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Heartfelt: of leadership
CONTENTS
Executive Summary 1
Our Project 2
Introduction 3–4
Leadership in the voluntary and community sector 5–8
- what others have said
Listening to Leaders 9 – 13
- what we heard
- what do you do when you “do” leadership
- how did you learn to do that
- leadership potential – what do you look for in others
- future demands upon leadership
- one single development that shaped your leadership
Leadership and Values 13 – 16
Pilot Leadership Development Programmes 17 – 27
- what people wanted to learn
- what people learned
- key skill area people want to develop next
Conclusions 28 – 29
Recommendations 30 – 31
Appendix 1 – Interview framework 32
Appendix 2 – Post session feedback form 33
Executive Summary
• Learning and development opportunities for both existing and emerging leaders
• Information to create insight into the nature of leadership in the voluntary and
community sector
By reporting the findings of the impact assessment and the interviews with serving
leaders in the words of the individuals themselves it is intended to keep the results as
free of researcher bias as possible and leave readers free to draw their own conclusions
from the data.
Practical application of learning is a central tenant of ChangeUp and in that spirit this
report concludes with some recommendations intended to inform and influence learning
providers, funders, commissioners and the everyday practice of voluntary and
community sector organisations.
Leadership
…..There is simply no substitute – Peter Drucker
Our Project
In the short term the project facilitated the creation of 36 places on a series of 3 two day
leadership development programmes which were accessed by staff of infrastructure
organisations. The learning from this activity was two way. We learned more about the
kind of impact such development has upon individuals and the kind of
briefing/preparation that is required of a commissioner to enable a third party provider to
produce sector relevant opportunities. Our provider partner learned about the
expectations of staff in the voluntary and community sector and the aspects of
leadership as a subject and a discipline that had particular resonance for the sector and
therefore for the planning of future provision.
For the medium term the project gathered new primary data on what is regarded as
leadership in the third sector, how existing leaders have learned to do what they do plus
the nature of perceived challenges and aspirations of individuals interested in developing
leadership capability; all of which maybe used by the sector, by funders and by providers
to develop ideas on curriculum. Thanks are due, amongst others, to The Groundwork
Trust Limited, NCH, St Helens CVS, Sefton CVS and Volunteer Centre Liverpool for
contributing their perspectives on leadership.
Introduction
Leadership. Debate abounds. Do a worldwide Google search for “leadership” and you
get 957 million hits. Refining your search by adding the term “development” and only
looking at UK websites makes things a little more manageable, but there are still over 21
million points of reference to consider. So where do you start with something like
leadership?
He then goes on to suggest that there are at least four different ways of understanding
what leadership is:
Leadership
The art of mobilizing others to want to struggle for shared aspirations
Kouzes and Posner
We went for process-based leadership: what leaders do when they get things done, how
they learned to do those things and what they saw as the main challenges for leadership
in the sector in terms of moving towards the high level outcomes within ChangeUp
including becoming more “enterprising”.
Understanding more about what people do when they do “leadership” was only part of
our puzzle. ChangeUp (2004) observes that
So we wanted to explore how leadership might be developed within the voluntary and
community sector. We asked a selected sample of organisations what they currently did
to develop leadership potential in people to see what was already happening and we
tried something structured with a new provider.
Under the Workforce Development theme in ChangeUp the high level outcome says that
by 2014 there will be “a greater range of accessible development opportunities with
increased take-up of learning opportunities by voluntary and community sector workers”.
The second part of this strand was to work in partnership with a local training provider to
pilot new leadership development opportunities, provide funding to increase accessibility
and monitor the initial impact of the experience upon the learners. ChangeUp observes
that “training providers do not always understand the culture and context of the voluntary
and community sector or the skills that people working and volunteering for frontline
organisations need” (p27) would we find this experience repeated on Greater
Merseyside and if so what could be done to avoid it in future?
Leadership in the Voluntary and Community Sector – what others have said
In its draft business plan published at the end of April 2006 the Third Sector Leadership
Centre, an initiative of the UK Workforce Development Hub, outlines its view of the
current leadership problem for the Third Sector including:
• Rapid growth in the sector by number and size of organisations
• A shortage of tailored tools to meet the needs of leaders
• Limited access to tailored assistance at appropriate cost
• Demand for better understanding of what it means to be a leader and the
required attributes of leaders
• Access to current leadership thinking and appropriate sources of assistance
difficult
In that demand the voluntary and community sector is not alone, it is estimated that
globally over £50 billion was invested in the last year in leadership development.
