Social sector leadership review shines a light
Coming out of a review of charity sector leadership and skills, Dame Mary Marsh says it's time we all got out of our silos to share our leadership challenges.
While conducting a review of leadership skills for the social sector, it struck me again and again that the issues being raised by social organisations were actually shared with many SMEs (small and medium sized businesses). At the same time government interventions to support SMEs hardly ever include reference to social businesses and other social purpose organisations. It's about time this changed, particularly as the government is bringing measures to bear on both.
A recent change that impacts both was the announcement in the March Budget that National Insurance payments by small employers will change for ‘SMEs and charities’. The measure won't be implemented until April 2014, but it's a start.
The eight themes of the review I led found common ground with the challenges SMEs face: Governance; Attract and Develop Leaders; Routes into and through the social sector; Skills Sharing; Digital Fluency; Data informed social change; Enterprise Capability; and Collaboration.
Most powerfully, it became evident that at the local level in England there are some examples of close connections between SMEs and social purpose organisations, for example those supported by UK Community Foundations. But this is far from universally the case and more of this needs to be taking place to ensure the strength of both.
A strong priority issue in the review was around those leaving full-time education, apprentices and graduates and the link between them and the right employment opportunities in the sectors we were looking at. The government has indicated its interest in supporting work to provide and promote better supported routes into and through social purpose organisations.
Go to any college or schools’ careers advice service where they are still active (and isn’t it time we found a meaningful name for such advice now that there are no ‘careers’ anywhere?), and you'll find the opportunity to start and progress in a working life journey in both SMEs and the social sector is simply not visible. We all need to actively promote and support this better access into businesses and social sector organisations.
Only in January BIS published a report on the number of graduates in SMEs and how processes can be improved to recruit the best candidates. The issue is the same.
Grasping the challenge of serious gaps in digital fluency both now and continuously going forward is shared across the economy, with public and the wider private sectors too. It is not just a challenge for SMEs and social purpose organisations generally. Some of the latter are well ahead of the game here and demonstrating the power, reach and impact such digital capability can have. Similarly the need for data informed approaches, ensuring that data skills are more widely held, is another challenge across the economy. It is vital to achieve, and demonstrate, effective social change.
And how often, when we look for opportunities for skills sharing and collaboration does the social sector start with big business? While reaching for corporate support is valuable and could be further developed more strategically, we must not miss what can be done to mutual advantage on a smaller scale locally with SMEs.
The quality of governance, and how it evolves as small organisations get established and grow, is exactly the same whether there is a social purpose or an entrepreneurial SME.
Effective leadership that itself changes and develops as the context and the challenges develop, is needed everywhere. The skills review makes it clear that we all have a responsibility to grow leaders (through mentoring and supporting) from the front line through to the governance and leadership.
Social entrepreneurs are well placed to provide a lead and already have a number of good initiatives to support those with emerging developments including staged programmes like UnLtd.
It is time we all got out of our silos so that we can share and support within and across sectors, most importantly learning from each other.
Read the review at Leading Social.