Real World Group – PPMA

AI & Leadership: Getting It Right

PPMA — Fri, 31 May 2024 06:22:36 +0000

Hello PPMA members and friends

How we get the most out of AI is on everyone’s agenda and in this post our good friends and supporters Real World Group explore some of the pros and cons to consider, especially around it’s use in leadership assessment.

In today’s rapidly evolving technological landscape, the integration of AI into various business functions is inevitable. However, the question remains: should AI replace traditionally human-directed activities, particularly in leadership assessment?

While AI offers efficiency and data-driven insights, relying solely on it for leadership evaluation can be problematic. Leadership is inherently human, involving emotional intelligence, empathy, and contextual judgment—qualities that AI cannot fully replicate. Here’s why:

The Human Touch in Leadership

Leadership involves more than just metrics and performance indicators. It requires understanding team dynamics, motivating employees, and making ethical decisions. These nuances are difficult for AI to capture. Human leaders bring empathy, intuition, and personal experience to their roles—elements that AI lacks.

The Limits of AI

AI excels at processing large datasets and identifying patterns. However, it falls short in areas requiring subjective judgment and ethical considerations. For example, AI might identify a high-performing employee based on metrics but may overlook issues like team morale or workplace culture.

In addition, the insights AI can provide on individuals within a company depends on the quality of information that is input into the computer system. Few companies have the maturity of culture that mean there is sufficient quality data being captured on a routine basis about employee behaviours for AI to be able to conduct analyses in a useful way for understanding effective leadership.

Conclusion

Incorporating AI into leadership assessment can enhance decision-making, but it should not replace human judgment. Leaders should leverage AI as a tool while retaining the essential human elements that define effective leadership. This hybrid approach ensures a more holistic and accurate evaluation of leadership capabilities.

For a deeper dive into why leadership assessment should not solely rely on AI, you can read the full article here

Juliette Alban-Metcalfe, CEO, Real world Group

Surviving and Thriving Through Disruption – A Research Paper From Real World Group And PPMA

PPMA — Thu, 25 May 2023 08:05:29 +0000

Hello PPMA members and friends

At the recent PPMA Conference, Real World Group in partnership with PPMA, launched a research paper on organisational and individual resilience. This paper, written by Professor Beverly Alimo-Metcalfe, Founding Director of Real World Group and Juliette Alban-Metcalfe, their CEO, summarises this research and explains the psychology relating to how to strengthen individuals’ wellbeing, engagement in change, and their resilience.

It also addresses the important question as to how to build resilience in the culture of teams, to be able to face future challenges with confidence and maintain high levels of engagement and performance. The aim is to provide practical suggestions that leaders can adopt to enable them to support their teams, based on Real World Group’s own research into the nature of Engaging Leadership and from the wider literature.

Part of the foreward was written by Gordon McFarlane and here is what he says:

With the current pressures on us all in the public sector, I would be surprised if organisational and individual resilience does not sit in the top 5 or 10 concerns of most local authorities. We know that there are high levels of stress, poor mental health and depression, and that in some cases this is resulting in burnout.

It is important to have a focus on this as a starting point, but to look at positive wellbeing, and then to how we individually and collectively can thrive. This paper, which brings together various pieces of research, is very timely and fits perfectly within the PPMA’s stated priority areas.

I’m delighted to be able to collaborate and that the PPMA is associated with this important piece of work. The paper contains a wealth of practical thoughts, considerations and challenges for organisations, leaders and managers.

Whilst there is no silver bullet, it is clear that there are approaches that we should all be adopting, and things that we can do that will make a real positive difference.

It’s certainly worth reading and here’s a link to the full paper RWG – White Paper – Surviving and thriving through Disruption- 23

Understanding Psychological Safety

PPMA — Thu, 16 Feb 2023 07:52:42 +0000

Hello PPMA members and friends

This week’s post is all about understanding psychological safety has been written by our good friends and supporters Real World Group, who as you will probably know, are leading experts in the field of leadership and teamworking. This thought piece looks in more depth at psychological safety and how it can and must be embedded in organisations by their leaders. We’re delighted that Juliette Alban-Metcalfe, Real World Group CEO, is one of the keynote speakers at our Annual Conference on 27th April at the Hilton Metropole Birmingham – you can find out more on our website

“The Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted almost all aspects of people’s lives. What was believed to be generally predictable has suddenly become extremely uncertain, and severely disrupted, including:

physical safety
financial safety
career safety
family & domestic safety & relative calmness
social relations & support
our work identity and all that brings.

