Leadership in other sectors: challenges and opportunities

Professor Toby Greany

1.5.14

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Leading effective organisations in volatile environments

•Blended leadership (and management) in context •‘Values are as important as vision’. •Scan the horizon - create a climate of curiosity •Rethink your business models - avoid reactive compliance •Know when to act boldly: ‘always, always focus on the client’ •Find new ways to collaborate •‘We are living in a digital coliseum.’ •‘Remind people why we do what we do: tell a compelling story’ •‘Your mindset needs to be one of quality and risk’.

Maintaining a strong organisational brand

•Sophisticated understanding of existing/potential customers

•Clarity on where you will be excellent and where ‘good enough’

•Be distinctive - “What’s your calling card of excellence?” •Successful companies focus on differentiators other than price and prioritise increasing revenues over cutting costs.

System leadership (aka ‘adaptive’, ‘resourceful’ and ‘intelligent’ leadership)

•Working beyond your context (schools) versus aligning different services to achieve holistic outcomes (public sector)

•‘Wicked’ issues and ‘tame’ problems •Partnership and collaboration are vulnerable strategies•Requires political and consensus building skills and an ability to work with ambiguity

•Keep it simple: “Partnership working is a way of doing business – agree the protocols, agree the boundaries and get on with it.”

Leading the core business  •Clear accountabilities and strong management processes - asking the right questions •Learning centred leadership in schools and FE•Consistent focus on professional development and learning for staff: move from traditional models of Continuous Professional Development (CPD) towards Joint Practice Development   •“If you want a collective approach you have to educate collectively, not as individuals”.

 

Leading for diversity  •Remains a challenge across sectors – but some evidence of particular issues for FE•Must be led from the top, based on inclusive set of values: be specific about which aspects of diversity you need to tackle next and take time to look at the data •Several interviewees have mainstreamed diversity: a service-improvement issue not an ethical one •The importance of recruitment practices: “Hire for values rather than competencies”.

 

Talent management and leadership development •Recruiting and developing talent a very high priority for interviewees. •Able to articulate what kinds of talent they were looking for and how they would recognise it •Move away from classroom-based programmes towards context-based learning and open ended tasks•Balance between individual and organisational development •‘Grow your own’ in house approaches - 10-15 years.  Rapid and focussed feedback on performance coupled with stretching opportunities most important.   •Evaluation challenge     

Final questions:

•Have the needs of ETS leadership moved on since 2010? •Does ETS leadership differ from leadership in other sectors? •Turnaround leadership – a particular issue for FE?