The current context for social leadership

At Clore Social we know good leadership is essential for social change. Leadership development is a lifelong journey, and we need to be ready to learn, adapt and change. Everyone is a leader, so we know by supporting and challenging one another, leaders can have collective impact. 

Good leadership is relational, democratic, and inclusive. It is a social process that draws on the different expertise and knowledge of multiple actors, with and without formal position. This view of leadership is particularly relevant to the social sector where leadership is distributed between, and based on the interactions of, trustees, the CEO, employees, and stakeholders.

There are contextual and operational factors that shape leadership in the social sector. This includes working with volunteers; the complexities of engaging a wide and diverse set of stakeholders from trustees and staff to service users and the public; the emotional challenges of working with those most in need; an emphasis on vision and values; and the dual bottom line of impact and financial rigour.  

What context are social leaders operating in?

As we adapt and learn to live with the virus, the wider impact of the pandemic continues to emerge. In this context social leaders must grapple with high levels of uncertainty. Key trends include: 

‣ Financial sustainability at risk: generating income was a challenge for voluntary sector organisations before the pandemic and it remains a key concern. Key shifts such as a decline in face-to-face fundraising mean organisations must innovate to stay afloat.

‣ Rapid digital change: the pandemic accelerated digital change in many organisations – reshaping everything from service delivery to fundraising. However, associated risks such as loss of human connection and cyber security are becoming clearer.

‣ Economic and human impact of the pandemic: poverty and inequalities have deepened. Increases in the cost of living and rate of inflation mean doing business is more expensive. Meanwhile, demand for services is high and increasing. Voluntary sector staff are vulnerable to burnout and poor mental health.

‣ Climate crisis, racial justice, and inequality: there is recognition that these are no longer “cause areas”. They must be lenses to view everything. Leaders must seek to ensure not just that they do no harm but that everything they do makes a contribution towards tackling these complex issues. 

‣ Evolving relationship with government: The pandemic exposed tensions in roles. An increase in public service delivery has led to questioning of the voluntary sector’s ability to raise voice and challenge. Sector infrastructure is weak and confidence in government support is low.

‣ Momentum locally: during the pandemic communities came together with mass mobilisation of local volunteers, groups, and networks. There is an opportunity for voluntary sector organisations to build on this momentum, revitalising/strengthening community connections.

As part of our ongoing commitment to supporting leaders in the social sector, we will be using this research as a starting point for a wider conversation for how to bring about change. Check back for updates on how we will be supporting social leaders or subscribe to our newsletter.

By Shaks Ghosh, Chief Executive of Clore Social Leadership

One week from today we will be waking up to the announcement of a new Prime Minister. For months now, every news channel has been fixated on an endless cycle of questions around leadership. We've heard about the crisis of leadership in this country; about how the different models of leadership on offer across the political spectrum point to evidence of an increasingly divided society; and how our assumptions around what constitutes good leadership are being rewritten.

These debates present an interesting challenge to the social sector. What interests me is: what are the parallels for how leadership is perceived in our sector; what role can we play in finding common ground to unite the divisions in our society; and how can we inspire a new generation of leaders who can tackle the social challenges that lie ahead?

Today we have published a new report ‘Talking Leadership: a report of qualitative research into leadership development in the social sector’. Thanks to support from Barrow Cadbury Trust, we were able to speak to over 50 CEOs and senior leaders from charities and other organisations. We wanted to find out their views on leadership in the social sector and what their ideas were for how leadership development could help inspire generous and collaborative social leaders of the future.

They told us emphatically that effective leadership development is essential for creating the skills and relationships needed to address complex social challenges and forge a strong and effective social sector. Our conversations highlighted a belief that leadership development should be available to everyone – and not just those at the top.

"Effective leadership development is essential for creating the skills and relationships needed to address complex social challenges."

In our series of research reports on leadership published in 2016, we identified the three principal barriers to leadership development as: cost, time and confusion. Three years on, it is clear that those same barriers still exist.

Charity leaders told us there is still a great deal of uncertainty about the meaning of leadership and leadership development. The benefits and value of leadership development are poorly understood and articulated, particularly for organisations or their beneficiaries. It is difficult for individuals to understand their leadership development needs, what opportunities exist, or how to access them.

There is concern about how much it costs and the benefit and value it brings. And in these troubled times, and with a growing burden on providing more services for less resource, there is little time for it. It is also particularly difficult for individuals to navigate the wide variety of leadership programmes on offer, and it can be challenging for organisations outside major urban areas to access them.

Despite this context of uncertainty and scarcity, it may surprise you, then, that the overwhelming message that rings out from the interviews is one of abundance. A striking insight arising from our conversations is that there is an abundance of untapped potential for leadership development within the sector. Our interviewees highlighted examples of inspirational leadership development taking place right across the sector. We heard from senior leaders working with ingenuity to develop the leadership capabilities of their teams. In many cases this involves utilising inexpensive and/or free options for leadership development, such as peer learning, mentoring and informal networks or action learning sets - and generously sharing their skills and expertise with others.

"We heard from senior leaders working with ingenuity to develop the leadership capabilities of their teams." 

The leaders we spoke to made strong pleas for more accessible leadership development. There is a clear desire to create more opportunities to learn from others through peer-to-peer learning, shadowing and secondments, mentoring and to create dialogue, learning and action on leadership across the sector.

What was particularly striking in the interviews I undertook was just how powerfully and emotively people spoke about their own leadership journeys. The message they told me echoes what I hear time and time again talking to our Clore Social Fellows - of that seminal ‘switch on’ moment when they step into their leadership role and how they can never go back to their old self. To give just one example, one interviewee told us about how her boss tapped her on the shoulder and asked her to be a leader - from that moment she walked taller, her behaviour changed and she took responsibility. How exciting the future looks if we can do that for all our young leaders - and it doesn’t mean a huge investment of time or money.

The message of abundance, for a sector that is so used to thinking about leadership development in the context of scarcity and resource constraints, presents an exciting opportunity for us to take a creative and innovative approach to supporting leadership development.

As a sector, we need to tackle this challenge head-on and explore new ways of developing the millions of leaders that are working within organisations across the sector; help individuals access appropriate development at different stages throughout their careers; and identify opportunities for them to learn from and share their skills with others.

"As a sector, we need to tackle this challenge head-on and explore new ways of developing the millions of leaders working across the sector."

Here at Clore Social we have some exciting new developments which we are looking forward to sharing with you all. We will be developing a new 'innovation lab' to design and test different solutions for supporting leadership development across the sector; identifying ways to harness the untapped potential we’ve identified through this report; and working alongside our colleagues in the sector to help build a generation of inspirational social leaders for the future. I look forward to sharing more with you on this in the coming months.

Read more information about the report and download a copy here.