All of these factors can severely drain employees’ psychological resources, and increase stress, anxiety, and depression, resulting in significantly reduced wellbeing. Richard Boyatzis, a US psychologist, goes so far as to state that the disruption to our lives and threats to our livelihood, concerns for our family have become a bigger source of threat than the virus itself.

As the boundaries between home and work life become blurred and confusing, leaders in organisations must accept the fact that this combination of factors has the potential to considerably damage employees’ confidence, mental health, and productivity. There is also the added pressure of being susceptible themselves to the same forces.

Whilst the success of the vaccination programme and the anticipated freedoms from lockdown bring hope for the semblance of a return to a ‘new normal’, leaders must also prepare their teams to be adaptable and resilient to meet the inevitable, unforeseen disruption in the weeks, months, and possibly years to come.

The case for needing to make the working environment – whether physical, virtual or hybrid – ‘psychologically safe’ has never been stronger.

The Case for Psychological Safety

The enormous challenges facing organisations in this Covid-world make it essential that they not only protect employees’ wellbeing, but also encourage and support teams in being able to work collaboratively, realise the benefits of diversity, adapt rapidly, solve complex problems, and innovate.

A critical factor emerging from research into high-performing teams is the concept of ‘psychological safety’, which has been described by a leading academic in the field, Harvard Professor Amy Edmondson, as: “a belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns or mistakes.” Basically, it is a belief shared within a team, that you can be yourself, and are respected and accepted as such.

In a formative research study that she and colleagues conducted to identify what distinguished high- from low-performing teams, it was found that high-performing teams initially seemed to make more mistakes. However, on deeper investigation it was realised that high-performing teams didn’t actually make more mistakes than low-performing teams, they just admitted to making more mistakes. The explanation for the difference was that the culture of their team was a safe environment in which to do so. In other words, the teams that regarded failure as an acceptable outcome were able to exploit mistakes as learning opportunities, work collaboratively to improve their results, and innovate.

Psychological safety is “a belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns or mistakes.”

Professor Amy Edmonson

Edmondson’s research was conducted in US healthcare organisations, where mistakes can cost lives. Here, previous research has shown that 70 to 80% of medical errors are related to interactions within the health care team[1]. It is worth noting that the teams in her research comprised a range of professionals with particular specialisms, and of different hierarchical status, which could, in principle, create potential tensions, distrust, and reluctance to share information or knowledge, and undervalue contributions of those from other specialities.

The key determinant of the exceptional success of the high-performing teams was that they created a culture in which each member was respected and valued for their particular knowledge, expertise and opinion, regardless of status or speciality. This makes the finding highly relevant for organisations in Covid-times as they face extraordinarily demands that require bringing together teams of individuals with a range of perspectives, expertise and experience to work on complex and novel problems.

In another study conducted in a very different business, entitled Project Aristotle, Google spent two years trying to discover what was it about their most effective teams that enabled them to deliver exceptional results. Prior to this project, Google had already spent millions of dollars over decades trying to understand team effectiveness, and create ‘the perfect team’, but when those initiatives did not deliver the expected results, Project Aristotle was born[2].

Google’s initial assumption was that outstanding teams succeed because they are equipped with a collection of the right blend of people and competencies. This was not, however, the case. Rather, it was found that:

Teams which included individuals with a range of similar competencies, skills or experience, even with some of the same members, produced varying results.
Variables such as strong management, team structure, seniority of members, length of experience, size of team, gender mix, provided no significant correlations with success.
The key factor to emerge was the norms by which the team worked together.

The secret of the success of outstanding teams was that the way in which they worked together emphasised the importance of a balance of ‘human-centred’ characteristics, of which psychological safety was always at the top of the list.

Project Aristotle’s Key Characteristics of High-Performing Teams:

Psychological safety: individuals within the team felt safe and supported in taking risks without the anxiety of feeling insecure or embarrassed
Dependability: each member was trusted to do their best for the team and to complete high-quality work, on time
Structure and clarity: there were clear roles, goals, and plans as to how the results would be achieved
Meaning of work: the work was purposeful and satisfying to every member of the team
Impact of work: everybody on the team believed that their efforts were directly contributing to the achievement of the goals of the organisation.

