The current context for social leadership

At Clore Social we know good leadership is essential for social change. Leadership development is a lifelong journey, and we need to be ready to learn, adapt and change. Everyone is a leader, so we know by supporting and challenging one another, leaders can have collective impact. 

Good leadership is relational, democratic, and inclusive. It is a social process that draws on the different expertise and knowledge of multiple actors, with and without formal position. This view of leadership is particularly relevant to the social sector where leadership is distributed between, and based on the interactions of, trustees, the CEO, employees, and stakeholders.

There are contextual and operational factors that shape leadership in the social sector. This includes working with volunteers; the complexities of engaging a wide and diverse set of stakeholders from trustees and staff to service users and the public; the emotional challenges of working with those most in need; an emphasis on vision and values; and the dual bottom line of impact and financial rigour.  

What context are social leaders operating in?

As we adapt and learn to live with the virus, the wider impact of the pandemic continues to emerge. In this context social leaders must grapple with high levels of uncertainty. Key trends include: 

‣ Financial sustainability at risk: generating income was a challenge for voluntary sector organisations before the pandemic and it remains a key concern. Key shifts such as a decline in face-to-face fundraising mean organisations must innovate to stay afloat.

‣ Rapid digital change: the pandemic accelerated digital change in many organisations – reshaping everything from service delivery to fundraising. However, associated risks such as loss of human connection and cyber security are becoming clearer.

‣ Economic and human impact of the pandemic: poverty and inequalities have deepened. Increases in the cost of living and rate of inflation mean doing business is more expensive. Meanwhile, demand for services is high and increasing. Voluntary sector staff are vulnerable to burnout and poor mental health.

‣ Climate crisis, racial justice, and inequality: there is recognition that these are no longer “cause areas”. They must be lenses to view everything. Leaders must seek to ensure not just that they do no harm but that everything they do makes a contribution towards tackling these complex issues. 

‣ Evolving relationship with government: The pandemic exposed tensions in roles. An increase in public service delivery has led to questioning of the voluntary sector’s ability to raise voice and challenge. Sector infrastructure is weak and confidence in government support is low.

‣ Momentum locally: during the pandemic communities came together with mass mobilisation of local volunteers, groups, and networks. There is an opportunity for voluntary sector organisations to build on this momentum, revitalising/strengthening community connections.

As part of our ongoing commitment to supporting leaders in the social sector, we will be using this research as a starting point for a wider conversation for how to bring about change. Check back for updates on how we will be supporting social leaders or subscribe to our newsletter.

"Such generosity towards others was deeply affirming - and a stark contrast to depictions of the sector as lacking capacity to improve." 

We gained a tremendous amount of insight into this fascinating topic which Shaks Ghosh summarises here. Three additional reflections emerged for me from these conversations. These relate to understanding, impact and collaboration.

Our conversations highlighted diverse understandings of leadership and leadership development. Too often our understanding of leadership development is something done in externally (or internally) provided courses. Such an understanding significantly limits our ability to create opportunities to learn about and experiment with new leadership behaviours in our daily lives. Research on adult learning and development points to the importance of frequent and regular ‘micro-experiments’ for developing and embedding new habits and behaviours. Whilst external courses have an important role to play in improving leadership behaviours, these micro-experiments must also be pursued for learning to be developed and embedded. For us to really make a difference to improving our own leadership, and that of others, we all need to identify and harness such daily opportunities for development.

Our discussions about leadership identified a sense of its value, to individuals, organisations and wider society. At the same time, they also surfaced concerns that these benefits are not well understood or communicated at present. A review of publicly available information from leadership development providers indicates a weakness in terms of the evidence relating to the effects it has for its intended beneficiaries. And practice lags behind that from the private, education and healthcare sectors. Our interviewees discussed a small number of highly regarded leadership development providers, who attract participants largely by word of mouth. Such strong personal recommendations suggest that something must be going right in terms of the quality of provision. However, the limited availability of evidence of impact makes it harder for those seeking to make the case for investment in leadership development (whether to their line manager, Trustees or to a funder). If we are going to create more opportunities for leadership development, particularly paid for programmes, then providers need to be at the forefront of building and communicating the evidence base for impact.

This is work that providers can do together. And this points to my final reflection about the importance of collaboration. Responsibility for leadership development is diffuse and sits with many stakeholders within the system (e.g. individuals, their bosses, the leaders of their organisations, funders etc.). In this complexity, there is no shared understanding of the roles and responsibilities for leadership development.

