“I’ve been fortunate because where I’ve worked, I have been able to make a difference – certainly in the longer term if not immediately.”
Dame Mary Marsh, who for 25 years has headed up organisations dedicated to public good, does a smart job of summing up the appeal of public leadership.
Marsh steps down this month from the Clore Social leadership programme, where she set up and for seven years has run an innovative scheme to develop future social leaders. In that time, 101 fellows have passed through the programme and will have benefited immeasurably from Marsh’s calm, authoritative advice, based on her years of experience as a public leader, first in secondary schools and then as head of the NSPCC.
That depth of experience has seen her hugely in demand for other roles over the past decade. She chairs the state honours and philanthrophy honours committees, is on the board of the main honours committee, and in October 2012 was called upon by the then-minister for civil society, Nick Hurd, to review leadership and skills in the voluntary sector. No surprise then that at the 2012 Third Sector Excellence Awards she was given the Luke Fitzherbert Lifetime Achievement Award.
But what Marsh has particularly brought to her public work is a deep understanding of the commercial world. Unusually for a teacher, she did an MBA at the London Business School while working as a deputy head, and that has informed much of her thinking about workforce development in the social sector. It has also led to other positions. She’s been a non-executive director of HSBC since 2009 and has kept close links with her alma mater, where she has been chair of the international alumni council and a member of the governing body since January 2010.
So as well as making a difference to the lives of children as a teacher and charity worker, Marsh has had a real passion for developing the people who work for and with her. “In schools, you’re trying to do the best by the students, but you’re doing your best by everyone else as well,” she says.
One of the valuable lessons she learned is how to develop her staff – and then, not always easy, let them go. “When people move on, I say no problem. If you create a situation where people grow and flourish, more people will come ... that’s been a strong driving force all the way through,” she says.
Another has been seeing the bigger picture, something she attributes to an unlikely source, her degree in geography. “I loved the arts, I was fascinated by languages, I was quite good at maths and science, but I’ve always been fascinated by the world. Geography gave me that big picture,” she says. That idea of being more connected with a wider world, rather than just being, say, focused on education, was also what led Marsh to do her MBA in the late 80s, and is also part of her constant focus on developing people and being involved in government policy issues. “What world are they going to be in? Not the world as it is right now,” she says. Working with organisations such as Business in the Community and the government has always been important for Marsh.
There’s a core mantra for the Clore social leadership programme: know yourself, be yourself, look after yourself. It’s something Marsh takes to heart. Resilience is a vital leadership attribute, although luck has something to do with it, too – Marsh says she’s been especially lucky in having had very good health.
Having great support networks is also vital. “Some people, when they come into the chief executive role, seem to be surprised by the loneliness,” she says. “It is important that you have peer group networks, where you are safe, where you can share things.”
But above all, for this chief executive now going into a new phase of her career and expanding her board positions in new roles, living by her values is the most important thing of all. “My values are very important to me and I’ve always had it in my schools; I had it at NSPCC and for Clore Social now. Courage is another clear driving value which I’ve had.”
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