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Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
19 November 2019
Updated: 08 December 2020
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Victoria Muir is one of our Forces in Mind Trust supported fellows who completed the Clore Fellowship Programme in 2017. We had the pleasure of interviewing her to learn more about what the experience has meant for her and her leadership development journey in the context of the Armed Forces Charities sector.
Looking back, what are the 3 most important skills you learned? How do you implement these lessons into your organisation?
One of the most important aspects for me was learning from the other fellows. Often, from my experience within the Military Charitable sector, we work very closely with each other but not always across the social sector as a whole so it was extremely beneficial for me to learn how people from different sectors worked. By completing the Clore Fellowship alongside having the validation of FiMT’s support, I have gained confidence in my abilities and learnt new skills. I certainly feel that where I might not have put my voice forward before, I am much happier to add it to the debate.
""If there’s something that is challenging me now, I will go back to the principles I learned through the programme, step back and reflect."
Did the course help you to become a better leader, and if so, how?
Definitely and one of the areas that I found most helpful was going through processes that I had not been through or was possibly not aware of previously. For instance, I had never taken part in, and was a little sceptical of the Action Learning Sets. I quickly learnt that the process allowed me to really think through situations or challenges and learn that often, I did in fact have the answers, I just needed to take time to challenge myself, reflect and find them. We don’t often get the time to step away from everyday life and everyday work and to be able to take that time to learn more about ourselves and move forward. There were things about myself I may not have realised without going through the Clore process. If there’s something that is challenging me now, I will go back to the principles that I learned through the programme, step back and reflect. This has been particularly valuable when starting a new role.
What would you say are the key leadership issues the Military and Service Charity sector is facing? Can better leadership development address these issues?
The Military sector can often appear to be quite small and a number of people will often move directly from a Service career into working for a Military charity. Whilst it is important to have that knowledge and understanding, it can sometimes mean that organisations don’t always attract people from the wider social sector with the different skills and knowledge that this brings. Having access to and learning from people working in different specialities is certainly something I and my colleagues have found to be beneficial. I think that sharing information and skills both from within the military sector across the wider social sector and vice versa is something that is vital for development. It can often be very easy to stay working within the Military sector which can mean that new skills don’t always come in. Looking at my own experience, once I started working for a Military Charity over ten years ago, rather than moving to a different area of the social sector, I stayed within the military circle albeit it in different areas of delivery.
"Take every opportunity you can to learn from as wide an area of the sector and be completely open-minded about learning new things."
What advice would you give others starting their leadership journey?
Take every opportunity you can to learn from as wide an area of the sector as possible and be completely open-minded about learning new things. I can say this from my own experience as the initial thought of an Action Learning Set was terrifying but it turned out to be one of the most valuable parts of my Clore experience. Sometimes we have preconceptions and it’s important to overcome them and see where that takes us. I know we all have an image of where we want to get to in our careers or leadership journeys and how we think we are going to get there, but, looking at my own journey, I have taken so many unconnected turns. If I look back at myself aged 18 and think about my plans for the future and where I wanted to be compared to where I am now, I would not change anything. If I had followed my original plan rather than taking every opportunity that came my way, I doubt that I would have learnt as much as I have and I certainly wouldn’t be the person that I am today. I think it is important to stay open-minded, and if that takes you off on a tangent, be brave and go where it leads you.
What would you have retrospectively changed in your leadership journey?
I am actually not sure if I would have changed anything. My original plan years ago was to go to University and study Law. For whatever reason, I decided not to and trained at Norland College to be a nursery nurse. This led to working all around the World, followed by volunteering in Bosnia which led to entering the charitable sector and working with the Armed Forces. If I had followed my initial plan, I doubt very much that I would be where I am now. I may not have always made the right career decisions, but I can honestly say that I have learnt from them all and they have brought me to where I am now.
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Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
25 March 2019
Updated: 23 October 2020
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How often do we take the time to think and understand the beliefs and assumptions limiting us from moving forward? Or to hear our own thinking and get a step closer to turning thought into action? And what role does coaching play in helping us get there? Coaching provides the opportunity to create the time and space to do so, says Dr Jeremy Hinks, a leadership development coach for Find a Coach, our new coach-matching service.
Jeremy’s journey into coaching sprung from his experience as a University tutor when he saw how positively people respond to being trusted and empowered. Witnessing the number of people needing assistance in their middle and senior management roles, he decided to pursue a coaching career to help develop the leaders of tomorrow. He has 36 years experience of using a coaching approach in a leadership setting and has a wealth of experience from coaching a wide range of people working with the social and voluntary, public, and private sectors.
"Coaching is about creating the time and space to think and hear your own thinking."
For Jeremy, coaching is about creating the time and space for you to think and to hear your own thinking. “It’s about having that thinking heard by someone you can trust, and having your thinking and feelings being supported and challenged without judgement,” says Jeremy. “It’s about you seeing new perspectives and then deciding on your own plan to make things happen. My coaching process implies embracing trust, support, challenges, and change - not necessarily in a linear sequence, yet always in alignment with my coachee’s agenda.