Our conversations also surfaced insight about untapped potential within the system and opportunities for improving leadership development that can only be harnessed by working collaboratively. The work of creating system-wide alignment and of harnessing this potential is beyond the scope of any one organisation working in isolation. But the opportunity is there for a sector-wide movement to create innovative, multi-stakeholder leadership development solutions. This will rely on organisations working together to mobilise cross-sector responses - and it will require generosity from leaders across the sector to engage with and contribute to what emerges.

This points to a tension that kept surfacing in the conversations: the sector needs more generous leadership to improve leadership development. At the same time, it needs better leadership development to support more generous leadership.

It is exciting to see that Clore Social will be kicking off an ‘innovation lab’ to explore these issues over the coming months. Creating the space where evidence on leadership development can be brought together with voices from across the sector to design and test new solutions will be of tremendous benefit to the sector. Clore Social can play a vital role in facilitating system-wide challenge and to help mobilise the generosity of others to create the leadership our sector needs. I am delighted to have played a role in kick-starting the debate through this report.

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

In our series of research reports on leadership published in 2016, we identified the three principal barriers to leadership development as: cost, time and confusion. Three years on, it is clear that those same barriers still exist.

Charity leaders told us there is still a great deal of uncertainty about the meaning of leadership and leadership development. The benefits and value of leadership development are poorly understood and articulated, particularly for organisations or their beneficiaries. It is difficult for individuals to understand their leadership development needs, what opportunities exist, or how to access them.

There is concern about how much it costs and the benefit and value it brings. And in these troubled times, and with a growing burden on providing more services for less resource, there is little time for it. It is also particularly difficult for individuals to navigate the wide variety of leadership programmes on offer, and it can be challenging for organisations outside major urban areas to access them.

Despite this context of uncertainty and scarcity, it may surprise you, then, that the overwhelming message that rings out from the interviews is one of abundance. A striking insight arising from our conversations is that there is an abundance of untapped potential for leadership development within the sector. Our interviewees highlighted examples of inspirational leadership development taking place right across the sector. We heard from senior leaders working with ingenuity to develop the leadership capabilities of their teams. In many cases this involves utilising inexpensive and/or free options for leadership development, such as peer learning, mentoring and informal networks or action learning sets - and generously sharing their skills and expertise with others.

"We heard from senior leaders working with ingenuity to develop the leadership capabilities of their teams." 

The leaders we spoke to made strong pleas for more accessible leadership development. There is a clear desire to create more opportunities to learn from others through peer-to-peer learning, shadowing and secondments, mentoring and to create dialogue, learning and action on leadership across the sector.

What was particularly striking in the interviews I undertook was just how powerfully and emotively people spoke about their own leadership journeys. The message they told me echoes what I hear time and time again talking to our Clore Social Fellows - of that seminal ‘switch on’ moment when they step into their leadership role and how they can never go back to their old self. To give just one example, one interviewee told us about how her boss tapped her on the shoulder and asked her to be a leader - from that moment she walked taller, her behaviour changed and she took responsibility. How exciting the future looks if we can do that for all our young leaders - and it doesn’t mean a huge investment of time or money.

The message of abundance, for a sector that is so used to thinking about leadership development in the context of scarcity and resource constraints, presents an exciting opportunity for us to take a creative and innovative approach to supporting leadership development.

As a sector, we need to tackle this challenge head-on and explore new ways of developing the millions of leaders that are working within organisations across the sector; help individuals access appropriate development at different stages throughout their careers; and identify opportunities for them to learn from and share their skills with others.

"As a sector, we need to tackle this challenge head-on and explore new ways of developing the millions of leaders working across the sector."

Here at Clore Social we have some exciting new developments which we are looking forward to sharing with you all. We will be developing a new 'innovation lab' to design and test different solutions for supporting leadership development across the sector; identifying ways to harness the untapped potential we’ve identified through this report; and working alongside our colleagues in the sector to help build a generation of inspirational social leaders for the future. I look forward to sharing more with you on this in the coming months.

Read more information about the report and download a copy here.

• The voluntary sector, local and national government can move towards empowering individuals, families and communities simultaneously in a more skilful and adaptable way than ever before.
• Governments can develop a new approach to accountability that enables leadership and innovation at all levels rather than stifling it.
  