In the preface to the third edition of Leadership: Theory and Practice (2004) Peter
Northouse, Professor of Communication at Western Michigan University opens
To return to Keith Grint’s earlier point when talking about leadership we must first
establish what “it” is before we can set out to develop “it”.
All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness
to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not
much else, is the essence of leadership.
John Kenneth Galbraith
In 2002 the Hay Group and ACEVO conducted a study of the characteristics of
outstanding leaders in the voluntary sector from the perspective of the leaders
themselves publishing their findings in Passionate Leadership the following year. It
concluded that leadership was and would continue to be a huge issue for the sector, that
there is useful provision but whether people know about it and use it is another matter,
and whilst there are similarities between leaders of third sector and other types of
organisation there were also important distinctions:
In summary the report called for the “recipe for high performing leaders to be defined
and the characteristics clearly articulated in a way that enables meaningful development
activity targeted at the areas that matter most”.
Building on the interim findings of this relatively small study, in 2003 ACEVO and NCVO
together published Leadership, Leadership, Leadership. Through interviews with serving
leaders it was identified that leadership needs of voluntary organisations differed from
public and private in a number of key ways:
• governance arrangements can give rise to uncertainty about who is leading the
trustees or the senior team
• performance management is challenging because it isn’t about counting widgets
or profits
• a risk that through a lack of clear career development paths the sector is “porous”
with people moving in and out in order to progress making identification and
retention of leaders challenging
Two observations in the report had particular significance for our Merseyside project.
We knew from this that we would need to be extremely clear with people from the outset
what we meant when we said leadership, that the pilot interventions we commissioned
would need to be carefully tailored to our audience and that finding people willing to take
part could be a challenge.
Research carried out with Volunteering England (VE) in 2004 by John Whatmore, Chair
of the Centre for Leadership in Creativity, looked at the skills and talents of a small
number of senior leaders in the voluntary sector.
In common with the previous study the VE work reported high levels of passion and
tremendous engagement with the purpose of the business underpinned by
determination, drive and commitment, key elements of resilience. Communication skills
and being “people” people also came out strongly in this study: vital if you are going to
Heartfelt: aspects of leadership
views, ideas and insights from the voluntary and community sector
8 of 34
In 2006 we find ourselves in the fortunate position that the Third Sector Leadership
Centre is operational and on Greater Merseyside two other recent initiatives; the launch
of the Centre for Leadership Development in June 2005 and the start of the development
of a Northern Leadership Academy from April 2006 have created real scope to work with
partners to enhance and broaden leadership development provision for the sector. Work
that will be informed by the things we learned when listened to serving leaders and
reflected on our own experiences from commissioning some pilot programmes.
Leaders
If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you
are a leader John Quincy Adams American President 1825
A good leader is a person who takes a little more than his share of the blame and a little
less than his share of the credit John C Maxwell
Leaders are visionaries with a poorly developed sense of fear and no concept of the odds
against them Robert Jarisk
Listening to Leaders
Answers given by the leaders were used to inform the content of the pilot programmes
and the impact assessment questions employed.
