Leadership
Leading a social organisation is not the same as leading a company, and almost all the leadership writing you will find is about companies. We teach from the Clore Social Leadership Development Model.
Shared beliefs
Clore set these out. They are ours too.
Good leadership is essential for social change
Twenty-first century social challenges need leaders who can meet the trials of a changing world.
Everyone is a leader
Leadership is not restricted to people with a manager title. In Clore's words: we are all doing it, but we are not all doing it to our full potential.
Leadership is a lifelong journey
As teams, organisations and challenges change, leaders have to change with them. It is a set of skills and behaviours anyone can develop.
Leaders grow leaders
By collaborating, supporting and challenging one another, leaders have a collective impact across the sector.
The leadership development model
Three things a social leader holds at once, sitting inside governance, impact and organisational capability. Pick one to read it.
Know yourself, be yourself, look after yourself
Leadership development starts with self-awareness. The most successful leaders critically assess their strengths, weaknesses, motivations and values.
Leadership is tough, so it matters just as much to build physical and emotional resilience and look after your own wellbeing — otherwise you cannot respond to the challenges when they come.
Assess context
Understanding the system you are working in, which is complex and constantly moving.
It means identifying the challenges and the opportunities that are emerging, rather than the ones that already arrived.
Work with and through others
The social skills, the empathy and the collaboration that leadership in this sector runs on.
And the capacity to inspire and grow other leaders, which is where the collective impact comes from.
Formal, social and experiential learning
Clore's approach is iterative: you go round the cycle, reflect on how it went, share it with the group, then apply the lesson on the next pass.
The 10-20-70 ratio
In their research, the Centre of Creative Leadership found the most effective leadership development happens on a ten, twenty, seventy split.
Why Social Leaders is shaped like this
If seven tenths of it comes from doing the job and being challenged while you do it, a course on its own was never going to work.
The coaching and the reading here are the ten and the twenty. Connect, the other members and the round tables are how you get at the seventy.
The Social Leadership Capabilities Framework
Six attributes that social sector leadership actually needs. Pick one to see what it looks like in practice.
Empowering Enabler
- Empowers others to take on new challenges and training
- Role model to others, pursues continuous self development
- Cultivates an environment where others can excel
- Exhibits a growth mindset, with a readiness to learn
Focused Strategist
- Continuously seeks organisational improvement for the people they serve
- Reflective and utilises complex information
- Delivers on outcomes
- Resourceful and strategic, considers wider systems and context
Passionate Advocate
- Cause passionate, committed to the mission and people they serve
- Strong moral compass
- Wide civic responsibility, engages in debate and activities
- Looks within and beyond sector to find solutions for social change
Generous Collaborator
- Establishes and grows collaborative partnerships and relationships
- Generously shares information, assets and time
- Builds trust through seeking and giving feedback
- Invites inclusive contribution, valuing skills and knowledge, respecting diversity
Courageous Changemaker
- Courageous and drives change
- Responsible risk taker
- Develops innovative solutions with and through others
- Curious, has foresight and asks why
Inspirational Communicator
- Relates to others with authenticity
- Influential and confident
- Clear expression of mission and values
- Agile, able to modify approach and reframe based on feedback
Credit
The Leadership Development Model, the learning cycle and the Social Leadership Capabilities Framework on this page are the work of Clore Social Leadership, a charity that has spent over a decade developing leaders in this sector. We teach from it because it is the best map of social leadership there is.
Andy is a 2015 Clore Social Fellow, named in the January intake announced by Third Sector.