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Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
04 December 2020
Updated: 07 December 2020
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As a long-term Trustee of the wonderful organisation that is Clore Social, Shaks Ghosh (Clore Social CEO), asked me for some personal reflections on leadership, and in particular leading through difficult times.
I have been in the public service for my whole career, including some periods right in the spotlight. Periods when my work was in the national news more or less every day, and periods when what we were doing was particularly tough. I am currently the Director General responsible for the public inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire. My experiences have caused me to reflect a lot on what needs to be done to lead teams through periods of stress, and to build resilience. I don’t have any magic answers, or much book learning to share. All I can talk about is what has helped me. Some reflections:
Spreading the Load. Being good at what you do and surviving sticky moments is, in my view, mostly about the people who work for you, and about others who can help you to spread the load. Rarely can you do big things all by yourself. I certainly can’t. The more taxing the situation, the less likely I find myself to be the answer. As a leader, I think this has to mean gaining strength by giving away power. Why does the co-pilot and not the pilot fly the plane a lot of the time? I am told it is because the pilot can correct the actions of the co-pilot far more readily than the co-pilot can correct the actions of his or her boss. If you empower your team to get on with the job and hold yourself in reserve as coach, counsellor and advisor, you will (in the short run) create a more powerful unit, and (in the long run) grow your people. Furthermore, if you make a habit of recruiting people who are better than you and/or complement your skillset, and pay attention to their growth and development, you will end up with a stronger unit. Don’t then worry too much about losing great people to bigger jobs. Just make sure you are a leader even better people want to work for.
“As a leader, I think this has to mean gaining strength by giving away power." Mark Fisher
There are other ways of spreading the load too. Pester your allies and abuse your networks. In my experience even the busiest people are enormously generous with their advice. You will need it. Find and then work closely with partners - if there are others travelling willingly with you on your journey you are more likely to be right!
Creating Organisational Resilience. How resilient is the organisation, and how I can improve it? I have tried in particular to cement and communicate belief and purpose, and celebrate success. Few things are more important than giving people a powerful reason to come to work. I try to be calm in any crisis, and deal quickly with any internal problems. Nothing weakens a team as rapidly as a breakdown between team members. You need to be there when it matters for people, take the most difficult meetings, and be the lightning rod for criticism. Perhaps most importantly, you have to allow people to be affected by things, ensure there is proper counselling and wellbeing support, take advantage of it yourself, and be seen to do so.
"None of this is possible unless you look after yourself." Mark Fisher
Personal Resilience None of this is possible unless you look after yourself. Do things, and only do things, that you believe in, have purpose and play to your values. Find colleagues you want to work with. Avoid over-reach, and over-ambition, and give yourself time for other things!
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Mark Fisher CBE FRSA is a Clore Social Trustee and Director General and Secretary to the Grenfell Tower Public Inquiry.
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Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
08 October 2020
Updated: 07 December 2020
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Paula Harriott is an integral member of the Double Lockdown Programme design group. Here she shines a light on the reality facing people experiencing the criminal justice system, and the lived experience leaders working tirelessly to support them.
As Autumn 2020 progresses, the social sector is forced to face the ongoing uncertainties and complexities of a second wave of the pandemic. As we move out of universal lockdown, we grapple with the possibilities of more, and the devastating impact this is having on vulnerable and marginalised communities. But there is one hidden group of society experiencing the effects of a double lockdown, which requires urgent and sustained attention and support.
Just like any community, prisoners and people leaving prisons, including children and young people, and their families, are anxious about Covid-19, but feel forgotten by the general public as they endure the harshest of lockdowns. A lockdown which has left many confined to a cell for up to 23 hours a day since March 2020, with little contact with other human beings.
"A lockdown which has left many confined to a cell for up to 23 hours a day since March 2020, with little contact with other human beings." Paula Harriot
Social leaders supporting prisoners and those leaving prisons are witnessing a major disruption to the criminal justice regime. Prisons have ceased crucial rehabilitation activities and interventions. There is major disruption to work activities, rehabilitative programmes and education, and a consequent disruption to preparation for parole and progression. Vital visits with loved ones have been stopped for months and are now re-starting, with social distancing, and no physical contact. With a second wave emerging this may all cease once again.
Likewise, people on probation are having to contend with online appointments and accessing services which are no longer face to face - conditions negatively impacting the delivery of the intense support required for the benefit of communities. The impending renationalisation of the probation service creates new challenges of potential disruption to an already strained service and many across the Criminal Justice sector have growing concerns over the dismantling of the Community Rehabilitation Companies.
