About Richard Eason

The Moment I Remember

One afternoon in our open-plan office, I stood over a colleague, raising my voice and questioning their delivery. The room froze. People stopped working. My colleague sat silent.

I remember that moment clearly, but I didn't understand it then.

Over time, through reflection, I realised what I'd done: I wasn't creating conditions for honesty. I was making honesty dangerous. People were protecting themselves from me.

That wasn't an isolated incident. It was a pattern. My directive approach - which had worked in the military - was creating exactly the resistance I was frustrated with.

What Had to Change

I had to change how I led:

• Stop using frustration as a management tool
• Start asking "What do you think we should do?" instead of always giving answers
• Create space where saying "I'm struggling" didn't trigger public criticism
• Build conditions where honesty was possible, not punished
• Apologise when I got it wrong

This wasn't quick. It was years of difficult learning, stumbling, trying again. And my learning continues.

Why ELVO Exists

Alongside the day job, I trained as a coach and took a small group of local authority leaders through individual coaching programmes. ELVO was the name I set that up under. I stopped after a while - the demands of the role and wanting more time at home meant something had to go.

But one thing stayed with me from the coaching: the value of structured self-reflection. Not advice, not a model to apply, just being asked a question you'd rather not answer. So I turned ELVO into a reflection tool instead. It's free, it's anonymous, and the reflection on your answers is written by AI - which is what makes it possible for me to offer it at all. I don't have the hours to sit with everyone. This I can do.

The Framework

Through that learning, I developed five conditions I now use constantly to examine my own leadership:

• Speak Without Fear: Am I making it safe to raise concerns openly, or are people staying quiet?
• Shared Ownership: Is responsibility distributed, or am I hoarding control?
• Confident Action: Can people act without waiting for permission, or have I created dependency?
• Follow Through: Are we reliably delivering on commitments, or do promises drift?
• Keep the Rhythm: Does progress sustain when things get hard, or does momentum die?

These aren't five separate things to work on. They run in a loop. When people say what they actually think, responsibility starts to spread, because you're no longer the only one holding the full picture. When responsibility spreads, people act without checking first. When people act, things get delivered. When things get delivered, the pace holds — and when someone can see that raising a concern changed something, they raise the next one. It also runs the other way. Let enough commitments drift and people stop bothering to speak up, because they've learned it doesn't lead anywhere.

I started using these when I was closer to the work than I am now, and I still use them. When teams slow down or go quiet, it's usually because I've weakened one of them without noticing.

About this framework

I want to be clear about what this is and what it isn't. The Polite Resistance Index is built on my experience - 16 years in the military and more than a decade in local government. It reflects patterns I've observed and, often, created myself.

It isn't peer-reviewed research or proven methodology. It's a framework I find useful and that others have told me resonates. You might look at the five dimensions and see them differently - that's ok.

What I do believe is that the act of reflecting on these questions is worthwhile regardless. If the framework gives you a useful lens, good. If it prompts you to think about your own version of what good looks like, even better.

Why I'm Sharing This

Through ELVO I'm also gathering insight into where local authority leaders find this hardest. Seeing how other people answer these questions changes how I read my own.

This work helps my practice. It might help yours.

Background

• MSc in Practice-Based Research
• 16 years as RAF Officer
• Director, London Borough
• Leading climate and transport programmes