We all lead such “Helter-Skelter” lifestyles sometimes you just feel that life is passing you by at an alarming rate and you never have time to just stop and reflect on what’s actually going on! Today I was temporarily brought to halt after being asked to chat to British Council’s European Diversity Team at their annual meet-up in Belfast about my leadership journey and what I considered are the traits of “Inclusive Leadership”.

When preparing for my session, and as a recent Clore Social Fellow, my first port of call was to re-look at what underpins the whole Fellowship, their Leadership Development Framework and Social Leaders’ Capabilities Framework. In principle I agree that these are all critical to being an effective leader, but what other traits are needed to be an inclusive leader?

I believe that there are eight key traits, some that overlap with Clore Social, so here are mine;

1. Awareness: Being aware of what is going on around you is essential. But being aware of the people around you is more important. How can you lead if you are not in tune with your colleagues, partners and appreciating the diversity of thinking as well as life?
2. Curiosity: Michael Dell stated that curiosity is the most important trait of inclusive leaders, and a few years ago I read a book by Alan Greenspan the former Head of the US Treasury who set aside one hour every day to read. I’ve tried to follow his lead by setting aside time early in the morning or at night to read, monitor websites and trawl Twitter – yes, my email inbox is overloaded with links to fascinating articles on literally everything, you never know where that next big idea can and will come from.
3. Passion: All I have to say here is – if you’re not passionate about what you do, why do it. I’ve sat on numerous panels and listened to pitches when the presenter is just going through the motions and you just want to scream in a Jerry Maguire voice “PLEASE SHOW ME THE PASSION!” Recently I had the honor of being on the selection panel to interview the next wave of Ashoka Fellows for the UK and Ireland. One of the interviewees was an outstanding guy called Mark Swift with an unbelievable back-story who runs his own social enterprise called Wellbeing Enterprises CIC – truly inspirational and oozing passion!
4. Courage: Without courage, you won’t be able to move forward. It’s not all about being able to take a risk, it’s also about having the courage to defend your colleagues, defending your values admitting when you’re wrong.
5. Collaboration: Here I mean true collaboration and not “glorified cooperation” when organisations pay lip service to each other just to download information and use it for their own means. Trust me over many years of observing our esteemed third sector, and from painful personal experience, I’ve fallen for the “lets collaborate” routine only to find out a few days later that they’ve set up meetings with your partners; what I term death by a thousand cuts culture. Coming from a private sector background you know who your competitors are and you’re always on guard, in the third sector it’s more difficult to work out who your competitors are. A sad reflection on the third sector and if we want to create a truly collaborative environment we need a mix of transparency, trust and inclusive leadership.
6. Values: Don’t think I have to say much more here, to me these are most important traits to becoming an inclusive leader: honesty, trust and a militant transparency. Enough said.
7. Perseverance/Commitment (Never Quit): If values are the most important trait of a highly inclusive leader then perseverance comes a close second. Highly inclusive leaders are fully committed to diversity and inclusion because they align their values to their objectives and persevere no matter what. But like values, perseverance comes from the core - as a boy from the country and a family steeped in traditional farming values, the foundation blocks to everything I do are honesty and integrity, passed down by my parents and grandparents, and with that a determination to not quit come what may. In the world that many of us live in working in social enterprise and social innovation, quitting is not option. As Douglas McArthur once said, “Age wrinkles the body, quitting wrinkles the soul.”
8. Authenticity: Along the same lines as passion, if you can’t be yourself and come across as authentic, other people will see through you.
   

So, thank-you British Council for allowing me to reflect on inclusive leadership and tell my story. On a final action point, never stop learning and set aside that one hour a day to take a breath, find new interesting articles to read and as Clore Social taught me, know yourself, be yourself and look after yourself.

Andreana Drencheva is a Lecturer in Entrepreneurship at the University of Sheffield where she helps social entrepreneurs to develop entrepreneurial and leadership capabilities.

“How am I doing?” and “How can I do better?” are two simple, yet powerful questions for social leaders. Using these two questions to seek feedback from diverse individuals is a fundamental strategy for social leaders. It can help them learn, develop and implement more creative solutions, build communities, and ultimately to create social change. Yet, the evidence shows that not all social leaders seek feedback. If asking these two questions is a simple way for social leaders to grow and develop, why don’t they seek feedback more often? I suggest that it is because seeking feedback presents five personal, professional, and organisational challenges.