"Lived experience leaders working across the Criminal Justice Sector have been challenged as never before." Paula Harriot
Lived experience leaders working across the Criminal Justice Sector have been challenged as never before as they navigate a complex and ever-evolving terrain. Many continue to work tirelessly on emergency responses, while others move towards thinking about recovery, renewal or building back better in a post-Covid world. We know that economic hardship and other social inequalities are on the way, while pre-existing inequities are on the rise, including racial injustice.
There is no doubt about the need for this programme, and the commitment of the LEx Leaders Movement at the Centre for Knowledge Equity and Clore Social teams to deliver. Coronavirus should not deter us from service at this crucial time and we must play our part to strengthen a sector that is having to do its utmost to serve some of the most marginalised people in our country.
"We must play our part to strengthen a sector that is having to do its utmost to serve some of the most marginalised people in our country." Paula Harriot
We therefore plan to respond quickly to design and deliver a programme which equips lived experience leaders with some of the skills, resilience and confidence that they need to rise to the challenges ahead. Essentially, the programme will build skills and leadership behaviours in the sector and ensure that lived experience leaders are better able to support and manage themselves, their people, organisations, and communities.
The leadership landscape of the Criminal Justice System is varied and diverse covering the voluntary, charity, public and private sectors – also spanning the intersection of multiple and complex injustices and disadvantage including homelessness; recovery and addiction; mental health; gender, racial injustice and/or economic injustice and poverty.
As part of that landscape there is a vibrant and growing community of Lived Experience Leaders (LEx leaders). People with direct, first-hand experience of the Criminal Justice System who are activating their lived experiences, in combination with their learned and practice experiences, to improve the lives of the communities they share experiences with. However, often LEx leaders have little, if any, support to develop their leadership skills in a strained and overstretched sector.
"This programme creates the space to meet all these ambitions." Paula Harriot
As a senior Lived experience leader in the criminal justice sector I see every day the undeniable contribution that those with lived experience make. I also witness the challenges we face as we seek to redefine the challenges and offer solutions; often reduced to labels that keep us within a ‘service user’ model, anonymous participants in research or depicted as too passionate or partisan.
Leadership, collaboration, and collective action are critical components of the change we seek. This programme creates the space to meet all these ambitions, building leadership, bringing people together and building the foundations of collective vision and action. I am delighted to be part of this initiative and salute the efforts of our allies at the Centre for Knowledge Equity and their partners Clore Social in supporting us to bring this about.
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Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
20 March 2020
Updated: 04 December 2020
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“No leader knows where their influence ends - the effect of your leadership is incalculably diffusive. It travels further and influences more than you can possibly imagine.”
Speaking at our Emerging Leader Programme celebration event on 12 March, Nick Wilkie, former NCT CEO, says that“no leader knows where their influence ends - the effect of your leadership is incalculably diffusive. It travels further and influences more than you can possibly imagine.” Looking at the socioeconomic context of the social sector, at the concept of leadership as an individual act, and at a picture of a beaver next to a dam, Nick thinks out loud about what it can be to lead in the social sector now. We’re delighted to have translated Nick’s reflections into a blog and hope you will enjoy reading it.
I’ve had the privilege of leading in a number of different organisations and whenever I am asked to discuss leadership, I am tempted to say nothing more than what two very different individuals from very different backgrounds, both of whom I respect greatly, said to me at different times.
The first is a woman called Laura McArthur who was in the People team at a charity where I worked, who once said to me: ‘If I ever write a book, it will be one page and will say: listen to what people say and what they don’t say; pay attention to the small stuff; treat everyone like a human being; do all of that all the time, never forget.’
The second is a man called Field Marshall, the Lord Guthrie, who was President of London Youth when I was chief executive. He had spent a lifetime in the military, ending up as Chief of the Defence Staff, having earlier commanded the Welsh Guards and SAS. He looked at me at a point at which I was rambling on and not perhaps thinking clearly, and said with both precision and kindness: “You just have to find great people, and love them a lot. I mean really love them.”
"You just have to find great people, and love them a lot. I mean really love them." Charles Guthrie
And I am often tempted as I am now to share these two perspectives and stop there, because I really do think that fundamentally there is nothing else to say. But I never do, because there is much to say about leadership. In fact, once you start thinking about what you might reflect on the challenge is what to cut, there is an almost infinite range of subjects we could cover.