  

• take a whole government approach and to break out of siloed service and policy practices. The homelessness sector alone cannot end homelessness. It requires putting the issue on the map in areas like education, health or criminal justice
• build capacity, and take an interdisciplinary, deeply collaborative approach. This is a challenge. Professionals need support to apply evidence in real-life scenarios and existing funding mechanisms are by and large promoting competition rather than a focus on personalised solutions and effectiveness
• directly fund interventions and programmes with the best evidence behind them, and take an experimental and human-centred approach to service development. To improve positive impact we need to be able to do the right things well.
• engage people affected by homelessness more effectively in all our efforts, bring their perspectives and experiences to the heart of policy and practice. Solutions that are grounded only on the experiences of professionals and ignore the user voice and evidence are no solutions at all
• engage people and their communities more effectively in our efforts to end homelessness. There is an education job to be done, in schools, universities, mainstream services, businesses and workplaces. There is a rich resource in this space that we’re currently not tapping into. We know from trends like the sharing economy that when individuals come together to drive towards a greater goal, we can gain traction on much bigger challenges , and find new ways forward.

This type of systems-change work requires agility, scale and networked organisations, both within and across different social policy areas. It requires commissioners, practitioners, researchers, campaigners as well as communities who work together and do not stand still.

With the new Centre, we’re hoping to start addressing some of these issues. We’re not naive, we know it won’t be a silver bullet. Other things will also need to happen - we need housing in the right places and at a price people can afford, and stable jobs that pay fair wages. We need to address the root causes of poverty and inequality, and protect our social safety net and strong (networked) local services.

But evidence-based approaches are an important part of the solution. It’s no surprise that currently there is public scepticism about the sector’s ability to end or even significantly reduce homelessness, or positively engage with people affected by homelessness who refuse ‘standard offers’ for help. Making policy and funding decisions based on the best possible evidence and holding mainstream services accountable will help restore confidence.

This is therefore a critical moment to consider what is needed to build on our international reputation for preventing and tackling homelessness. We think Scotland is the ideal place to begin. If the Centre for Homelessness Impact works here - Scotland has taken larger strides to end homelessness than most other countries, its rights-based and assets-based approach to homelessness is widely celebrated as progressive, inclusive and ground-breaking - it will provide a model for others to follow.

This study is just the beginning of a long journey but it does show that there is both a need and a demand for a new organisation. Funding is now being sought for the project, with a view to opening the new Centre later this year.

We’ve been working on these issues for 50 years, but this could be a turning-point. It’s time to apply our collective efforts to meet the challenges of a complex homelessness system that developed organically over the years. The system must be redrawn so that we are able to improve outcomes and make even better use of today’s resources and technological advances to achieve step change in how we prevent and tackle homelessness.

Crisis and GHN hope that the new Centre, by bringing everyone to the party who feels the same way, will make us faster, more effective, and able to ground our solutions in the needs and voices of people affected by the problem.

Please click here to download Ligia’s report which she prepared as Head of Research and Evaluation at Crisis and at a 2016 Clore Social Fellow, supported Oak Foundation.

Share your comments about this blog and the report below, or contact Ligia on Twitter. This article was originally published on Crisis.

1. The first is for think tanks to develop stronger relationships with civil society, activists and campaigners, so that policy work can better reflect the everyday experiences and challenges of citizens.
2. The second is to think about how they communicate beyond the political elite, free of the jargon that many of us become quickly used to.
3. The third challenge for think tanks is to consider partnerships as a central part of their strategy for change. Time, funding streams and short term projects often act against collaboration, but the best examples of impact in this research came from long term, strategic work that engaged a range of organisations, from policy, academia, and front line practice.

Think tanks also face difficult questions about how they can maintain consistent political influence under new charity regulation, and how to engage a political landscape that is increasingly fragmented and devolved. Newly elected mayors, devolution and an exit from the EU all change where think tanks seek traction with their work.

At their best, think tanks connect the dots between the challenges of our everyday lives and radical new visions for the future. At their worst, they offer bland solutions to yesterday’s problems. I hope this research goes some way to illuminating the different tactics think tanks might use to increase their impact.

Please click here to read Julia’s full Research piece developed as part of her 2015 Clore Social Fellowship.

Share your views by commenting below or contacting Julia on Twitter.

1. Use the current challenging climate to promote the value of leadership
2. Achieve scale and critical mass quickly
3. Understand and segment the market
4. Make training affordable
5. Focus on the elements of ‘making a market’: (a) stimulate demand (b) organise supply and (c) advice and brokerage
6. Innovate - especially around digital technology
7. Invest in good infrastructure
8. Create a supportive leadership community
9. Create an appetite for leadership education
10. Adopt a policy-led and evidence-based approach to leadership
11. Know what good leadership looks like
12. Deliver a short period of sustained and substantial investment

Please share your views and comments below, on Twitter, or even contribute an opinion piece to our Leaders Now blog.