What we heard
Echoes of the findings of the Hay/ACEVO and the NCVO/ACEVO and the Volunteering
England work – passionate people who care about the work of their organisations
beyond a one dimensional view of whether or not it is doing its job. Repeatedly people
talked about making a difference, making the difference, and repeatedly they reflected
upon the challenge of achieving balance between the driven commitment of themselves
and their staff because of the social consequences of getting the job done well and the
need to stop for a moment, stand back and draw breath in order to learn the lessons of
past experiences and outcomes. Here are the answers they gave us to key questions:
Female Male
Be clear about purpose/introduce, share vision Have clear vision/communicate vision
Communication – keep people constantly up to date Communicate
Bring peoples ideas together/work collectively/involve Decide to do something/often make final decision in
Inspire and enthuse others/show your enthusiasm absence of consensus/explain decisions
Practice what you preach/lead by example Lead by example
Make recommendations and persuade board Act in a way that brings people with you
Take account of external influences Anticipate and address objections
Be mindful of strategies on the horizon Find compromise where possible
Maintain objective overview Help team clarify purpose
Strengthen understanding Engage team
Demonstrate belief Facilitate/enable
Pitch the message appropriately – tone and method Listen
Deliver on promises Nurture/make people feel safe
Be sure of the ground/information Explain the parameters
Identify allies and “opponents”/small “p” political Take risks
Support people Manage change/be agent of change
Listen Motivate
Be resilient Catalyse
Demonstrate confidence
Create trust
Female Male
Female Male
Integrity Ability to engage
Listening Inspirational
Confident in debate Welcoming
Engaging Real
Open minded Empathetic
Realistic Common sense – can learn anything else
Capacity to acknowledge Good people skills
weaknesses/mistakes/prepared to be self critical Approachable
Honest Listening
Trustworthy Capacity to distance self to be able to make
Leads by example hard decisions
Passion/passionate belief Not climbers/glory hunters
Enthusiasm Motivational
Caring Communicator
Multi skilled Risk taking
Willing to learn Nurturing
Fresh ideas/creative/imagination/bring ideas Capable of delegating
forward Capacity to manage change
Willing to try and take chances Enthusiasm
Flexible/adaptable Committed to ethos
Communicative/social confidence Have a clear idea of where they want to go
Reflective Ambitious in a social sense
Proactive Wanting to bring about change/sense of
Intelligent questioning/grasp of issues purpose/destiny – legacy creators
Challenging Ability to get message across enthusing
Accept responsibility others
Get things done/doer/task orientated … the personal things you can’t train in
Credible Ability to learn and/or learn quickly
Self organisation/management Run with stuff without being bothered with
Transparency where it came from
Charisma at some level Charisma – somebody who stands out – born
Dedicated/committed not made
Hard working/driven/puts in what is needed
Will be listened to and respected
Vision/sees bigger picture
Good fit attitude/values/ethical base
Rapport
“oomph” x 2 People like me
Personality Clones of me
Pleasant/easy nature ……(only joking)
Problem solvers/solution seekers
Not 9-5
Self motivated/self initiating
Gets “it” quickly
Includes others
Understands motivation – how to win it
Female Male
Challenge to the ethos – we supply free Challenge is to retain a leadership style and
services – how can that become vcs language that is authentic
entrepreneurship?
We have to find a way to walk and lead into a Move from pure grant income to mixed sources
niche market whilst maintaining integrity and Goes back to having clear vision that is
independence communicated and how you get round the
obstacles in the way
Working out a clear system for who pays and Marriage of private sector practice with
how much for what - consistency on charging regeneration of deprived communities
Enterprise could take time away from services Change management – so much change
We could end up shifting to being more about coming so quickly
service targets than actual needs Research and strategic fit have become key
Convincing vcs leaders of need to embrace competencies
entrepreneurship and collaboration
Make hard choices on downsizing and mergers Big problem is getting a definition from
Proving our strategic worth government of what they actually want – they
Leading board/team into a mixed income future are asking us to do something neither the
Having the imagination to reshape and use private nor public sector can do
resources well We need to get stronger at saying what things
Managing the change without it draining you as actually cost and be big enough and brave
a person enough to say “sorry – not doing it” if the
Issues in relation to governance – building financial offer is not good enough
boards with the necessary skills and knowledge The notion that the vcs can exist without the
subsidies that the private sector gets is a
It all depends on what is actually meant by nonsense
sustainable –don’t believe we will ever be grant
free as we address areas of market failure Probably not going to be that different – just a
continuation of doing more better
Not such a big change really – more of what we
do well… flexibility, partnership… need that
message more widely accepted
Don’t think it will be greater – always had to
work on quality and sustainability
One single development that was brilliant for shaping your leadership approach
Female Male
Big launch into new contract that meant doing Worked for an absolute bastard CEO
something completely different Always having had responsibility from early
Coming here and daring to make changes age
Powerful example set by manager on
outcomes MBA
Managing a horrendous, devious bully Directory of Social Change programme
Introduction of a new Centre – big change capacity building management groups
Institute of Fundraising Certificate
Recent intensive 3 day programme
Common Purpose/Action Learning sets No
Not really….