First, whilst I don’t think we should define civil society by its relationship to the state, I do think that if the government can direct investment to an unparalleled degree and make laws, then if we get up every morning aiming to change the world, we do need to think carefully about our relationship with the state. And it’s a tricky one right now, I think. In the nineties and noughties, in a time of economic plenty and a sympathetic government with big majorities, a fairly typical theory of change for many charities was: grow through public service delivery and deliver these services better than the state; and use rational argumentation and insider tracks (through good relationships with civil servants and junior ministers) to effect policy change.
Now both these flushes feel busted - austerity doesn’t feel like it’s over, few charities are growing, and many are at the end of a decade of grinding budget rounds. Meanwhile Brexit has, of course, eclipsed social policy and, looking beyond Brexit (however it is ‘done’), neither a populist right nor statist left seem terribly interested in our sector.
Second, our sector feels to me quite inward looking at the moment. For understandable reasons, we’re beset with institutional pre-occupations, concerns about safeguarding, workplace culture, senior salaries, fundraising practice - many, especially more established charities, contending with massive technical debt, historic wrongs, pension deficits. It’s emphatically not a criticism to observe that most leaders are spending most of their time looking into their organisations. But it is a real challenge right now, and one we all need to meet, to find the space and energy and creativity, to look up and look out, to connect and keep connecting with people and ideas well beyond our immediate orbit.
"It’s emphatically not a criticism to observe that most leaders are spending most of their time looking into their organisations."
And third, of course, you are being asked to look up and lead in a time of pervasive mistrust in leaders (and perhaps even in the very idea of leadership). So I think leadership is hard and I think it is particularly hard in civil society right now. Of course that could be taken simply to depress you, I don’t mean it to at all. Quite the opposite in fact, because at a time of complexity, your leadership is going to count more than ever. I don’t think that the grand challenges and great opportunities of this ‘now-not-so-new’ century can be met by state or market without society in its organised form playing the pivotal part. And so if I look out and see storm clouds, I also think there really is always a golden sky at the end of the storm. I look out and see too much love and conviction and brilliance in our sector to be anything other than hopeful.
The second thing I wanted to address is something about this cartoon, because I think it contains an awful lot - or more specifically, three interrelated ideas about leadership. Namely that:
Leadership is a fundamentally collective and communal act. It isn’t about autonomous individuals.
An awful lot of good leadership isn’t about what is immediately visible, nor about the big and the heroic final act, but rather centred upon the quiet and the daily and all the ground-work that goes into building great things.
That no leader knows where their influence ends - the effect of your leadership is incalculably diffusive. It travels further and influences more than you can possibly imagine.
We are used, I think, to framing leadership as the work of individuals. Our narratives are cast by reference to individual leaders. Yet I wonder if we can be too ready to keep our conception of leadership as an individual act. We hear a lot about authentic leadership just now, which I absolutely think is a good thing. Yet I also wonder whether inadvertently the grail of authenticity, coupled with the call for leaders to show some personal vulnerability, and our desire to know our leaders on more human terms, can lead us to focus too much on individual personalities at the expense of exploring the collective ideas and endeavours of leadership. Indeed, I was asked to share something of my story. On Clore Social’s Emerging Leader Programme, you have done much work these past six months on your self-awareness and develop your personal learning journey, all the while, I hope, encouraged to practice self-care.
None of this is bad, please don’t misunderstand me. We all need to work from the inside out. And authenticity, self-awareness, self-care are all good things. It’s just that I think great leadership also pays homage to some older-fashioned ideas too - ideas of service and duty and selflessness, that perhaps we hear and read less about.
Because the collective is in some ways counter cultural and here I am very grateful to the ideas of a brilliant coach and thinker with whom I have had the privilege of working, called Douglas Board (@BoardWryter). Douglas notes, and I quote, that from the moment we step into our first places of learning, we are asked to write down and call out our own names. We get report cards telling us what we have accomplished on our own. Later when we submit longer pieces of writing, we have to sign our solemn promise that this is all my own work. This is absurd. Nothing is all our own work – how can it possibly be? We are inextricably linked - all part of a shared space and culture and it is in this reality that we lead.
"From the moment we step into our first places of learning, we are asked to write down and call out our own names." Douglas Board
We need to move from the idea that leadership springs simply from individual brilliance. As Douglas Board suggests, we would do well to move from Descartes’s ‘I think therefore I am’ to the South African idea of Ubuntu - ‘I am because you are’, as both a more honest, and a richer starting point. Because the great paradox of leadership of course is that it is both everything and nothing about us.
