17. Leadership Resilience in Collaborative Practice Projects in Mental Healthcare in Sabah, Malaysia

The issue of sustainability is a problem for many people trying to lead projects, but it is particularly the case for informal leaders, who rely on influence rather than power. This chapter attempts to answer questions about what makes a resilient leader in collaborative projects in a low resource setting and explores leadership in three community-based collaborative practice projects in mental health. The projects discussed in this chapter are ‘passion projects’ that were initiated and managed by the leaders themselves and had not been ordered or commissioned by people above them in the hierarchy. Resources and influence had to be gained, rather than coming automatically. This chapter will explore how collaborative behaviours, motivation towards commons goals and values, autonomy, power and influence, access to resources, relatedness and personal connections and the motivation to collaborate influenced their leadership. We will also return to the concept of ‘distributed leadership’, which was discussed in the previous book (Shoesmith, Sawatan, Abdullah, & Fyfe, 2016) and consider whether the leadership seen in these projects was a function of the individuals or an emergent property of the networks of which they were part.