Subsequent research by psychologists has gathered evidence that a climate of psychological safety plays a crucial role in organisational success by strengthening:

Learning: by sharing information or ideas; asking for help; discussing concerns, problems, mistakes
Adaptative behaviour: flexibility and agility in responding to a rapidly changing environment
Risk Management: by questioning and challenging existing organisational practices; identifying risks
Innovation: by facilitating and encouraging brainstorming, thinking out-of-the-box; testing new ideas
Proactivity: by actively encouraging individuals to use their initiative to improve the current situation by challenging the status quo and making suggestions
Job Satisfaction & Meaning: because people feel heard, valued and respected by colleagues/boss; can express doubts and anxieties, have a clearer idea of purpose
Wellbeing: by encouraging individuals to express their fears and anxieties, express their concerns, and seek help and support from others
Engagement: by enabling all of the above, and be accepted for who they are, have a clear sense of purpose, which enables individuals to express themselves in the work they do, and feel appreciated, and become more committed to the job.

The pressing question is how is a culture or climate of psychological safety created?

The role of Leadership in creating Psychological Safety

It has long been known that organisational culture and climate are strongly influenced by leadership behaviours and role-modelling, and vice versa. Many studies have confirmed this association, including our own research at Real World Group.

Following this pattern, it can be seen that behaviours and role-modelling by leaders are crucial to the creation and maintenance of a climate of psychological safety. A US research study, conducted pre-Covid, found that leadership behaviours described as ‘leader inclusiveness’, significantly predicted psychological safety in teams.

The researchers define leader inclusiveness as: “words and deeds by a leader or leaders that indicate an invitation and appreciation for others’ contributions. Leader inclusiveness captures attempts by leaders to include others in discussions and decisions in which their voices and perspectives might otherwise be absent.”

Analysis of recent findings from a global survey by McKinsey, conducted during the current crisis, identified two aspects of leadership behaviour and role modelling that have an indirect effect on psychological safety. They label them:

Supportive leadership: demonstrating concern and support for team members; understanding their individual needs
Consultative leadership: consult team members, solicit input, and consider the team’s views on issues that affect them.

Each was found to directly and significantly influence ‘a positive team climate’, which then predicted psychological safety.^[3] Unsurprisingly, the survey found that a command-and-control style of leadership was detrimental to psychological safety.

All the studies cited in this paper have emphasised the critical importance of the most senior managers role-modelling these behaviours, as well as team leads throughout the organisation, in order to ensure that psychological safety is found throughout the culture.

Enabling high performance requires more than creating an environment of psychological safety

The demands of leadership required in this time of extraordinary and unpredictable challenges, requires a more complex model than being supportive, consultative, and inclusive, although they are indisputably essential for creating a climate of psychological safety.

Other demands include:

How to unite employees behind a shared vision?
How to encourage continuous improvement & innovation?
How to empower people effectively?
How to encourage readiness for change/change readiness?
How to strengthen team adaptability to change?
How to strengthen team potency (confidence to cope with pressure and achieve goals)
How to increase collaboration between teams or other groups of stakeholders inside or external to the organisation?

The leadership behaviours that are described in Engaging Transformational Leadership [4] have never been more needed by organisations worldwide. Those familiar with the model will appreciate the range of behaviours included that overlap with the positive leadership attributes described throughout this article as ensuring psychological safety. In addition are a wide range of behaviours that both our research and that of others around the world have shown are the key to the leadership demands described above.

The model shows the various scales in each cluster, which include behaviours of support and consultation, and inclusiveness – namely those emphasised in the studies cited above.

The emphasis is on serving, supporting, and empowering others to display leadership themselves. It is about being respectful, approachable, accessible and transparent, and encouraging and welcoming the ideas of others, irrespective of level or status. It reflects the desire to see the world through the eyes of others, and to take on board their concerns, aspirations, needs, and perspectives on issues, and to work with their ideas.

Another theme is to encourage questioning and challenging of the status quo and to ensure this happens by creating an environment in which these ideas are encouraged, listened to and truly valued; and in which innovation and entrepreneurialism is encouraged. A culture that supports development is created, in which the leader is a role model for learning, and in which the inevitable mistakes are exploited for their learning opportunities. Leadership acts as a ‘cognitive catalyst’.