From this flows the thought that a lot of great leadership is found in continual attention to what we might think of as the small stuff, not even perhaps in leadership so much as good management. Of course, strategy, insight, judgement and personifying the brand - what we might think of as the analytical and externalising skillsets - matter enormously. Yet if leadership is at root about helping other people be the best they can be, we need to pay continual attention to another set of worker-bee traits: to the structures we build and habitual behaviours we exhibit.
Does everyone in your organisation, department or team have regular one-to-ones that focus on feelings and learning and happiness as much as on delivering and being accountable? Do team meetings start on time, do they and have a rich and varied agenda, are actions written up and shared promptly? Are budgets devolved as far as they possibly can be? Are your planning processes set up so that everyone plays their part in thinking about tomorrow? Do you say goodbye at the end of every day?
I wonder if we can all be guilty at times of being leadership snobs, looking to leadership and strategy over the heads of operations and management. Indeed, when we get promoted it’s often framed as moving beyond operations, yet the longer I spend in work, the more I think it’s in the day-to-day and the prosaic, in the long littleness of organisational life, in the consistent application of care, that great leaders make things tick and people want to come into work.
This leads to the last part of my ramblings on this cartoon, which is that our actions and our ideas and our actions as leaders reach far beyond us. Like Mrs Beaver here, what we think and do, how we behave and relate, has enormous consequences for those around us.
We are all near-obsessed about contagion right now. Nothing transmits more than leadership, for good or ill, energy is infectious and the effect of your being as a leader is incalculably diffusive.
It really matters.
"Nothing transmits more than leadership, for good or ill energy is infectious."
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Nick Wilkie has been Chief Executive of the National Childbirth Trust and London Youth, Director of UK Programmes at Save the Children and head of sustainable funding at NCVO. He has also served on the boards of a number of charitable and public institutions, and as a policy advisor to Cabinet Office and HM Treasury. Now his time is spent mainly with his three young children, whilst supporting a small number of charities as a trustee and as an associate at the Centre for Charity Effectiveness at Cass Business School.
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Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
17 December 2019
Updated: 23 October 2020
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When Alison spoke of her experience of child sexual abuse, the atmosphere in the room changed. Not only did people sit up and listen, but I think people felt more comfortable, knowing this was a safe space in which we could be honest and vulnerable. This is the kind of example a leader can set, the kind of environment they can create.
As a young woman of colour who’s just joined the charity sector as an intern, I can’t begin to explain what it meant to hear Alison Lowe, a CEO who is a black woman, speaking of her journey so honestly. My transition into the third sector straight out of university has been at times uncertain. So to see someone much further ahead in their journey, who I could actually relate to, was comforting to say the least.
In October I went to Hull for a Clore Social chapter meeting. Going in I didn’t really know what to expect, I knew I’d be meeting Clore Social fellows and alumni. I also knew there was going to be a guest speaker, but truthfully, I didn’t expect the talk to have much of an impact on me, or how I think of leadership.
So imagine my surprise when Alison started talking about being one of the few black people on her estate growing up, and the racism she faced. I suddenly felt strangely (but maybe not surprisingly) anxious. Anxious because I thought, will people take her less seriously now? Will this (largely white) audience think she’s playing the “race card”?
I could tell people appreciated how frankly she spoke of her experience. They asked a lot of insightful questions afterwards, mainly about how to encourage people of colour and other minority groups to apply for jobs at their charities. To be honest, this surprised me because it feels like race is still the elephant in a very white room.
"But Alison made people feel comfortable discussing race, maybe when they normally wouldn’t be."
But Alison made people feel comfortable discussing race, maybe when they normally wouldn’t be.
Diverse and inclusive leadership is important. I think part of being a leader means people look to you for direction and will follow by example. This was clear to me when I saw the shift in the dynamic of the room first when Alison spoke about child sexual abuse, and again when she brought up racism. People took this as a cue to speak more openly and allow themselves to be vulnerable.
In hearing Alison speak, I saw her practising so many things I’ve realised an inclusive leader should be doing. In her honest dialogue, she gave others a space to feel safe speaking openly.
"The road to diversity and inclusion is paved with uncomfortable conversations."
The road to diversity and inclusion is paved with uncomfortable conversations. But when directed by a leader who creates an environment to accommodate these growing pains, like Alison did, real change can take place.
