Colin Falconer is Director of  an innovation consultancy.

Asset-based philosophy has an Aristotle-like emphasis on the ‘what’ we should develop in order to build a ‘good life’. I believe doing more than react to or prevent disadvantage is something that can help invigorate our social leadership.

‘Asset-based’ means embracing capability and shifting the focus from what is lacking to what is working – from Strengths-based Practice and Asset-Based Community Development, to Appreciative Inquiry, the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework and Advantaged Thinking. These approaches range from working with an individual’s strengths, to mobilising resources within a community, to maximising opportunities for systemic change. What unites them as ‘asset-based’ is a belief in relational solutions and a passion for looking beyond meeting problems towards nurturing possibilities.

I help organisations apply asset-based innovations, including providing advice for ’s Youth Fund. Since asset-based theory is not about one-size-fits-all, I have worked with Paul Hamlyn Foundation to introduce a glossary of ‘where’ different asset-based approaches are likely to thrive. These translate into ‘assetspots’ that highlight the of what and how organisations deliver, alongside the influence organisations apply to wider policies and perceptions. Exploring them, four leadership challenges emerge.

The first challenge is in growing ‘identity-positive’ organisations. In particular, this refers to what and how vision and values that invest in enabling good, and how they are communicated. It means more, however, than articulating an inspirational vision for social transformation. Leadership must also define and share the ethos by which transformation actually happens. Who you are, and what you say, increasingly matters.

The second challenge is being open to work ‘with-people’. This means empathetic leadership, sensitive to how far the people an organisation supports are involved across governance, decision making and service design, as well as in delivery. People-powered organisations must have leaders who trust people as citizens of change – not just clients or customers. Openness requires an equalising relationship.

The third challenge is in the operational and strategic ‘know-how’ to optimise the various processes and programmes that nurture assets. In other words, leaders who understand the significance of building purposeful culture and technology, from staff performance systems to project logic models. Organisations that continue to ‘cope’ with management and delivery styles that do not flourish skills and resources will struggle to sustain asset-based endeavours longer term.

The fourth challenge is in determining what impact means. It can never be enough to capture outputs and outcomes required by contracts, if they do not match the mission we believe in or the complex narrative of people’s lived experience. Equally, we cannot be satisfied to evidence what we do just to attract more funding, if we do not also learn from what happens in order to evolve our offer. Treasuring thoughtful measurement and practical insight defines our capacity for progress.

Exploring these challenges through the Clore Social Leaders’ Capabilities Framework, the ‘generous collaborator’ stands out to me as an underrated capability to recognise assets in each other and to harness them collectively. When it comes to good social change, we best lead assets together.

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David Green is director of Green Pepper Consulting, a social enterprise working with the third sector.

In the corporate world, ethics and success are not always synonymous. If they were, then we wouldn’t have activists such as Naomi Klein, or organisations like Greenpeace. But it isn’t just big oil or multinational mining companies that should be concerned with ethics.

Indeed, I recall the furore in 2013 when Comic Relief were found, at the time, to be investing in the likes of tobacco and armaments.

The fact remains that with a constant pressure to deliver, it can be tempting to push ethics aside. The outcome, it seems, then becomes more important than the means.

But does this actually matter if the result is the same?

The only ethical response, surely, is “yes it does”. It matters because no organisation operates outside of society. Indeed, for the voluntary and community sector (VCS), creating a better society is very much central to the role. So accounting for how you do this is important; and the reasons why should be clear:

• Greater public trust and confidence
• Credibility with local communities and the sector
• Better governance
• Inspiring loyalty, motivation, and the engagement of staff and volunteers
• More attractive to funders, donors and social partners

Of course the vast majority of VCS organisations spend their money with care; and e. But a wise VCS leader will want to embed ethics into the organisation’s culture at every level, from trustees, staff and volunteers, to its relations with beneficiaries, funders and other stakeholders.

This means not only putting the organisation’s values and mission centre stage, but also incorporating ethics into the leader’s own role.

A good place to start is with effective communications, consulting with staff and volunteers, engaging in external networks, and taking time to explain the organisation’s message, both internally and externally.

It also means adopting good and effective systems. Ethics should be embedded into recruitment, relationships, and practices. Creating an inclusive climate for staff, volunteers and beneficiaries to thrive, to speak up, and to develop will not only build trust and reinforce the organisation’s values, but help ensure sustainability in the longer term.

The leader’s personal behaviour must also reflect the organisation’s ethical values. Shouting and bullying, setting unrealistic targets, keeping people in the dark – none of these are compatible with ethical leadership. Instead empathy, honesty and respect should prevail.

Underpinning all of this should be basic principles of trust, honesty and integrity. As such, a commitment to model individual behaviour on the Nolan principles on standards in public life seems appropriate.

Clearly none of this is new, or particularly difficult to achieve. But it can be forgotten. So leaders should remind themselves, particularly when tough times need bold decisions, that how they get results is just as important to everyone involved, as the results themselves.

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It’s not every morning you get to facilitate a conversation with someone who sparks a marmite reaction across the social sector, so when Shaks Ghosh, CEO of Clore Social Leadership asked me to facilitate a breakfast leadership conversation with Toby Young, I jumped at the chance.

The Leaders Now events series is run in partnership by Clore Social Leadership and the House of St Barnabas. It brings together great speakers and leaders from the social sector to inspire, encourage debate and new thinking, and to provide an opportunity to network and meet other leaders.

April’s session featured a conversation with Toby Young, the journalist activist and reluctant leader of the free schools movement. However, he is so much more than that; an accomplished social commentator, journalist at the Spectator, former CEO of the West London Free School Trust, Brexiteer, published author, food judge, cyclist, father of four, keen QPR supporter, and the man most likely to polarise debate about education, freedom of choice, self-determination and the class system.

The night before the conversation, Radio 4 broadcasted Toby’s most recent programme, The Rise and Fall of the Meritocracy, where Toby asked whether his father, Michael Young’s dark prophesy is correct, if your genes determine your future, and whether the Brexit and Trump votes signal the death knell for the popular political vision of a modern meritocracy.

Suffice to say, as a former Director at the Young Foundation, the programme sparked a heated debate (aka row) in my household and I confess I carried this apprehension into the House of St Barnabas. With 40 people in the room from a variety of sectors including education, local government, heritage and more, Toby led us through in what I might call his reluctant leadership journey; from the denizens of NYC to having 150 people standing in his living room wanting to set up a school.

Obviously what goes on on tour, stays on tour but I do have permission to share Toby’s 9 tips for leadership which I surmised from his talk:

1. Admit when you are wrong
2. Look confident while doing it
3. Remain steadfast in purpose as it will steer your course
4. Build a thick skin
5. Having a strong moral purpose will help you get the best of people
6. Being engaged in a common venture with like minded people gives meaning to life in a way money and status does not
7. Co-opt the tools that work regardless of where the come from.
8. Sometimes being belligerent in bunker needs to happen to get you through tough times but don’t stay there too long
9. Collaborative decision making is miles better than individual decision making

When I read them back to him, Toby said, ‘when I hear them like that, it’s bleedin’ obvious really - I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to realise them.’

For me, Toby reflected a style of leadership I often see in movements - activists that have started with a passionate belief around fixing a perceived injustice who have realised that to go far, it helps to go with others. No one ever said that social change was a quick fix and Toby Young I think, would be the first to admit that.


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Esther Foreman is the CEO of the The Social Change Agency, connect with her on Twitter.