1. Seeking feedback can bruise the ego. Like all of us, social leaders have personal egos. While they are often described as heroic figures, they are human beings with personal feelings and identities. As social leaders often pour their hearts and souls into their work, seeking feedback requires putting personal feelings and identities aside to receive developmental, critical, and useful feedback, which is can be negative. Yet this can be difficult because these emotions and identities are what motivates them to do their work in the first place.
2. Seeking feedback requires resources. Seeking feedback takes time, effort, and energy. While it may seem like a simple act, asking for feedback competes for resources with other important activities at work, such as strategy or fundraising, and in their personal lives, such as childcare or quality family time.
3. Seeking feedback can disappoint others. Social leaders recognise that seeking feedback comes with the implicit assumption that the provided feedback will be used in some way. Yet they may not always be in a position to act on their feedback even when they agree with it. This might be due to a lack of resources or institutional and organisational constraints that make it difficult or even impossible to implement specific changes. Thus, instead of giving false hope by seeking feedback, they may choose to refrain from it.
4. Seeking feedback can damage social leaders’ reputation. One of our expectations of social leaders is that they are competent, knowledgeable, and strong individuals. Recognising this assumption, social leaders are sometimes concerned that seeking feedback might portray them in front of others as weak, indecisive, and incompetent. They fear this portrayal might damage their reputation as well as the reputation of their work.
5. Seeking feedback can limit organisational advantages. Seeking feedback often requires at least partial disclosure of information related to ideas, approaches, and methods unique to the work of the social leader. We might think or at least hope that the social sector is guided by ethical decision making. However, there are numerous examples of individuals and organisations appropriating the ideas of social leaders after giving them feedback. Therefore instead of creating opportunities for collaboration and improvement for social leaders, seeking feedback might enhance the competition.

 

How can social leaders address these five challenges? The first step is to recognise the trade-offs between seeking feedback and refraining from seeking feedback; to recognise both the bright and the dark side of seeking feedback. The second step is to make active choices between the trade-offs and to balance the benefits and costs with a long-term view.

Do you agree with these points, or do you have further suggestions on the topic? Please share your views about this blog post below, or contact Andreana on Twitter.

John Sennett is a volunteering spokesperson who runs the blog John's Road to Volunteering. He uses his experiences to influence change, motivate social action and to challenge strategy for leadership development.

Who? What? When? How? Why?

These are the five questions I think about regularly when it comes to understanding the greater need of volunteer influence on infrastructure and development in the so called ‘hierarchy’ many charities take prime views on. When asked to read through Clore Social’s recent ‘Facing the future’ report, I wanted to put forward my personal outlook on the findings and thoughts.

I’m a 90’s baby, classed within the report as a millennial from the collaborative era. This led me to question what happened beforehand. Before the digital age became the norm, how did charities collaborate?

Many would think such information is irrelevant to those of my age and to the future, but until we identify the need for mindset alternations, and identify what happened previously, it is hard to know how to face the future to ensure our sector is secure. Social media and other forms of digital platforms are now playing a significant role in amplifying a charity’s voice, and when I come to look at ‘the future of leadership development’, how can we move forward if we haven’t fully grasped what’s happening now?

Are we missing something when we’re looking at future trends? Are we taking into consideration that current leadership might not be as effective as we think?

Look at the Millennial outlook of ‘we’. ‘We’ is the perfect example of identifying the need for greater collaboration among third sector parties. Collaboration teaches us that within the meaning of charity, there’s ‘giving’.

Millennials are the ‘giving’ age. Identifying gaps in the sector or looking at it deeper within each individual charity is becoming the norm for the next generation. The term ‘leap of faith’ will be used more with the need for charities to collaborate with their volunteers. Working with volunteers in reaching more beneficiaries can be a simple process. How can we collaborate with each other to develop the next-generation of leaders for the sector? It’s that word again ‘giving’. Giving volunteers the opportunity to pitch in their ideas is just one step to collaboration.

What happens after the pitch? We can collaborate in the sector and give each other a platform to voice our views, but does that create a tool to develop new leaders? Influencing those with spoken word is a form of leadership, and training is another. Do we provide volunteers with the opportunity to pitch their ideas? We should listen to volunteers and understand their needs and wants, and in turn translate this into action for the benefit of the sector.

I’m a firm believer in internal education. By this, I mean learning from others within the organisation. This could be staff or in this specific piece, volunteers. Rather than looking instantaneously to collaborate externally, start internally. Let volunteers be a form of internal training. ‘Giving’ volunteers the opportunity to teach and educate is a basic example of leadership development.

I might be missing the point, or the sector might be missing the point with the advantages of collaboration, especially with volunteers, but what I do know is that there are boundless opportunities to develop the sector. We need to stop looking at ourselves as individuals and take the ‘we’ approach.

Once we consider growth to be integral for everyone involved, we’ll then be able to identify strategic approaches to form long-lasting collaborations.

Isn’t this what the sector is about? Helping others?

It’s time to take the sector forward and I believe that by investing in volunteers’ development and utilising their skills, they’ll have an integral role to play in the future of our sector.

Feel free to comment below or you can contact John on Twitter.