Given that the Third Sector prides itself on its values we were interested in the extent to
which, if at all, our individual leaders were conscious of drawing upon their own personal
values when exercising leadership, so we asked about that as well.
In the literature various researchers and writers have things to say about leaders and
values. Dixon (1992) believes “Effective leaders can flow with what unfolds because they
are centred and grounded in values and purpose”. The reach of a leaders values go
beyond simply their own actions suggest, Gilbertson, Resick and Dickson (2005), “the
organisational personality and values profiles that develop within organisations are not
random; they are a reflection of the characteristics of leaders and founders who transmit
their personality and values into the organisation through the goals they establish and
the types of people the organisation attracts and selects.”
Lord and Brown (2001) see the function of values as “normative standards, values are a
basis for generating behaviours that conform to the needs of the group or larger social
units” and regard them as key for leaders. They suggest that socialisation to a set of
values enables individuals to behave compatibly with other groups members without
needing direct social control: therefore by consciously influencing socialisation
processes a leader can “create an important means to coordinate individual and group
efforts to meet the requirements of larger social systems”.
House (1976) in his theory of charismatic leadership makes much of the role of a leaders
values. He suggests that in addition to distinct personality characteristics, specific
behaviours are demonstrated by charismatic leaders starting with their actions as strong
role models for the beliefs and values they want followers to adopt.
It is suggested by various authors including Bass & Steidlmeier, Luthans & Avolio and
May, Chan, Hodges & Avolio that authentic leaders are guided by a set of values that
are orientated towards doing and achieving things that are right and fair for all
stakeholders. From the work of Schwartz we are introduced to a categorisation of values
which includes two higher order clusters of values: self-transcendent and self-
enhancement shown in the table overleaf.
Self-transcendent Self-enhancement
Benevolence Achievement
• concern for immediate others • pursuit of personal success
• honesty
• loyalty Power
• responsibility • dominance over others
Universalism
• social justice
• equality
• broadmindedness
• tolerance of difference
Transcendent values certainly fit with the view of Safty (2003) “leadership is or at least
ought to be normatively apprehended as a set of values with connotations evocative of
the higher achievements of the human spirit”.
Researchers acknowledge that the priority pattern of the value set of each individual is
unique but it has been suggested that authentic leaders are likely to have elements of
both of the clusters of higher order values above but that they will give higher priority to
self-transcendent values.
Some research has been carried out into the gender dimension of values and leadership
showing that women emphasize benevolent and universal values more than men
(Ryckman & Houston, 2003) prompting Michie and Gooty (2005) to suggest that women
leaders are more likely than male leaders to engage in self-transcendent behaviours that
promote authentic leadership. Would we find any patterns in what our leaders talked
about?
All fifteen interviewees said that they consciously draw upon personal values when
exercising leadership.
Heartfelt: aspects of leadership
views, ideas and insights from the voluntary and community sector
15 of 34
In response to the open question “do you think there are any particular values you draw
upon as an individual when exercising leadership and if so which ones?”
We do not pretend that this is a representative sample but it is interesting that only the
male leaders talked about any values from the self-enhancement cluster and virtually
every value suggested by a female leader sits within the self-transcendent cluster from
the work of Schwartz.
As values are widely regarded as the personal constructs that create meaning and
motivation in our lives, the framework for our personal decision making, we can see from
the values listed by our leaders where their passion, drive and commitment come from.
Writing in The Guardian at the beginning of April 2006 Rob Goffee, Professor of
Organisational Behaviour at London Business School, said “Our research shows that
followers want four things from a leader: significance, excitement, community and
authenticity”.
A clear values base is regarded as key for authentic leadership, the work of the Third
Sector is clearly significant and centred on community and given the scale and rate of
change facing the sector things are rarely dull. From this starting point in theory we have
all the ingredients necessary to develop effective authentic leadership capability so it
should be simple – would it prove to be simple for our project?
Working with the Centre for Leadership Development we offered the opportunity to
attend a programme consisting of two consecutive days to members of staff within
ChangeUp Consortium member organisations. One was titled Developing Leaders for
Third Sector SMEs, the other Executive Leadership in Third Sector SME’s. Each
programme was based on a previously successful model run by the provider for private
sector SMEs (Small and Medium Sized Enterprises), however, emphasis on productivity
and prosperity was replaced with leading for enterprise and harnessing income
generation potential those issues being key challenges within ChangeUp.