“The power of coaching, for someone experiencing it, lies in the opportunity it offers to have the time and space to challenge assumptions and beliefs, especially if they limit them in moving forward, or stop them from building even more effectively from a position of strength. Hearing our thinking is a major step in developing awareness and consciously thinking about habits that might not have been evaluated for years. The responsibility for action, however, always lies with the coachee. Breaking the dependency on background, environment, and challenging a deterministic belief is hugely powerful. “
"Coaching will play a part in the journey from hierarchy and team membership to one of a truer version of collective leadership."
Through coaching, leaders can bring others along on a lifelong journey of learning of development. "Coaching creates leaders who create leaders,” says Jeremy. “It has the capacity to create solution-finding communities whose capability goes way beyond the sum of its parts. It can break the mould related to a model of power and influence that encourages isolation in thinking and fear of failure. It has the potential to deliver lasting benefits rather than quick fixes, as it is an intervention that takes a ’whole of life’ view. With the future of work being one where success depends on relationship building and on shared endeavour, coaching can play a major part in supporting wellbeing as well as being a positive influence on the mental health of the coachee.”
Witnessing the transformative effects of coaching on his clients, says Jeremy, is extremely rewarding. “The longevity of coaching benefits is often ignored. What is satisfying is bumping into clients months or years after coaching and hearing them talk about how they are still practicing the use of the ‘thinking and emotional muscles’ that they had discovered during their coaching. A successful coaching programme can lead to benefits that have a positive influence over a considerable period of time, even a lifetime.”
Considering taking your next step on your leadership journey through coaching? We asked Jeremy to summarise how to approach and what you can expect from a coaching relationship in which you play a full part:
- Enjoy the time and space to allocate to yourself, without any distraction
- Appreciate what it is like to be listened to, without judgement
- Expect to think and feel in equal measure and to reflect on meaning and significance – it can be hard work, but so fulfilling
- Expect to get a clearer understanding of what makes you tick and how that influences your environment
- The value of being supported while exploring territory that will need courage and commitment
- The strength to change habit that are not serving your purpose
- An appreciation of the power of choice
- …and all throughout increasing awareness and personal responsibility for turning thought to meaningful action.
Dr Jeremy Hinks is an accredited professional coach with the International Coach Federation, a member of the Association of Coaching and a founding member and coach with Know You More. He is passionate about people development, and is a coach for our Find a Coach pilot initiative.
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Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
31 January 2019
Updated: 23 October 2020
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Coaching is an essential step in the journey of leadership development. Through powerful questioning that can evoke reflection and self-awareness, it helps leaders define the career path they want to follow, and guides them towards achieving their goals. We have interviewed our Head Leadership Development Coach, Estelle Des Georges to find out more about the importance of coaching and the best way to approach it for optimal results.
What has persuaded you to become a coach?
Unknowingly, I had been coaching my family, as well as many friends and work colleagues in the course of my life. At the time, I was not aware this could be a profession… But I already loved it. I have always firmly believed, even before I knew about the coaching profession, that you can do whatever you want in life, as long as you know what it is you want to do. I went through two major 180 degree career shifts which were evidence of what I could achieve through coaching myself. I now use this passion to “engineer positive change” by using coaching techniques to help others go through the same process.
Why is coaching important?
Let me give you a small analogy. If I tell you: “I will meet you tomorrow”: it is an idea, not a plan. Until I tell you what time, the exact address, the purpose of the meeting and whether or not you need to prepare something for that meeting, it is unlikely the meeting will happen in the way that I am envisioning it. The same goes for your professional development. Until you decide where you want to go and aim for it, you are likely to wander around in your career, and will tend to be driven primarily by the opportunities that come along. Coaching helps you clearly define what you want to be/do/have and helps you close the gap between “where you are now” to “where you want to be”. It helps you identify development gaps and spot opportunities that are in alignment with your chosen career path. Coaching is important because it guides you in achieving what is truly important to you. Through a set of conversations, using powerful questioning, your coach will help you achieve your personal goals faster than you could do it on your own.
What makes coaching successful?
Coaching is a question-guided conversation that is thought-provoking and inspirational. Both the coach and the coachee are responsible for the success of a coaching session. For the most impact, the coach needs to be skilled in coaching competencies and adopt a coaching underlying behaviour, i.e. the session is about you, and not about what your coach knows. The stronger the desire for change, the more engaged you will feel in your coaching sessions. Coaching success is measured by achievements, the ones you have set forth for yourself. Coaching is considered successful when you specifically know where you want to go and that you take the actions to get there.
What makes your approach to coaching tailored to the social sector?
In terms of coaching techniques, my approach is the same as with leaders of the private sector. However, the challenges encountered in the social sector are somewhat different from those of the private sector. In the social sector, teams are required to be more flexible and highly adaptable to the funding requirements, the whole organisation, as opposed to a specific project team. In some instances this can lead to intense pressure for performance with reduced resources and job precarity. This, alongside strong pressure on social leaders to increase their circle of influence, and to maintain under-resourced teams at high levels of performance for extended periods of time, creates a demanding environment. In this context, a coach's biggest challenge is to help their client create a space for reflection.
