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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,
05 February 2018
Updated: 07 December 2020
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It may sound counterintuitive to criticise a word like ‘care’ as it is difficult to envisage any negative connotations. Many, many charities and social sector organisations are involved in the provision of ‘care’ and I have no doubt that the staff of those organisation genuinely want the best for the people with whom they work. But I would question whether it is enough for effective social leaders to want to offer care to people, and if instead we should be striving to ensure that those people no longer need to be cared for by an organisation.
The very notion of professionally ‘caring’ for someone is inherently limiting - it can eliminate hope and aspirations. A courageous social leader should cast aside their professional ego and strive to make their services redundant; this can’t be done through administering care but by encouraging an organisational culture of ambition and adventure, of mitigated risk taking.
This approach comes with a certain amount of risk and we need to acknowledge that there are limits on an individual’s abilities. It is about giving people the same opportunities to flourish by being equitable, it is not about treating everyone the same: different people have different needs and need different types of support to have similar opportunities. In a time where virtuosity is seen as the minimum competency needed to engage in many activities, we must lead in a way that acknowledges that most activities have implicit value.
The trope of ‘social mobility’ suggests that there is a preferred position in society that we should all aspire to and that we can only reach it if we work hard enough. I challenge the notion that reaching for ‘social perfection’ is acceptable as a cultural norm and I suggest that there is a place for everyone in society to be themselves, and not be compelled to be reinvented as a social migrant. The flipside of social mobility is the implication that if someone is incapable of achieving the hallowed goal of being socially mobile, the best society can offer them is ‘care’: they offer no contribution to the greater good so all we can do is remove as much discomfort from their lives as possible.
I appreciate that challenging the notion of social mobility is an unfashionable stance as it criticises the notion of care. I am a proud, successful working class person. I don’t want to abandon my heritage to be seen as a success, and neither do I want to promote a binary offer of social mobility to the people with whom I work. As a social leader, I feel that supporting people to define their own criteria for a successful life takes significant courage, and it requires an approach that rejects the professional in favour of the human.
In my provocation piece, I offer ten ways in which social leaders can adopt this approach; it embraces the human in preference of the professional, and it sees people as having potential rather than problems. This isn’t the easiest approach to adopt as a social leader, but then when was anything worth doing easy?
Stuart Dexter is the CEO of the Daisy Chain Project and a 2017 Clore Social Leadership Fellow. He developed this blog and provocation piece as part of his Fellowship.
Please share your views and comments below, or you can contact Stuart on Twitter.
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Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
27 September 2017
Updated: 07 December 2020
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David Green is director at Green Pepper Consulting and associate consultant at Action Planning.
Many people don’t trust banks or estate agents but they still use them; most don’t trust politicians, yet they still vote for them. But what about a charity? It needs to be more than good at what it does. It needs to convince funders, partners and the public that it is fundamentally trustworthy. So while good leadership is visionary and inspiring, a social leader also requires an understanding of their organisation’s unique nature and status in civil society.
According to a survey published in March this year, the public believes charities spend around 57% of their income on running costs, when in reality, typical running costs are just 14%. This image problem is of such concern that the National Council for Voluntary Organisations have even set up to explain how charities work.
But earning trust requires more than just a website. Financial integrity and an absence of conflicting interests should come first, but as I’ve argued before, investments should also be ethical. And social leaders need to ensure a level of genuine openness and transparency in dealing with the public which just hasn’t been the case in the sector thus far. Publishing the percentage of income spent on running costs will help. Perhaps too, we should heed the advice of those to also be made more readily available.
Of course, to function, an organisation needs people. So trust in the leadership from staff and volunteers is arguably just as vital as that of donors. As such, leaders should listen to and, above all, value and respect the contributions made by staff and volunteers. This may sound obvious, but to disregard this rather than inspire.
Indeed, leadership is people focused rather than purely organisational. In my experience staff and volunteers will respond when given a voice. So let them help shape how your organisation works and what it becomes. Ask, listen and respond, rather than simply tell. But don’t leave it to the annual away day. Make engaging with, and responding to staff and volunteers, part of your organisation’s culture.
Significantly, social leaders have a level of commitment and authenticity that often can’t be replicated in other sectors. This makes them well placed to promote trust. By being proactive, highlighting values, and demonstrating solidarity with those they are helping, social leaders add value to their message and to their organisation. A good leader will be a great advocate, demonstrating success, as well as being clear about where the money goes.
Trust is not an entitlement, nor should it be disposable. But to lead social change it is certainly a requirement. As the former chief executive of Centrepoint, Anthony Lawton, said to me recently: ‘What would happen if you took away trust? As a leader, you are the face of your organisation. But take away the trust of your team, your beneficiaries or the public, and you will soon be lost.’
Please share your comments about this blog below, or your can join the conversation on Twitter.