It contains a persistent theme of ‘connectedness’ and bringing people together, emphasising collaboration, teamworking, and of removing barriers to communication and ideas, whether between individuals at different levels, or in different teams and departments, or with clients, outside ‘stakeholders’ and partners.

The model forms the basis of various diagnostic developmental instruments, including the TLQ 360. This assessment includes a range of ‘impact measures’, which explore the effect the leader being assessed is having on their employees’ motivation, job satisfaction, self-confidence and work-related stress, and wellbeing. This has enabled us to test its validity, and that of related team, and organisational tools.

Among the research we have undertaken that explore what kind of leadership culture high performing, innovative teams have are two 3-year longitudinal investigations. To summarise the findings, the data provided evidence that, embedding Engaging Transformational Leadership significantly predicted:

Team engagement
Team wellbeing
Improvement
Quality
Innovation.

Similarly, and particularly important given the increasing number of employees experiencing high levels of stress, burnout and poor mental health arising from the pandemic, findings obtained in a recent study conducted by researchers at Ohio State University, are noteworthy. They concluded that:

“Business leaders who are attentive to employees’ emotional needs and unite them behind a common purpose made a positive difference and helped workers stay engaged at work and contribute to their communities…”

Despite this unsurprising fact, it is disappointing to note that there is evidence from a McKinsey global survey which found that very few business leaders were rated as often demonstrating the positive behaviours that can instil this climate.[5]

Some final thoughts

As organisations experience unprecedented challenges in manoeuvring through the disruptions and uncertainties of the effects of the pandemic, they must place the morale and wellbeing of all their employees centre stage, not simply on moral grounds, but because they are the very means of achieving success.

The evidence is clear that a culture of psychological safety provides a rich environment for generating ideas, innovation, learning, sharing information and expertise, flexibility and agility in response to change. As discussed, these are all invaluable resources, particularly during a time of disruption.

Since leaders, particularly those in the most senior positions, either create or inhibit such a culture, this approach is central to how they must lead. What is needed are simple and, to a large extent, common-sense behaviours, but at the same time they are the enactment of essential values, beliefs and attitudes of managers.

Sadly, these behaviours are far too often missing in the culture of organisations. Our evidence suggests that they can, however, be learned. Going forward, organisations should both ensure that they are embedded in the DNA of what is expected of leaders, and provide leaders with the opportunity to reflect on and develop the extent to which they enact these behaviours. Through this, a true culture of psychological safety can be created so that individuals, organisations, and the customers or communities they serve can thrive.

References

[1] Schaefer, Helmreich, & Scheideggar, 1994 cited in Nembhard & Edmondson, 2006, p. 942

[2] Duhigg, C. ‘What Google learnt from its quest to build the perfect team’, New York Times Magazine, Feb 25^th 2016

[3]McKinsey ‘Psychological safety & the critical role of Leadership Development’, Feb 2021

[4] Alimo, B.M. & Alban-Metcalfe, J. (2012) The Need to Get More for Less. In Management Articles of the Year, Chartered Management Institute, London. https://realworld-group.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/award-winning-cmi-management-article-of-the-year-570f8269a01a9.pdf

[5]McKinsey ‘Psychological safety & the critical role of Leadership Development’, Feb 2021

Addressing the Major Barriers to Diversity in Executive and Senior Leadership

PPMA — Mon, 16 Jan 2023 15:07:47 +0000

Hello PPMA members and friends

This new blog post, was written by our good friends and supporters at Real World Group and explores how selection processes can block leaders from underrepresented groups from senior posts in recruitment or promotion. We hope that you find it a useful resource.

In recruitment or promotion, assuming that everything has been done to ensure a diverse pool of candidates exists, many significant barriers to fairness can remain in the formal stages of the recruitment or promotion process.

Unconscious Bias in Recruitment, Selection and Promotion
Improved awareness of “unconscious bias” shows that a major barrier to a level playing field can be somewhat homogenous or limited experiences and world views of those sifting CVs or who sit on interview panels. This issue needs to be addressed by having a diverse interview panel and group of assessors, and ensuring that everyone who is on the panel has undertaken unconscious bias training.

