the harmful norms of oppressive systems that enforce a “power over” dynamic. Forces of “power with” instead are apparent in the universal order above us, in the forests and bodies of water surrounding us, in the mycelial networks under our feet, and within each of us.

As you arrive, we’d like to open the conversation by noting that the essence of liberatory leadership is rooted in many ancestral practices that emphasize personal and community care, loving accountability, deep collaboration, and joy. Contemporary forms of liberatory leadership strive toward a vision that includes both freedom from oppression and the freedom to fully embrace our humanity. At its core, liberatory leadership is not a new concept; people have practiced variations of this type of leadership for centuries, and many leaders in our communities continue to do so today.

Leadership for Transformation

As a national organization focused on leadership field building for equity, justice, and collective liberation, we believe that leadership is a site of individual, organizational, and societal transformation. We focus on inviting leaders, including those from historically excluded communities, to live out the compelling vision of liberation: one that seeks power, joy, and thriving for all people. Our fundamental objective is to collaboratively experiment with and amplify policies and practices that center just work in just and joyous ways. For us, this is liberatory leadership.

Our Working Definition

We can be bold about what we want to experience and practice it now.

Mattice Haynes

Liberatory leadership means taking responsibility for collectively transforming our freedom dreams into reality by freeing ourselves from oppressive and limiting self-beliefs and harmful interpersonal practices, as well as divesting from and changing systems of harm that rely on domination and extraction.1 For those of us leading from within movements and organizations, this means creating, refining, and uplifting life-giving policies, structures, and practices that combat oppression in our groups and our communities.

Through liberatory leadership, we can shift systems so radically that something completely new emerges.

Moreover, liberatory leadership is the process by which we become free to realize our full humanity—and liberate ourselves from systems of oppression that inhibit the expression of our full humanity. This approach to leadership asks us to pursue concrete outcomes and results that actually free us while leading in liberatory ways.

Liberatory leadership offers a new orientation to social justice leadership, moving beyond the focus on equity-centered theories, policies, and metrics within current systems. This orientation shifts our attention toward the iterative, prefigurative, and (im)possible to build power for transformation while addressing power asymmetries. Where the language of equity describes the experiences of those moving toward transformation within a system, the framing of liberatory leadership shifts our attention away from existing systems toward the iterative creation of new systems in the present and future. That is to say, we need equity-focused practices that address current conditions, AND through liberatory leadership, we can shift systems so radically that something completely new emerges.

For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change.

Audre Lorde

How to Begin a Liberatory Leadership Practice

…come celebrate
with me that everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.

Lucille Clifton

Many leaders we connect with want to know how to begin practicing liberatory leadership. An easily attainable entry point is to ask, Is this liberatory? at critical decision points. As you ask yourself and your teammates this question, remember that the goal is not to find the “right” liberatory answer, but to begin strengthening the muscle of intentionally pausing to center liberatory values and apply this lens to your actions.

In addition, leaders can begin practicing three tenets that are foundational to embodying a liberatory leadership practice.

1. Adopt a Learning Stance

One of the key practices that has transformed LLC’s leadership and problem-solving is adopting a learning stance and evaluative mindset. By viewing liberatory leadership as a continuous learning journey, we empower ourselves to gain insights from our successes, failures, and inquiries. This learning stance is foundational and integrated into all elements of liberatory leadership practice. A learning stance encourages openness to innovative strategies while fostering curiosity and releasing perfectionism. It acknowledges that while mistakes can be consequential, they are also often invaluable growth opportunities, helping us adjust our efforts when outcomes fall short.

When exploring new policies or strategies, frame the initiative as an experiment. Identify key learning questions and, at the conclusion, use them to evaluate the process. This approach allows us to determine what to retain or revise, ultimately enhancing our impact with each iteration.

2. Connect with Your Vision of Liberation

Liberatory leadership is inherently prefigurative. Creating a world outside of the one we are experiencing requires us to define the north stars we are moving toward to understand the changes we need to make to arrive at our liberated futures. Establish intentional spaces to dream and imagine what true liberation could look like. Create one or multiple powerful visions of liberation. Think about the possibilities that a liberatory approach can unveil. Nurture your vision, allowing it to gain strength and clarity as it evolves.

3. Incorporate Play and Joy into Your Leadership Practices

Play can serve as a means to introduce breathing space and relief into our routines, stimulate curiosity, and recapture the joy that oppressive systems, structures, and experiences constantly try to steal from us. By integrating play into our work, we can retrieve some of the pleasure these systems have taken from us while fostering space for new ideas to emerge.

Adding elements of play and levity to meetings and gatherings can be a simple yet effective way to achieve this. Celebrating both big and small achievements—whether visible or often overlooked—can be an impactful way to experience joy.

What’s Next

Liberatory leadership is a dynamic and transformative practice rooted in liberatory values and key principles that are attuned to our ever-changing environment and new insights. Practicing liberation leadership invites us all to deepen our understanding, innovate, experiment, and continuously refine our approaches.

Creating a world outside of the one we are experiencing requires us to define the north stars we are moving toward.

In our upcoming series installment, we will delve into our recent examination: Leadership & Race: A Call to Each Other, Exploration of the Current Racial Justice Landscape and Recommendations for Action. This piece will delineate how current trends and efforts in racial justice lay a robust foundation for liberation leadership.

It is our hope that through this ongoing dialogue, you will be able to tap into the experience of liberatory leadership, practice the parts that resonate with you, and bring your discoveries to your community. Along the way, we ask you to reflect and share your thoughts with us as well. We look forward to continuing the conversation.

Note:

  1. Our working definition of liberatory leadership is informed by our organizational policy and practice experiments, our ongoing dialogue as part of the Liberatory Leadership Partnership, our desk research, and our interactions with the broader field, such as LaShawn Route Chatmon, executive director of the National Equity Project. See “Wade in the Water: Leadership Imperatives for Turbulent Times.”

NPQ Leading Edge members will be invited to join the coauthors on June 3, 2025, for a live discussion of the liberatory leadership practices covered in this series. Become a Leading Edge member.