Building on the discussion of innovative leadership practices, this section analyses the concrete leadership tools and approaches applied or observed during my WBL at the FAO of the Xi’an Municipal People’s Government. Rather than viewing leadership as a purely positional attribute, the analysis focuses on how influence was exercised, how direction was set, and how people and processes were mobilised to achieve project objectives in a complex governmental environment.

4.1 Vision, Motivation, and Meaning

Transformational leadership is characterised by the ability to articulate a compelling vision, inspire others, and connect day-to-day tasks to broader organisational or societal goals. At the FAO, elements of transformational leadership emerged in the push to reposition city diplomacy around substantive themes such as the digital economy, cultural innovation, and long-term international partnerships.

For example, the leadership narrative surrounding the International Sister Cities Digital Economy Alliance consistently emphasised Xi’an’s aspiration to become a regional hub for innovation and connectivity along the Silk Road. This vision provided a strategic frame for routine work such as drafting concept notes, designing session themes, and planning cooperation projects. When I supported documentation for this initiative, I observed how a clear vision made it easier to justify why certain partners were prioritised and why specific topics (e.g. smart cities, data governance, digital trade) were emphasised.

From a tool perspective, transformational leadership at the FAO manifested through vision statements, thematic framing in official documents, and speeches that linked city diplomacy to development goals. Although the application of this approach was uneven, where it appeared, it helped to align multiple stakeholders behind a shared sense of purpose rather than merely following administrative instructions.

4.2 Shared Responsibility in Practice

Distributed leadership refers to leadership roles and functions being shared across different individuals rather than concentrated solely in formal authority figures. Despite the FAO’s hierarchical structure, there were many instances where mid-level officers and even interns were entrusted with leadership functions in practice.

In the Cuenca–Xi’an Ceramic Mural Initiative, for example, I was given responsibility for coordinating specific information flows: liaising with interpreters, refining bilingual explanatory texts, and consolidating feedback from cultural departments. In the context of the Silk Road Cities Roundtable, I was tasked with preparing draft session briefs and synthesising participant information for internal use. While these tasks were formally defined as “support,” they effectively granted me leadership over certain micro-processes, such as ensuring consistency of information and preventing communication breakdowns.

The key leadership tool in this context was the deliberate delegation of responsibility combined with trust. By allowing junior staff to manage discrete components of larger projects, the FAO implicitly adopted elements of distributed leadership, which enhanced flexibility and workload sharing. However, this approach remains largely informal and contingent on individual supervisors, rather than being systematically embedded in organisational design.

4.3 Managing Diversity in Expectations and Norms

Cross-cultural leadership focuses on the capacity to understand, respect, and adapt to cultural differences in values, communication styles, and expectations. Given the FAO’s role in handling city-to-city relations, this form of leadership is particularly salient.

In practice, cross-cultural leadership tools included careful choice of language in official correspondence, sensitivity to partners’ working cultures, and adjustments in meeting formats. For instance, when working with Ecuadorian partners on the mural project, communication could be more flexible, relational, and iterative. In contrast, interactions with Japanese counterparts in the Kyoto Youth Choir exchange required meticulous attention to detail, formal expressions, and precise scheduling.

My own contribution to cross-cultural leadership involved drafting and revising bilingual materials, anticipating how certain phrases or structures might be interpreted, and ensuring that documents preserved both diplomatic politeness and substantive clarity. These practices demonstrate that cross-cultural leadership at the FAO is exercised less through formal tools and more through accumulated experience, linguistic competence, and interpersonal sensitivity.

4.4 Responding to Constraints and Uncertainty

Adaptive leadership concerns the ability to respond effectively to changing circumstances, unexpected challenges, and systemic constraints. The FAO’s work environment, characterised by strict protocol and slow approval chains, frequently requires adaptive responses to bridge the gap between rigid structures and dynamic external demands.

For example, during the preparation phase for international events, project timelines often compressed suddenly due to late confirmations from external partners or changes in leaders’ schedules. In such situations, staff members—including myself—had to reorganise workflows, prioritise key deliverables, and recalibrate expectations within very limited time. Adaptive leadership tools in these cases included rapid re-prioritisation, informal negotiation with other departments to speed up certain processes, and the use of unofficial communication channels (e.g. phone calls, messaging groups) to compensate for slow formal circulation of documents.

These adaptive practices highlight a form of leadership that operates “between the lines” of formal bureaucracy. Although not explicitly codified, adaptive leadership was often critical in ensuring that project outcomes remained acceptable despite systemic rigidity.

4.5 Relational and Communication-Based Leadership Tools

A substantial portion of leadership at the FAO was exercised through relational and communication-based tools. This includes regular coordination meetings, informal consultations, and the deliberate cultivation of working relationships across departments.

For instance, when coordinating inputs for the Silk Road Cities Roundtable, I observed that some officers could secure faster responses not because they possessed higher formal authority, but because they had built trust and rapport with counterparts in other bureaus. This relational capital functioned as an informal leadership resource, allowing them to influence timelines and priorities more effectively than formal memos alone.

My own practice involved maintaining clear, polite, and concise communication with multiple stakeholders, keeping updated logs of conversations, and proactively clarifying ambiguities. These habits acted as micro-level leadership tools, enabling smoother coordination despite the fragmentation of responsibilities described earlier.

4.6 Overall Assessment of Leadership Approaches

Overall, leadership at the FAO can be understood as a composite of transformational aspirations, distributed responsibilities, cross-cultural negotiation, adaptive improvisation, and relational influence. While formal structures emphasise hierarchy and protocol, actual leadership practice frequently relies on informal tools and personal initiative.

This analysis suggests that strengthening leadership at the FAO is not solely a matter of changing organisational charts but requires investing in skills and tools that support strategic thinking, cross-cultural communication, adaptive problem-solving, and collaborative networks. These insights inform the later sections on managerial and organisational tools, as well as the recommendations for enhancing the FAO’s overall effectiveness in city diplomacy.