1. A grand vision, and a willingness to ask difficult questions. The Alliance’s Ten Year Plan challenged perceived wisdom and triggered a cultural shift in the sector. The Bush and Obama Administrations built on the success of the revolutionary campaign, creating a Federal Strategy for Ending Homelessness, thus embracing the movement and accelerating progress.
2. Collective commitment. A shared sense of commitment and collaboration is key and often wanting in the UK. At the Alliance’s annual conference in Washington DC a couple of weeks ago, Shaun Donovan - who until recently was Obama's Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) - compared the fight to end homelessness to the moon landing:

‘Together we launched out on moonshot on homelessness. And look how far we’ve come - nearly 30 cities and states have ended veteran homelessness. … Now many of you may say we still have a long way to go. And you’re right. But let’s not forget that we didn’t get to the moon overnight. That journey took three presidents and 21 space flights. Back then the New York Times described the moon landing as ‘the realisation of centuries of dreams, the fulfilment of a decade of striving, a triumph of modern technology and personal courage, the most dramatic demonstration of what we can do if we apply our minds and resources with single-minded determination. And that’s why everyone in this room is so vital to our effort: your dreams, your striving, your courage, your determination’.

1. Measurable outcomes. From the start the Obama Administration in particular has focused on unlocking data and evidence to identify and implement effective strategies, so they could do more of what works and less of what does not. The problem at stake also needs to be well defined and the role of the homelessness sector within it. So for instance a more comprehensive view of homelessness prevention should place the onus of keeping people housed on mainstream services tasked with taking care of vulnerable groups. This requires better engagement with the education, social care, criminal justice, and health and mental health systems to prevent people being supported by them becoming homeless. Crucially, the homelessness sector to try to fill in the gaps as it could do more harm than good.
   
2. Invest in solutions that have been proven to work. The George W. Bush Administration revolutionised how homelessness was dealt with the US - whatever the cause of homelessness, the solution is… a home. The idea was pioneered by New York University psychiatrist Sam Tsemberis: ‘Housing First’ turned conventional wisdom on its head. Despite the sceptics evidence prevailed - Housing First worked from the start and it worked fast. Ever since the early 2000s efforts have increasingly shifted to a focus on permanent housing solutions, such as permanent supportive housing and rapid re-housing. Since 2007 permanent supportive housing capacity has grown 69 percent.
3. Broadening leadership. A plan or data is only good as the people that drive it forward. The turn towards a Housing First approach during the Bush Administration might not have happened had it not been for the then homelessness czar, Philip Mangano, who doggedly pursued the idea despite initial resistance and sector interests (the new approach threatened jobs and budgets across the country). In 2003, the US Conference of Mayors adopted a resolution in response to a call from Mangano - then at the helm of the US Interagency Council on Homelessness - who challenged 100 cities to initiate ten year plans to end chronic homelessness. By 2004, about 100 had initiated planning efforts and, by 2006, ninety ten-year plans to end homelessness were complete. Strong leadership is however needed at all levels, from front line work, managers and chief executive and trustees level.

The CLG report is right to call for a new Government strategy, and to call for a change in legislation to prevent homelessness, but the lessons from the US point us towards much higher ambitions. It is time for UK politicians to step up to their example.

This blog was originally posted on the Crisis website. You can apply for the 2017 Fellowship here - deadline 5 September 2016.

1. Invest in leadership development: There are countless examples of excellent leaders in the sector – from junior to senior leaders. They have the ability to lead their organisations and teams, but like everyone, their leadership skills need to continuously develop. Research shows that leadership development increases performance output by 23% , so investment in leadership training is a vital.
2. Find your peers: Being a leader can be lonely job; this is one of the main complaints I hear from sector leaders. With this in mind, I strongly recommend that leaders develop peer groups where they can go for support and advice, and hopefully find innovative ways to collaborate.
3. Speak up: Charity leaders need to feel empowered to speak up for themselves and think hard about their organisation’s messages and purpose to ensure they’re truly serving their beneficiaries. We must stand for what we think is morally right – if not us, then who?
4. Collaborate: Together we have to mend society rather than allow the sector to continually fragment. I believe that most people who work in this sector do so because they want to make a difference, so let’s work together to make this happen.

Our country’s leadership is in a state of extreme upheaval where it seems as though there is no trust or cohesiveness within the major political parties. The Charity Commission’s report is a reminder to us to take positive action to rebuild trust, and strong leadership will help show the way.

Read the full report here.

"Big organisations have a crucial role to play in social innovation, but it's not the one they think." Ruth Marvel