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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."
--
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 July 2019
Updated: 23 October 2020
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Carrie Cuno, Clore Social Leadership’s Development Manager, on how investing in a place-based approach to leadership could reinvigorate communities across the UK.
As the world becomes ever more globalised and interdependent, government responses to the rapidly changing economic, social, and environmental conditions arguably are failing the majority of constituents, especially here in the UK. A common response is to call for ‘stronger’ leadership, but with little understanding of what that looks like, or of the abilities needed to drive social change. There is an urgent need to rethink conventional notions of leadership, and one answer could be a community - or place-based approach to leadership that allows for more inclusive forms of governance and social activism.
Community leadership can be based on common place, purpose or experience, and is increasingly recognised as a driver of social change. It operates within the boundaries of the group it serves, representing an interactive, reciprocal form of leadership rather than a fixed hierarchy. And place-based leadership welcomes and supports people from all different backgrounds to build change together, creating vital networks that can then provide opportunities for collaborative working, creative thinking, and peer support - all of which are crucial to building a dynamic and thriving society.
Because communities are based on shared experiences and connections, this kind of leadership is less hierarchical than its traditional, top-down counterpart. Community leaders operate everywhere in society, from a housing estate playground to the VCSE sector to the local authority; so, crucially, place-based leadership must be multi-level rather than restricted to those in positions of authority. This approach allows leaders to disrupt traditional power structures, creating space for new and innovative ways of thinking.
"Place-based leadership must be multi-level rather than restricted to those in positions of authority."
So how do we support community leaders? We build inclusive spaces where people can focus on personal development and relationship-forming--vital skills that will help them understand and participate in decision-making processes. We invest in leadership development programmes that cater to all community members instead of restricting leadership to those at executive or managerial levels. Most importantly, we challenge traditional notions of leadership, framing it in such a way as to provide social legitimation to community leaders who drive change rather than safeguard the status quo.
This was the approach taken with Clore Social Leadership’s place-based leadership development programme that ran across Hull and East Yorkshire last year. HEY100 offered leadership development and training to more than 100 social leaders at different levels across the community. The programme worked across traditional silos and brought together leaders from charities, social enterprises, community businesses and arts/cultural organisations. The interim findings recently released show that a place-based programme can build a sense of purpose across a city or region, galvanizing leaders around shared goals.
Making a commitment to develop leadership capacity and capability across communities can have an impact far wider than local social sectors. An active and engaged citizenry is key to holding our local, regional, and national governments accountable and ensuring officials act in the best interests of our communities. Underpinning all of Clore Social’s work is the belief that leadership is a set of skills and behaviours that anyone can develop. Redefining it as such drastically lowers the barrier to civic participation, amplifying the voices of community members whilst increasing the government’s receptivity to hearing those voices.
"An active and engaged citizenry is key to holding our local, regional, and national governments accountable..."
Leadership, and especially community leadership, is not a static concept; but mutual trust, shared vision, and collaborative planning are critical. Only by empowering all our leaders, strengthening the relationships that underpin a place, and making space for the personal growth that allows those relationships to flourish can we ensure that our towns and cities are able to face the challenges of the 21st century and beyond.
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Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
19 November 2018
Updated: 07 December 2020
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Blog written by Shaks Ghosh and Jessica Taplin
At a recent Clore Social CEO Masterclass, Julia Unwin gave us a sneak preview of her report into Civil Society and challenged us to rethink our social leadership model.
Julia painted a dark picture: social security in crisis, economic restructuring, challenges to managerialism and blurring boundaries between sectors, increasing pressure on places from localism and social fragmentation. We face a growing fear of polarisation of generations, both economic and cultural, environmental pressures, global volatility and the increase in nationalism, rising numbers of displaced people and geopolitical strife. Most significant, as Julia states, is the shift in focus from We to Me.
Cripes, that’s rather full on. In response, we know that our task as social leaders is to maintain and strengthen Civil Society by upskilling ourselves to navigate the next decade.
Our sector has shifted, professionalised and with it has come a reliance on structure, staff, institutions and funding. Whilst austerity might be “over” according to the powers that be, we know that the heady days of government largess from the noughties are not returning. Many organisations that were reliant on largess are already accelerating towards oblivion. Many others plough on from funded project to project, jumping through funder shaped hoops which might not run true to their own organisational mission.
So what resource do we have to continue our vital role in civil society? We have the resource that our sector has always relied on: people. People who never fail to surprise us by what they can achieve.
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful citizens can change the world. Indeed it’s the only thing that ever has." Margaret Meade
To social leaders everywhere our message is this: you have huge, incredible un-tapped resources, and that is your people. Great, inspirational, genuine, caring, committed, compassionate people – change makers.
And the best leaders amongst us will be able to unleash them for social good. People will follow and go to incredible lengths for authentic leaders and leaders they love. To do this we must rethink our leadership, growing the next generation of change-makers, sharing our wisdom and skills. For many of us it means the re-alignment to those virtues that lie at the core of what the social sector is about - kindness, bravery and honesty. In his book The Road to Character, David Brooks talks about shifting from a focus on external success to internal value.
Amongst the people who we must inspire are trustees and directors. Many charities still struggle with unskilled and egocentric trustee boards. Being a Trustee should be an act of humble leadership - to genuinely help and add wisdom, working alongside and in a critical friend way to the executive team. We must help trustees, no matter what their day job, to learn the skills of listening, empowering and appropriately challenging the Executive team in their own leadership role. Julia sums it up well: it’s about Power, Accountability, Connection, Trust.
"Julia sums it up well: it’s about Power, Accountability, Connection, Trust."
Modern leadership, getting the best from teams, resources and networks, is about rethinking the power dynamic. To lead is to have power, a privilege to be cherished. Leaders today need to find smart ways of sharing power to shift imbalances. We know that leaders must grow leaders, not monopolise their power.
As senior leaders we know that experience does count, but it doesn’t automatically mean we are right. So the trick is to encourage shared accountability, building relationships based on dialogue and feedback. There is little room for rigidity in a service based world, and Julia reminds us that we exist to serve. User needs are paramount, and to meet the constant evolution of need and circumstance, we need to be more adaptive, embrace the unknown, admit mistakes and adapt how we do things. We are all constantly learning and improving, as leaders we must encourage this in ourselves.
"Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm." Winston Churchill
Leadership is fundamentally a relational activity. How many of us really meet all people as equals, recognising their complexity, frailty and value. We know that dispersed and egalitarian forms of leadership help build better solutions and approaches, yet we lack the courage to adopt these forms of leadership. During their study, Clore Social Fellows regularly ask each other a powerful question: what would you do if you were ten times braver? Social leaders are in their roles to make social change or to give social service. Both require bravery beyond belief and deep wells of resourcefulness and resilience.
Today’s leadership requires us to care for ourselves and be kinder others. The dog-eat-dog world many leaders live in is no good for our sector. Do we have the courage to change and adopt more generous and collaborative approaches?
To be clear, many social sector leaders have these qualities and more. These last years of austerity have seen many social sector leaders heroically steering ships that are already over the edge, parachutes and kites all desperately launched to try and slow the fall. They are feisty yet kind, resilient, generous. We can learn from them.
So to Julia’s challenge to find new models of leadership for the stormy waters ahead, we say: “I am not afraid of storms for I am learning to sail my ship”. Louisa May Alcott
"I am not afraid of storms for I am learning to sail my ship." Louisa May Alcott
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Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
12 December 2017
Updated: 07 December 2020
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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.
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