Candidates for the programmes self selected the programme they felt was right for them
and an open invitation to attend was issued throughout member organisations. All
individuals had to do was to agree to complete pre and post programme paperwork and
take part in a facilitated plenary review session to capture their impressions of the
programme following an intervening period of reflection/cooling off.
We were pleasantly surprised when the Developing Leaders was over subscribed and
the Executive Leaders was fully booked well before the deadline. Thirteen people
attended “Executive” and twenty two people attended “Developing” in two groups.
In spite of tailoring the course content and providing briefing information for the course
tutor the first “Developing” programme did not go well. The tutor failed to demonstrate
capacity to situate the principles and practices being put forward in a voluntary and
community sector context. Some attendees felt they had gained very little from the
programme while others could see how aspects of the models and techniques described
could be adapted but felt the lack of sector specific understanding had proven a
significant weakness in the overall programme. This was exactly the type of situation
referred to by ChangeUp “training providers do not always understand the culture and
context of the voluntary and community sector or the skills that people working and
volunteering for frontline organisations need”.
Clearly both the Centre for Leadership Development and ourselves as commissioners
were going to have to work harder to get it right. Detailed feedback from candidates on
the first programme was gathered and used to inform the brief for a new tutor who had a
background in business psychology rather than commercial practice. Representatives of
both the Centre and our project invested time working with the new tutor which resulted
in a completely revised programme being delivered to the “Executive” group.
Feedback was much more positive and many candidates were delighted with the insight
provided into leadership as a process and something that everyone could develop. The
second “Developing” programme also ran with vastly improved results, so much so the
first group of candidates were asked if they would like to attend a rerun of the
programme and the majority said Yes.
Before people attended their programme they were asked what would you like to learn
and after the programme they were asked what were the main things you learned and
what would you like to learn next? The following tables summarise their answers.
Getting the most from my team – too often Self confidence in my leadership skills
functioning as a “super development worker” where
others should take the lead Confidence in delegating work in the team
Possibly to re-evaluate my style – shift to remaining More confidence in taking a strategic view
approachable yet ensure there is sufficient Confidence
professional “distance” for authority
Better at organising all aspects in my role – I lack
Leading by Example – Walking the Talk and being confidence to lead at times
positive about everything – sometimes it is not easy
to be positive! Ability to think strategically/plan around aims/objects
Enhance communication skills – furthering Need to become a more confident risk taker
insight to see how messages are
communicated More strategic thinking/planning
Become more assertive on expectations To be more assertive and have respect and
empathy for other members of staff
More entrepreneurial style
Taking time to step back and think global
Coaching/developing staff members
Coaching
Negotiation
Art of delegation
Delegating
Key themes that emerge from the answers is that irrespective of whether someone sees
themselves as a developing leader or an executive leader confidence/assertiveness is a
big issue. Before people attended the things they wanted to gain were dispersed across
issues of leadership and management from the strategic level to the operational aspects
of time management or delegation. Example post programme questionnaire Appendix 2.
After attending the programme people were much clearer and focussed upon the need
for communication and vision. These results were reflected in the other strand of
questioning used in the pre and post programme exercises. Candidates were asked to
use up to 10 words to describe the type of leader they would like to be seen as. This was
an open question and responses were analysed using a bottom up rank order
categorisation process – looking for things that were the same and clustering them.
This question explored in very simplistic terms each individual’s sense of leader identity.
By using the same question before and after the programme we could directly compare
responses and see if any measurable impact had occurred.
The following graphs show the impact of attending the programme upon the clarity of
their view of leader identity.
80 60
70
50
60
50 40
40 Pre 30
30 Post
20
20
10 10
0 0
x1 x2 x3 x4 x5 x6 x1 x2 x3 x4 x5 x6+
Number of times any one term was chosen by any individual within the group
Results show that both groups have very individual and diverse views of what it is to be
a leader in the voluntary and community sector, very few descriptors were used by more
than one person to describe the sort of leader they wanted to be seen as, in fact the
overall range of terms used actually went up after attending the programme.