It’s possible that efforts to increase diversity in the charity sector will seem tokenistic if they aren’t accompanied by inclusive leadership. At one point Alison mentioned wondering if her workplace would be safe for her own children, who are both LGBT+. This for me is one of the most important things leaders need to be considering in their workplaces.
"There’s no point congratulating ourselves on how diverse we are, if we aren’t supporting those who provide the diversity in our workplace."
There’s no point congratulating ourselves on how diverse we are, if we aren’t actively supporting those people who provide the diversity in our workplace.
I know before starting my role I was terrified of what seemed like the great unknown, and I’m sure I’m not the only one. But two months in I’m less afraid and more determined to keep pushing for the change needed to make the third sector a less scary and more inclusive place.
Blog by Isha Negi, Engagement Intern at Clore Social Leadership
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Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
04 December 2019
Updated: 23 October 2020
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Don Macdonald, editor of ‘Innovation and Change in Non-Profit Organisations’ discusses the contracts culture and its impact on non-profit and community organisations.
With the contracts culture and outsourcing both growing, larger organisations now dominate - both private and non-profit; smaller non-profit organisations are excluded, to be included occasionally as bid candy. Contracts have grown larger, with price becoming all-important. There have been numerous incidents of dubious practice by private companies delivering outsourced contracts, even cases of fraud. Carillion, Southern Cross and others have collapsed, while two thirds of key Government suppliers are based in tax havens. All this of course poses issues for non-profit leaders in managing bidding.
I am moving house after 36 years so must sift through an enormous amount of books and papers. The most interesting paper was a presentation about outreach work by . She outlined two critical aspects to underpin this work; firstly there should be a postponement of self-definition in the work, thus the worker starts off with no pat answers but continually questions what they do. Secondly there needed to be a delay in setting goals, until the worker actually knew what problems faced the community, service users and other stakeholders. Then one should devise realistic services and goals, to be evaluated properly.
That was 1978, when I had been doing outreach work for five years for a non-profit organisation, grant-aided by two local authorities. I felt Jo's presentation made so much sense, conceptualising almost exactly what I had been trying to do. However reading it again in 2019 started me thinking that these precepts should underlie how organisations approach new projects and how non-profit leaders should initiate new projects.
I worked for some years within the public sector, overseeing funds to voluntary organisations, so have seen both sides. There were obviously disadvantages to councils awarding grants to local non-profit organisations; often incumbent organisations and those with good connections with officers or councillors were viewed more favourably. Evaluation sometimes took a back seat.
Grants for local organisations have now mostly been replaced by contracts, often allocated through competitive tender and linked to goals specified before work starts. This can be difficult for most small non-profit organisations but just normal everyday bidding for large organisations, both non-profit and private. I believe large organisations should not parachute into areas unless they have good links with those communities, or they explore in depth what real needs exist locally and what non-profit organisations and networks already operate. Unfortunately parachuting in is exactly what the contract culture encourages as it expects the contractor to know what to do before they start.
The Social Value Act (2012) required councils to consider the social, economic and environmental benefits of decisions on contracts above £170,000. But there is concern that the Act is not working well. Two in three councils were not implementing it according to a survey three years after enactment, while a House of Lords committee believes too little is being carried out to encourage commissioning based on impact, not cost. Others recommend ethical commissioning to encompass fair employment and wages, tax compliance and localism.
Small non-profit organisations and community groups can find it difficult to survive and thrive in this contract culture. Yet in a rapidly-changing world smaller organisations can be more agile and inventive, and more in touch with local communities’ needs than larger ones, if leaders are correctly oriented and trained. There was even research which suggested that most innovation in community care came from local staff. Thus smaller non-profit groups are in pole position to develop and deliver projects in which relevant and pioneering services are worked out together with the local community and service users. This does require the right responses and decisions from these organisations' leaders, who must multi-task, while prioritising different demands on their own time and on their teams' resources and also consulting all the stakeholders.
Blog by Don Macdonald
A group of non-profit leaders have written a book, in which examples of such community-based projects are described and analysed, including practical aspects of leadership and management. Don Macdonald, a trainer, trustee and former charity CEO, has edited the book Innovation and Change in Non-Profit Organisations with contributions from respected experts. These include Charles Fraser, CEO of St Mungos for 20 years, who describes the difficulties it faced developing comprehensive services for an unpopular group of clients. Community Catalysts supports local self-help groups to bring communities together and take positive cost effective action, as outlined by their CEO, Sian Lockwood, while Clore Social Leadership’s CEO Shaks Ghosh analyses how to train and support non-profit managers in an increasingly demanding milieu.
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