What should someone who has never participated in coaching before expect?
I would say the most impactful aspect of coaching is the development of self-awareness through powerful questioning. You can see it as a much needed space for reflection - a “me” time - in a within a leader’s busy schedule. Coaching is a non-judgemental approach to something personal to you, thinking out loud with a friendly stranger who will help you tap into your hidden talent.
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Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
06 June 2018
Updated: 23 October 2020
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A real leader adapts and continues being the best at solving the problems they have taken responsibility for.
Kresse Wesling is the co-founder of Elvis & Kresse, a sustainable luxury company that provides lifestyle accessories made from decommissioned fire hoses and other rescued raw materials.
In 2005, after discovering that London’s decommissioned fire hoses were headed to landfill, Kresse and her partner, Elvis, designed a highly innovative solution for this waste issue. They set up a social enterprise that reclaims the damaged fire hoses, transforms them into beautiful, lasting, and ethical luxury products, and gives 50% of its profits to charities associated with this environmental cause.
Leading an organisation with a social purpose requires a strong vision, dedication, and a very clear objective. But equally important are ‘genuine business acumen’ and the ability to adapt, which Kresse deems essential for successfully guiding your organisation towards a positive impact. We had the pleasure of interviewing the environmental entrepreneur to learn more about her approach to purposeful, social leadership.
What would you say are the challenges of leading an ethical business?
Running any business is difficult - getting customers, traction…all of these things are difficult. But doing it for social and environmental purposes makes your decision-making process slightly different. One decision lens that we apply is - does this make financial sense? Which is standard to any business. But on top of that, and probably much more fundamental to our business, Elvis and I always say: ‘Does this make the world better for other people’s grandchildren?’. If the answer to that is yes, then we can do it. And if the answer to that is no, then that’s a red line and we don’t take that step.
How do you implement these values in your organisation’s culture?
Everybody who’s here understands what the values of the business are because they are all actively engaged with reclaiming materials and they are aware of the donations we make. From a leadership perspective – it’s all based on action. This isn’t vocabulary for us, these are the actions that we take. It would be really difficult for people not to get that because they’re immersed in this every day. This is what they help us to deliver.
So, this vision is as much part of their purpose as it is of yours?
If they didn’t share this purpose, they wouldn’t stay around. But also, there’s a lot of people who we’ve managed to convert, who wouldn’t have described themselves as environmentalists and now they come in on a Monday morning and show us the latest YouTube video of birds eating plastic. I think once you open people’s minds to the size and scale of the issue and the challenges that we face, this is not a tap you can turn off. Once they’re awake, they can’t go back to sleep.
But how do you go about that, how do you manage to open people’s minds?
All of our raw materials arrive with their own history, their own narrative. They are tangible, physical proof that the current linear system has failed. Being a part of the solution, transforming these materials each and every day is a very mind opening experience.
What influences have shaped and informed your leadership?
The state of the environment informs my leadership a lot. The bird with its belly full of plastic shapes it a lot. Climate change shapes it a lot. And being quite comfortable with the fact that we want to take our very human response to these things and put it into our work is what shapes it.
I had an amazing grandmother and I think about the way she dealt with so many challenges in her life, and how she dealt with everything with grace, humility, and hard work and always for the benefit of everyone around her. We think about everyone around us, we think of people’s grandchildren, and we think of all the debts that we can’t possibly repay.
If you were to name three key elements of successful and purposeful leadership, what would those be?
You have to have a very clear objective - you have to know your problem better than anyone else. You have to really understand the problem that you want to solve. Because if you don’t understand it, you’re going to waste a lot of time chasing the wrong solutions.
The second aspect that’s always been really important for us is combining these values with genuine business acumen. I have seen so many people with fantastic purpose, but they fail to keep a business open, and that’s really a shame, because they have great ideas, but they don’t know how to balance the books or understand cash flows, or do any of these things. And you need to know how to do such things to stay open. If you can’t stay open, you can’t deliver your objectives and your impact, so this is quite important. And even if you’re running a charity, you still need to understand…ok, how do I get people in, how do I do the right recruitment, how do I maximise impact. You still have to be organised like a business person.
The third thing would have to be knowing how to take advantage of whatever luck you get whenever you get it because there’s no way you can achieve any of these things without a healthy dose of luck and being able to recognise it.
What advice do you have for leaders with a social purpose?
You have to be able to adapt the way you understand your problem – things change, the market changes, so maybe the nature of the problem itself has itself changed. You have to stay really, really engaged with the fundamentals of why you’re doing it. To be a leader…there’s longevity implied there. So, the first two pieces of advice are great for getting things going and getting everything off the ground, but really, a real leader adapts and continues to be the best at solving the problems they have taken responsibility for. And at some point, if the best way to solve your problem is to appoint an external CEO to replace yourself, that still shows real leadership.
Business leaders are waking up to the power of purpose for their companies. A clear purpose can drive employee satisfaction and attract customers. It can help founders to build a business that reflects their values and goals. Purposely is a free government-backed digital tool designed to help companies simply embed purpose. Learn more about this impactful tool here.
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