Potentially Biased Leadership Selection Criteria – A barrier for Candidates from underrepresented Groups
Alongside unconscious bias, one of the most insidious, and often least considered barriers that remains for candidates from underrepresented groups can be the criteria applied to evaluate whether an individual is likely to be successful in the role. What commonly happens here is that the success factors (or criteria) being applied in the selection or promotion process are drawn up based on profiling current, effective performers in that or a similar role. This often includes how they tend to lead and the typical career path that led them there or the qualifications they have. This might initially seem like a sensible approach.

However, the problem is that we know from decades of research that there can be significant differences in leadership style and career path between equally effective people based on demographic differences such as ethnicity and gender. Therefore, basing leadership criteria on typical factors that are common to individuals in a role – considering that leadership roles are typically held by a less than diverse group of people – introduces a major barrier in front of different but potentially as successful approaches and individuals.

It also means that the organisation is unlikely to experience fresh and new ways of achieving success in such roles – even when the organisation says that is what they want. Furthermore, on the occasions when an individual from an underrepresented group does make it past these potentially biased criteria, they can find that the mould they are expected to fit into can significantly stifle their true potential and value to the organisation – which could be much more than has been achieved in that role in the past.

How can we look to minimise unconscious bias and proactively promote diversity & inclusion from underrepresented groups of candidates?

Inclusive Leadership Model
The Real World Leader is a leadership assessment tool that enables organisations to have much greater confidence that the criteria for success being assessed are not biased towards the typical demographic of senior leaders in the UK. This is because the Engaging Transformational Leadership model which the Real World Leader is designed to assess was developed using a very diverse sample of leaders, and has been further validated in this regard. Still today, many leadership models that are popular have not been developed in an inclusive way.

Enable Diverse Candidates to shine
We also know from data analysis of genuine, in-role feedback ratings of white female leaders and both male and female Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) leaders that the types of leadership behaviours that are assessed by the Real World Leader are areas in which they are often rated higher than white males by their peers or direct reports. What all of this means is that the Real World Leader is significantly less likely than tools not developed in this way to contribute bias to the recruitment or selection process, and it is more likely to enable diverse candidates to shine.

The double-benefit of assessing more appropriate and challenging leadership skills
It is important to note that the criteria assessed by the Real World Leader are not “easier” or less challenging than the criteria that are typically applied in senior leadership assessment, nor are they less relevant. If anything, the Real World Leader assesses leadership that is much more relevant than what is typically applied today. The Engaging Transformational Leadership model is one of the world’s most proven models, and has a wide range of published evidence demonstrating that these leadership behaviours not only predict improved performance, but they are also strongly correlated with improved innovation, collaboration, readiness for change, self-confidence, motivation, reduced stress, achieving more with less, and many other positive factors in organisations. They are exactly what is needed in today’s turbulent and uncertain world.

The behaviours go beyond what is usually assessed – such as personality factors that are said to be more or less likely to make you successful, or those that could lead you to derail yourself. They enable an organisation to explore whether the individual they are considering is someone who will not only perform well, but who will maximise the potential of people around them, and thus multiply success for the organisation. And as the famous leadership guru, Warren Bennis, famously said, “The “soft” stuff is the hard stuff”.

The Business Case for Adopting the Real World Leader into your Executive and Senior Recruitment, Selection and Promotion Process
This double benefit, then, means that in using the Real World Leader as part of a senior recruitment or promotion process means that not only is the organisation able to assess all candidates effectively against the most relevant leadership criteria for today’s challenging world, but they are also increasing the chances that leaders from underrepresented groups will have a fair chance to demonstrate their unique talents and aptitude to lead.

Our wide experience and research has led us to understand what the key behaviours are of leaders who increase diversity and inclusion in their organisations. We can cross-reference the most powerful of these to the leadership model behind the Real World Leader, for example the dimensions of Motivating & Developing Others; Being Available and Approachable; Valuing Others’ Contributions & Providing Clear Expectations.

We have also been able to demonstrate that leaders who enact these types of behaviours not only increase engagement among underrepresented groups, but also among the majority group members – creating a win-win situation (alongside substantial cost savings – in one case £12.5mil). In other words, leaders who are successful in enacting the behaviours assessed by the Real World Leader are more likely to have direct reports who feel that they are treated fairly and valued for their individual strengths – thus enhancing diversity and inclusion themselves

Find out more about how you can reduce bias in selection and promotion.

