In my blog of 15th May earlier this year, I wrote about my strong interest in doing more consultancy work with charities. I referred, in particular, to the need for this sector to devote greater focus to leadership development. I have had to re-consider my opinion!
Over the last couple of months, I have had the opportunity and pleasure to discuss this topic at length with three Chief Executives in the sector, namely:
- Robert Leader, Chief Executive of Blind Veterans. Formerly known as St Dunstan’s, Blind Veterans care for ex-service men and women blinded in action and also veterans who have lost their sight through accident, illness or old age. (www.blindveterans.org.uk)
- Sir Stephen Bubb, Chief Executive of the Association for Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations. ACEVO supports, develops, connects and represents third sector leaders. (www.acevo.org.uk)
- Debra Allcock Tyler, Chief Executive of the Directory of Social Change. DSC is an independent charity with a vision of an independent voluntary sector at the heart of social change. (www.dsc.org.uk )
The reason for meeting with these people was to explore specific leadership development needs in the third sector. Common across all of these leaders was that they had reflected long and hard about their own leadership and the development of their organisation’s leaders. Indeed, they are all active writers on leadership in one form or another.
My conclusion from these conversations is that there is a real danger of leaders in third sector organisations feeling patronised by ‘outsiders’ who make wrong assumptions about the state of the sector. In fact, I am realising that the commercial world has much to learn from how leaders in the third sector operate.
I am delighted to inform you that Debra Allcock Tyler will be writing a guest blog for the TPC website on this very topic in the next few weeks.