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Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
17 August 2017
Updated: 07 December 2020
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Lisa Sofianos is an international leadership consultant and business author, she is the founder and Director of .
Measuring the value or impact of leadership development is a tricky, and not altogether satisfactory, pursuit. The more you dig into the subject the more slippery the idea becomes. When looking at the impact of leadership development on the behaviour of individual participants, perhaps as they return to the workplace, we may be able to identify important observable changes; returning participants may ask more questions instead of providing answers, they may work more collaboratively, engage more with their colleagues, that kind of thing. While these changes may be good and desirable, they are inevitably only part of the story. Firstly, to get a fuller picture of the impact of development we would have to be around to see all the changes taking place - requiring a level of omnipresence beyond the reach of most evaluators. Secondly, the story is partial because the new thinking that underpins observable changes in behaviour can run much deeper. The metaphor of an iceberg hiding so much more below the surface can hold true in this situation. In terms of this thinking finding its way to the surface and manifesting in behaviour or decision-making, the right conditions may need to be in place - a crisis, a big change programme or perhaps even a vacancy at the top – all triggers for the application of learning. And without some of these circumstances being in place, some of the most profound impacts of leadership development can remain invisible and dormant, and thought therefore not to exist, while they may in fact lie in waiting to pounce when the time is right.
Another spanner in the works of quantifying impact is the gap that exists between the theoretical models and concepts taught through leadership development, and the real and lived experience of leaders. By this I mean that the cutting-edge ideas and frameworks that may be passed on in teaching, should not be understood as representing a guaranteed formula for success. Nor would it be reasonable to expect them to be carried out to the letter. What the keen-eyed evaluator may look for in the application of models and methods in the workplace just may not be there. And this is not because the leadership development investment hasn’t been useful, rather it may be because the participant absorbs them into their own knowledge and experience, and applies them in very different and sometimes unexpected ways. The line of sight between input and output, for some of the best reasons, may not be very clear; the ‘audit trail’ a little muddy.
So, it is perhaps worth acknowledging that the business of evaluation is complex and for this reason it may be more useful, if not less painful, when examining the value of leadership development, to imagine instead a world without it. To paint the picture of how organisations might operate if it weren’t there.
At first I suspect that this world might look very similar to ours. It would still be filled with a huge variety of enterprises busily engaged in their chosen activity. Organisations would still operate through hierarchies of one sort or another, and ‘leadership’ would still get done. From a distance it may be indiscernible from the current situation. But closer up, we may see some meaningful differences.
Let us start with one possible consequence, that without leadership development, organisations run the risk of becoming cul-de-sacs of knowledge. Importantly, all enterprises are engaged in competition; for resources, clients, expertise, assets, know-how and so on. And this is not an activity that is the preserve of the private sector. Competition may be less acute according to the sector to which we belong, but you can be sure that it is alive, well and driving a lot of behaviour in organisations. And whereas competition has the effect of keeping expertise and strategies under wraps, in order to protect a competitive edge, leadership development, in contrast, has a commitment to the exact opposite; to exposing new ideas, sharing wisdom, making sense of what works, and learning from experience. If it were not for the work of leadership developers and strategy analysts, who would we look to in order to make sense of and learn the lessons from the collapse of Borders, the bankruptcy of high street giant Woolworths, the rise of corporate universities, the leadership challenges of massive open online courses (MOOCS), the sharing economy models of working (Uber, airbnb), the new tech companies and so on? And if you think the answer lies in leaders doing research for themselves or reading business books, how many books a year do you think your senior leaders could get through alongside the day job?
Without leadership development we may see organisations becoming idiosyncratic, having been built upon foundations of commonsense thinking where faults and weaknesses become compounded and areas of unawareness and neglect left to fester. Folklore, rather than evidenced-based lessons drawn from a number of close and far away sources, might create an unbalanced and uninformed view about what good leadership constitutes. A not invented here approach to management might cause multiple re-inventions of the wheel, rather than taking a more efficient route of borrowing ideas from those have done this before.
In the absence of a common language of leadership and a shared set of organisational principles, collaboration could be severely hampered. Time and effort would need to be diverted to mapping and understanding unfamiliar systems and processes, and in our fast changing environment this could lead to missed opportunities.
For me one of the most important roles that leadership development can play for leaders is to provide ventilation to their thinking through sharing experiences, inputting new ideas from the cutting edge and holding a space for them to experiment and learn from experience in safety. The risk of creating an organisational cul-de-sac, or even a gated-community, without leadership development, is transformed into a thriving modern city with multiple crossroads, roundabouts and intersections that allow for ideas, experiences and learning to circulate.