Heartfelt: aspects of leadership
views, ideas and insights from the voluntary and community sector
23 of 34
Before the programme on average each term was chosen 1.8 times by executive
leaders and 2.25 times by emerging leaders. After the programme this frequency went
down slightly in both cases: executive to 1.5 times and emerging to 2 times – showing
any individual term was less likely to be chosen by more than one person after the
programme than before it.
This could be attributed to individuals being introduced to new ideas of what it could be
to be a leader or gaining a more detailed picture of themselves as a leader as a result of
the reflection facilitated by the programme.
Pre programme executive leaders used an average of 7.7 terms to describe themselves,
emerging leaders used 7. Post programme executive leaders used an average of 4.4
terms and emerging leaders 6.25. The executive leaders experienced a greater increase
in clarity than the emerging but both groups appear to have measurably refined their
ideas on how they would wish to be seen as a leader in the sector.
There are certain things that, irrespective of the leadership model or school of thought
being used, are widely regarded as central to effective leadership. These include
possessing and communicating a clear vision together with inspiring others to share the
vision and motivating them to follow.
80
70
60
50
40 Pre
30 Post
20
10
0
Inspirational Vision Motivational Com m unicator
35
30
25
20
Pre
15
Post
10
5
0
Inspirational Vision Motivational Com m unicator
With the exception of “motivational” in the case of the “Developing” leaders there is a
marked direction of travel for more individuals to share a wish to be seen as inspiring,
visionary, motivating, communicative leaders.
At the plenary review session attended by half of the individuals who had taken part in
the programme people were asked the extent to which they would agree with the
statement – I have a clearer idea of the kind of leader that I want to be than before this
process – 10 out of 18 said agree very much, 6 out of 18 said agree to some extent, only
two people regarded themselves as unchanged by the process as they felt they already
had a well developed sense of leader identity.
Writing in the Leadership Quarterly in 2005 Lord and Hill describe how opportunities to
develop leadership skill often require proactive steps to be taken by a potential leader
making the individuals own motivation and interest in leadership a critical requirement for
leadership development and that within that process a unique role is held by the leader’s
self identity because it provides a central focus around which knowledge is organised.
We took the analysis of the leadership identity descriptors one stage further. As personal
values underpin the decisions we take and therefore the behaviours/actions we exhibit
we could take a values based approach to analysing the descriptors used by the
candidates where what was being described was a behaviour such as “dedicated” or
“supportive” or “fair”.
Schwartz proposes that values fall into one of 10 clusters that sit broadly around the
outside of a circle forming a “quasi circumplex” model – circumplex for the circle and
quasi because they don’t sit perfectly on the rim. The 10 clusters then sit in four
quadrants. The table below shows in broad terms how many of the descriptors offered
unprompted by candidates fitted into which cluster.
Total 49 Total 59
Achievement 28 Conformity 27
Power 13 Tradition 10
Security 0
Total 41 Total 37
The pattern shows that in broad terms individuals engaged in leadership activity within
the voluntary and community sector have a tendency to display transcendent values
followed by an openness to change rather than a desire for conformity and protection of
the status quo. This value pattern mirrors that found in the interviews with the current
serving leaders.
In September 2004 the Scottish Centre for Regeneration (SCR) published its Skills
Framework for Regeneration www.scr.communitiesscotland.gov.uk. The framework was
drawn up from research carried out by Glasgow University in which over 400
practitioners from public, private and voluntary and community sector players were
interviewed about the things they did when they did “regeneration” successfully. In the
section on Strategic Skills there is an outline of leadership in terms of the skills you
would have and the things you would be able to do when exercising leadership.
During the plenary review session for our project people were encouraged to examine
and reflect upon the SCR picture of leadership and determine its fit with the demands of
leadership in the voluntary and community sector on Greater Merseyside because as
ChangeUp says:
“Leadership in the voluntary and community sector must take account of sector values,
including traditions of participation and consultation, harnessing the passion and
motivations that volunteers and paid staff bring to ‘the cause’.” (p28)
It was observed that the SCR model implied that a “seat at the table” had already been
won and that the reality for many third sector organisations was often quite different. To
take account of that fact and some other salient differences the following outline was
agreed.
