Lynne Berry, OBE, is Chair of Breast Cancer Now and becomes Chair of Sustrans in January 2018. She is Vice Chair of Cumberland Lodge, a trustee of UnLtd and was until recently deputy chair of the Canal and River Trust (formerly British Waterways) and a trustee of Pro Bono Economics. She is a visiting Professor at Cass Business School, City, University of London.

Who would have thought a musical about charity governance would pack in the crowds at London’s Donmar theatre? The play about Committee Proceedings in Parliament concerning Kids Company did. I even spotted the board of the Association of Chairs there, on their summer outing. Governance is a hot topic.

So too is leadership, and whilst (nearly) everyone knows that trustees are responsible for governance, their role in leadership is less clear. It ought to be obvious: after all they are the people who are legally responsible for the charity and, in smaller organisations, the ones who run them and do all the work.

However, what about where there are paid staff? Do trustees still have a leadership role? Are they still leaders when there is an expert CEO and a skilled senior executive team, employed for their capacity to inspire and to make things happen?

It used to seem so easy: the CEO ran the organisation and the Chair ran the board. However, with a renewed focus on governance and accountability the relationship between the leaders of an organisation needs to be both more nuanced and more overt. The new Charity Governance Code, together with the renewed focus on safeguarding and fundraising, mean it is vital to have an honest conversation about what the shared leadership of trustees and senior executives really looks like, and who is responsible for what.

Once, looking at my Chair and me (when I was a CEO), the Queen asked: ‘which of you actually runs this charity?’ I suspect we each thought we did. And in reality, Chairs do much more than run the board and CEOs, so much more than run the organisation. Where it works well, there is also a shared leadership role based on a joint vision, agreed values and clarity of roles.

This shared leadership seems to me to be vital because it sets the dial about fundamental issues like behaviours, attitudes to risk and approaches to innovation. This isn’t about undermining good governance and I think some of recent complaints that boards are turning into risk-free zones are unfounded. It doesn’t feel like that on the boards on which I sit, but then, the trustees and executive spend a great deal of time together thinking both about governance and grasping opportunities.

For great leadership, both trustees and executives need to be innovative and to think about accountability. For any charity to change the world, there must be a sense that taking risks is acceptable, that it’s ok to try, and maybe not get it right every time.

However, when it comes to governance, if it comes to the crunch, trustees are responsible for the charity and that must affect what they do when things go badly wrong. Because, although trustees and executives both have leadership roles, they are not actually both ‘running the show’. Their responsibilities are different. And it’s vital to be very clear about that.

Please share your comments and views below, or join the conversation on Twitter.

• 1993-1999: self-taught leadership and management (artist-led/community projects)
• 1999: appointed Co-Director of established regional charity (1999-2011)
• 2001/02: completed accredited leadership and management development programme (Northern Cultural Skills Partnership – this programme came to an end around 2008)
• 2005/06: Common Purpose Matrix programme
• 2007: first trusteeship
• 2009/10, 2013/14: executive coaching
• 2016/17: certificate in coaching and mentoring (self-organised)
• Particularly, I feel fortunate to have worked for Helix Arts, a charity committed to developing their people while I was in a critical phase in my development as a leader.

• Clore Social Leadership’s Experienced Leader Programme: there are fully-funded* places for North East social leaders on this 12-month programme
• Common Purpose
• North East Together: Leaders Network for Social Change
• Not for profit managers toolkit
• School for Social Entrepreneurs
• Yes We Can: Leadership and management for social change
• Given the scale of the task, I think we need all of these programmes and initiatives, and many more.

This guest blog was written by David Orr, the Chief Executive of the National Housing Federation.

Investing in the talent of our future leaders is vital for growing our organisations. Nobody quite knows what the future will look like but housing associations will no doubt need leaders that are adept in a range of skills.

In the future it will not be enough for organisations to simply provide a service and then step back. It is going to be a much more engaged world where people will be asking questions and expecting answers quickly - our young leaders will therefore need to be strategic thinkers and have a vision for a future that they in their organisations will be trying to craft. They will also need to be technically savvy and digitally aware, to understand the power of social media, and the potential for talking to people that comes from having a whole new range of communication channels.

Having said that, an engagement with the future starts not with technology but with creative thinking. Housing Associations have a clear ambition - to deliver up to 120,000 new homes a year, to be making an offer to people right across all different parts of the housing market – across different geographies and tenures. If we are to end the housing crisis, we need to be in a position to think imaginatively and creatively and be prepared to take some risks. Existing leaders have got where they are by being bold, by putting themselves forward and taking risks. Now we need to create a nurturing environment that makes it essential that young talented people will want to work in our business and want to be creative and bring their ideas to how we create that future.

As a chief executive, leader or a board in any organisation the ability to encourage people to question and challenge you is, at root, a statement of confidence in yourself. If you as a leader are committed to the future you are trying to create then you will want people to be challenging you and asking awkward questions because that's the best way to test your own thinking as well as testing theirs. It should not be an optional extra to be investing in talent - our future depends on housing associations being able to attract, retain and develop talented people.

To do this requires investment in those people. The National Housing Federation’s Young Leaders Experience on 19-20 September, provides a way for housing associations to invest in talent management and develop the skills they need in their future cohort of leaders. The heart of leadership is ultimately about creating and articulating a vision of the future that is better than the present. Young people are just as capable at doing that. They just need confidence and a bit of coaching to get them there.

Register your place for the Young Leaders Experience by visiting here and use the priority code YLE0917CL. Group discounts are also available – book 6 places and get the 7th free. Call 020 7067 1066 or email events@housing.org.uk to find out more.