Another consequence of the removal of leadership development relates to the pace of change in the operating environment and the risk that without assistance and rapid learning, organisations will struggle to stay relevant. Our paradigms of leadership, rooted in the past as they are, are no longer adequate for dealing with the “new normal” and leadership pioneers like Prof. Ronald Heifetz, with his Adaptive Leadership model, have made huge strides in constructing a leadership response that is more fit for purpose. That Command and Control leadership is now largely consigned to times of acute crisis isn’t new news to anyone, but would this ever be the case without leadership development? Where else would such concerted thought be devoted to the business of how we lead and then shared in service of helping leaders succeed? In a world without leadership development, ideas and traditions may long outstay their usefulness without the challenge presented by thought leaders.
Notwithstanding the changes swirling around externally in the operating environment, organisations are facing major change from within. The challenges of reconciling an aging population with rapid technological advancements are already being felt by workforces that span Baby Boomers and Digital Natives. It’s tempting to wonder if the fate of HMV would have been different if the senior team could have had a useful conversation with their younger store employees about how their generation consumes music. How much more seriously might they have taken the phenomenon of downloadable music if they had done so?
Rapid technological advancement is here to stay, and Gordon Moore’s assertion that processing speed doubles every two years has held true for decades. In fact the timescale is now closer to 18 months. Leaders on the brink of paradigm-shifting innovations such as the application of Artificial Intelligence will need to look far beyond themselves in order to make sense of the implications and impacts.
New technology conditions the behavior of workforces in other ways too. People have grown used to accessing a seemingly unlimited store of knowledge and information through the internet and are exercising a greater level of engagement and autonomy in their lives. They question experts; shop around; bypass intermediaries; and they are beginning to expect similar levels of involvement in their workplace. This may demand from leaders a new approach to the distribution of executive power and accountability and directly challenge the hierarchical structures that they have grown up with. Pioneers such as Timpsons, with their “Upside Down Leadership” approach, are already working to find ways of unlocking the benefits of this cultural shift, although this would be outside of the awareness of most leaders without the shared learning commitment of leadership developers.
Leaders are faced with steep learning curves on all sides as they grapple with a complex and volatile world. Often they are breaking new ground as the emerging effects of technology, climate change and shifting demographics present novel challenges. In this context it is seldom enough to rely on the relatively small store of experience and expertise that can be accrued by a senior team in order to meet these challenges and thrive. Leaders need shortcuts to best practice; new frames of reference and provocations to generate new thinking; and a reflective space to meet with peers to make sense of it all. In this way I believe that leadership development is one of our best tools to engage with the “new normal”. To return to the beginning of this piece, and the thorny subject of measuring impact, perhaps we should concede the point that leadership development has a profound and meaningful contribution to make to the business of leading. With this framing principle we should be directing much more of our effort away from proving that value and much more of it towards creating the conditions for success.
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Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
18 July 2017
Updated: 07 December 2020
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This blog was written jointly by Claire Haigh and Julia Wolfendale from Collaborate Out Loud. Together they create social spaces for public service innovation.
We live in a social world, a world where we are surrounded by technology that allows us to communicate and connect like never before. Successful social leaders are able to authentically and skilfully use not just the digital tools at their fingertips, but to also bring people together to form communities that can make a difference in the places we live.
Making connections across boundaries is key for social leadership. Some of the formal constraints of traditional working literally get in the way. As we move towards widening our social connections across social media platforms, we are seeing the opportunity to include our ‘work allies and work friends’ into our real lives. What would happen if we truly brought our whole selves to work? Perhaps this could help us to transcend the boundaries of hierarchy and formal structures, sidestep silos and really connect around shared interests - inside and outside of work - through shared personal values and interest in mutual outcomes.
Is this a modern workplace dilemma? Have we been busy crafting a work persona that is so different to our real selves that we struggle to let people in and see who we really are, what we care about, and what we have to offer? Do we hold back our potential to connect fully with each other at work because of this? If we are working in public service, is it not important to show we have real lives too? Would this help build our affinity with the people we serve? Would this help develop the authenticity and credibility that is needed in leaders today?
We think so. We have been developing ways to help social leaders connect with who they really are as people first, and then around what skills, knowledge, connections, abilities and interests that they have to offer beyond the role and job description.
People naturally seek connections. We are hardwired to connect, although we might fight it at work and hide behind the work role, finding ourselves segregated in isolation, distanced by a fear of difference. With more transparency and authenticity in public service, we could develop greater empathy and rapport, and connect more wholly with others. We could unlock the potential of people in public services by connecting as people who live in a community who have chosen to serve a community.
Embracing difference, connecting across boundaries, seeking out the unusual suspects and having surprising conversations help us to innovate and collaborate better. If we want to truly innovate we need to collaborate not only with those around us who are our trusted friends, but with those who we don’t know, who are different and are removed from our inner circle. Why not just have a coffee with someone you don’t really know, or follow some new people on Twitter?
Please share your comments below, or join the conversation on Twitter.
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