Adapted from the Scottish Centre for Regeneration Skills Framework (2004)
Section 3.2 Leadership
* bullet points in bold represent additions suggested by the plenary review group
When you have skills of this kind you should be able to:
• Make decisions
• Influence other people
• Demonstrate awareness of others through listening and communication
• Reach a well-informed view point through consultation
• Motivate people and create a climate for new ideas
• Identify and engage key stakeholders and partners
• Campaign and/or negotiate to gain a seat at the table
• Forge appropriate alliances
• Build consensus and communicate representatively
• Take the initiative
• Recognise boundaries and overcome obstacles
• Create and communicate vision
• Communicate passion and belief
• Accept responsibility
• Use power responsibly
• Delegate power and authority
• Apply different styles of leadership appropriately in different contexts and
disciplines within complex arenas
• Acquire and demonstrate political and cultural awareness
• Be self confident and display assertiveness
Conclusions
Most leadership capability is learnt on the job and through observing the practice of
others, the contribution made by formal training and learning provision was very limited
in our sample. This pattern of leadership learning is not uncommon. David Dotlich author
of Leadership Passages: The Personal and Professional Transitions that Make or Break
a Leader (2004) says “Very often, the lessons learned from confronting fear and
uncertainty, and from experiencing frustration transform good leaders into great ones.
Today, leaders who have endured adversity are most likely to be the ones with the
resilience and resolve to succeed”. With its stringent funding regimes and vulnerability to
policy shift and political manoeuvres the voluntary and community sector provides an
ideal environment for such learning to take place.
I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people
Mahatma Gandhi
Leadership development provision for the sector would do well to emphasise aspects of
coaching, influencing, communication and vision sharing. It should also be borne in mind
that much of the leadership required of individuals at all levels of voluntary and
community sector organisations, is leadership outside of formal lines of authority,
leadership around partnership tables and leadership in local settings where emotions run
high. In such settings well developed self-awareness and resilience are vital for effective
performance.
There are mixed feelings among serving leaders about the pressure for infrastructure
bodies in particular but voluntary and community organisations in general to become
more enterprising and diversify income sources. Some regard this simply as a
continuance and extension of the naturally creative approach the sector has always
taken to acquire resources to address problems. Others see the undertaking of more
“business-like” activity as a potential threat to time and energy for the principle benefit of
service users and as hazardous for previously strong collaborative ways of working as
organisations become competitors. What all agreed upon, however, is the importance of
the values base of their organisations and that what ever is done must be done in a
fashion that remains true to this base otherwise a backlash could follow from members,
clients, partners or any number of other stakeholding groups.
Our work suggests that at present the values dimension of leadership is alive and well in
the sector. Values-based leadership also holds real potential to be even more effective if
it could be more widely understood and appreciated, especially if the commissioners,
designers and deliverers of leadership development provision took steps to incorporate
these aspects in their work thus underpinning the personal resolve of third sector leaders
to rise to new challenges with integrity.
Absolute identity with one’s cause is the first and great condition of successful leadership
Woodrow Wilson
Recommendations
For the Learning and Skills Council and other funders of leadership development
provision
• that commissioners/funders satisfy themselves that providers who propose to
develop and deliver activity to benefit leadership in the Third Sector either have
capacity to do so using the expertise of recent Third Sector practitioners or that
the “experts” to be used possess the necessary skills to translate practice and
principles from the private and/or public sectors to a Third Sector context bearing
in mind the distinct demands of leadership in this sector outlined earlier in this
report
• that wherever possible the delivery of leadership development activity for the
sector is not just a one-off opportunity but provides some mechanism for medium
term support to reflect upon and implement the lessons learned whether that be
How and when did you learn to do those things? Where did those capabilities
come from?
Moving towards 2014 and ChangeUp’s bold but achievable high level outcomes
what do you believe will place the greatest demands upon your organisation and
therefore you in terms of leadership?
Where do you or would you look for support or development to deal with those
demands?
When you are looking within or outside your organisation for people with
leadership potential what do you look for?
What other forms of support or development do you think would help them
develop?
The sector is often described in terms of values – do you think there are any
particular values that you draw upon as an individual when leading your
organisation/keeping yourself motivated?
Now that you have completed the two day programme at Hope run by the Centre for
Leadership Development we would be interested in your views on these three questions.
Question Thoughts