Charity leaders need more than good intentions, peer says

Few public and third sector leaders recognise that their organisations inadvertently contribute to social problems, Lord Victor Adebowale told a Bayes Business School event last week.

The NHS Confederation Chair, who has run and launched several charities, gave the opening speech before joining a panel discussion exploring how leaders in the private, public and third sectors can deliver sustainable social change. The event was the latest in a series, Perspectives on Leadership, organised by Bayes’ Centre for Charity Effectiveness.

He said: “Management is allocating resources while leadership is making the ‘maximum’ possible difference. I rail against public or voluntary sector leaders who see themselves as observers of the system who can make change happen but with no sense of responsibility around how they and their colleagues have contributed to that. For instance, the DWP (Department of Work and Pensions) is a net contributor to the massive growth in mental ill health in this country.

“It doesn't set out to do that – it just does it. If you're poor, dealing with that complex system will leave you poorer and mentally ill. The fallout is often found in the police and mental institutions.”

Too many resources are wasted because public and third sector organisations are still not collaborating sufficiently, he argued, adding that reforms stretching back to the contracting reforms in health and social care during the 1990s, and the Blair Government’s targets culture, punished collaboration.

He continued: “To address this we started working with leaders to improve understanding that it’s not just your organisation or you as the individual leader. It’s about the context in which your organisation operates. It’s how the system operates and you are an active part in creating and being responsible for the culture, not just within your own organisation, but how your organisation interacts with the systems around it to create change for people and individuals.”

Long-term thinking needed

Aline Santos Farhat, who has held senior jobs at giant listed companies such as Unilever and, currently, at the privately-owned Ikea, urged public companies to drop quarterly reporting of financial results.

“The former CEO of Unilever said we can’t have a healthy business in an unhealthy society and he wanted to do more about climate change and plastics. However, we had to report our financial results every three months and investors are looking at your profit and loss. They are not interested in long term projects and they don't like people to be investing their time and resources in things that are not going to pay off very quickly.”

Former Shelter CEO Polly Neate described leadership as an “emotional investment in outcomes”, urging charities to “challenge the kind of systemic failures that are disempowering people”.

“I believe that civil society really has a unique role to play, based on trust and independence. I'm not saying civil society's perfect, and maybe I'm idealistic about it, but I actually think the best shot we have at reaching out in local communities to create trust lies within civil society, and not within public services or the private sector."

Trying to do it without civil society being fully empowered isn’t going to work.”

Bayes honorary professor Mike Adamson, who sits on several charity boards, said:

“This evening we're joined by leaders in the private, public and third sectors to ask this big question:  how can we harness collective power in the face of major social change and to solve some of the biggest problems? If we want to solve crises like loneliness, like the questions about sustainability, or even lags in productivity, we're going to need to bring leaders together from across sectors.”

Welcoming visitors to the discussion, Bayes Executive Dean Professor Andre Spicer said the CCE is playing a vital role in supporting the third sector through research, consultancy and education.

“The centre is a catalyst for social change in the sector, and it does this work through working on issues about governance, issues about leadership,” he said.