People are not born leaders, they become leaders through training, direction from other leaders, and from acquiring experience. But how can charities spot future leaders and ensure they are given the support they need to flourish?
The first problem is getting talented young people into the charity sector. Alex Swallow is the founder of Young Charity Trustees, a group that supports both young trustees and promotes trusteeship as an option for young people. He says trusteeship is a great way to involve young people and excite them about working in the charity sector as a career.
He also says initiatives such as the graduate programme Charityworks, which provides non-profit organisations with a way of finding and developing talented graduates, “really make a difference”. The programme also offers graduates a chance to gain work experience. “I wish they had been around when I left university,” adds Swallow.
Emma McGowan, business development manager at Charityworks, says the programme was set up because many organisations were saying they needed a different type of talent, and struggled to attract graduates if they didn’t have a high profile brand. “Graduates were telling us that, as a sector, we’ve actually made it pretty hard to break into. Many can’t afford to do a series of unpaid internships, nor do they want to get stuck in an admin position. So we’re acting as a single point of entry for talented young graduates seeking a socially motivated career, while creating a graduate programme for the whole sector, as many organisations would struggle to resource or fund their own scheme.”
Learning from the experience of others is especially vital, be it through mentoring or more informal methods. Swallow says: “Career progression through the sector can sometimes be unclear. Simply having senior charity leaders speak out and be open about their own career stories, warts and all, can help immensely.
Tony Elischer, leader of Think Consulting Solutions, talks of a leadership crisis and says it’s never been harder to find, and more importantly keep, great people. “As long as turnover remains high, we’ll never get the traction, respect and results that we need. The only solution to this problem is to grow, nurture and invest in leadership.”
He argues that this isn’t as simple as merely training people, but that it’s about focusing on personal development, which has dropped off the radar due to financial pressures. Small charities recognise the importance of retention, he adds, but often the bigger ones just throw money at hiring a good replacement as opposed to investing in development. “Often when skills leave, charities will have to replace it – rather than having developed talent internally. There are pockets of good practice but no real momentum to deal with this.”
One charity that has recognised the importance of investing in people is Alzheimer’s Society. Brett Terry, director of people and organisational development, has a commitment to recognising and nurturing talent and the charity runs an internal development programme, called Leadership from Inside Out.
Terry says that you don’t know someone’s true potential until they are given an opportunity to demonstrate it: “you identify talent by giving it a chance to shine.”
He says that it is also important to recognise that doing things differently is not necessarily wrong. “As leaders, I have a fear that we try and produce future leaders in our own likeness. We shouldn’t prescribe set methods, because then we impose the limitation of our own past experience.”
Ultimately, it is about practicing what you preach says Terry, and that’s why he is committed to showing others they have a realistic chance of progressing their careers at Alzheimer’s. “I have a clearly stated succession plan and have said when I will move on. I want at least three people in my team to be applying for my job when I leave. People believe the message if they believe the messenger.”
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