If you are looking to enhance your senior leadership selection process, contact kirsty.beasley@realworld-group.com

[/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

We Need Entrepreneurs and Vision at Every Level

PPMA — Wed, 02 Oct 2019 08:00:56 +0000

Hello PPMA Friends

Our blog post this week has been written by Juliette Alban-Metcalfe, Chief Executive of Real World Group, who are one of our wonderful strategic partners. They are experts in the field of leadership and provide robust and valid leadership diagnostic tools and below Juliette talks about the importance of building a shared vision in our organisations and beyond.

“Among the many changes to the way public services work now and in the future is the new commercial reality they must embrace. Private sector partnerships, commercialising services, developing Council-owned trading companies, and ensuring effective, sustainable commissioning are all more important to survive and thrive than ever before.

In addition to this, the seismic reduction in local government budgets means that in order to continue to make communities great places to live in spite of significantly fewer resources, local authorities need to be innovative and entrepreneurial at every level internally in how they achieve their aims.

In short, we need to ensure that Council employees from the Executive level to the frontline are in many ways entrepreneurs who think and talk in realistic, fair, commercial terms. Wherein lies the first cultural challenge – language. Less so than in the past, but still an issue, is that for a great many people in public services, “commercial” is regarded as a dirty word. People talk of having joined the public sector for the good of the community, not to chase profit, and the idea of having to behave in what are often regarded as “private sector” ways initially jars with their personal values. They don’t feel that “trading”, “profit”, and “loss” should be concepts that are allowed to muddy the waters in doing the right thing.

Today’s tough times mean that now more than ever we cannot afford to lose the commitment and discretionary effort provided by so many of our people every day because they feel disconnected from their values. We can only continue to benefit from these if we engage employees through their hearts and minds. Therefore, it is imperative that we find a way to help them retain their passion for what they do, in line with their values, in spite of the rapidly changing world.

Increasing employees’ line of sight around how they contribute to the vision of the Council (however indirect it may initially seem) is a great starting point. How often do we take the time to help people understand their contribution? And how often do we let them know how valued they are for their contribution? Both understanding how they ultimately contribute, and that their contribution is recognised, are two of the key ways in which leaders can (but often fail to) maintain their employees’ motivation to give as much as they can. Even when the goalposts have been moved in such a significant way, this activity will still achieve the desired performance output, as long as senior managers are frank about the realities of today’s financial climate, and allow people to first discharge their negative emotions about the situation, so that they can move forward more positively.

Harnessing the non-negotiables about today’s economic climate – in other words, the imperative to think outside the box and be more innovative rather than to expect additional resources – has a very positive side-effect. Psychology and neuroscience research describe how, by their nature, people are keen to be asked for their ideas and thoughts about how things could be improved, offer constructive criticism of the services they contribute to, have a say over how things are done and how they can best contribute. All of these things enhance their motivation and commitment to the organisation and its vision. However, there are key pitfalls to avoid that organisations often fail to foresee when trying to encourage employee involvement in seeking improvements, whether they are simple requests for contributions, or more sophisticated approaches such as LEAN. Guess what? The factor, once again, is leadership.

Far too often, a drive to change in the way we do things in organisations is missing a fundamental foundation – ensuring alignment and consistency of leadership behaviour with the desired outcome from the very top of the organisation and throughout. Those organisations that are successful in this tend to start by examining their leadership culture, particularly in relation to believing (and acting on the belief) that actively seeking feedback from employees and other stakeholders on how we could improve both the service provided and how we provide it is essential. Their leaders are accessible and not status-conscious, they walk around, talk and listen to people throughout the organisation, including the front line. They don’t have to take on board all suggestions, but they demonstrate that they are genuinely listening, and open to working with good ideas.

Related to this, another derailing factor organisations often encounter is how people are typically treated when they make an error. Do leaders in your organisation genuinely seek to understand the motivations behind an action that resulted in failure before taking action? Or are they more likely to shoot first and ask questions later (if they ask questions at all)? Too often, as leaders under pressure to deliver ourselves, we can forget that very few people turn up to work deliberately trying to screw things up, yet our actions when addressing failure of one sort or another might reasonably suggest this belief. This aspect of culture needs a fundamental examination. A good starting point is observing how Members treat Chief Officers within their portfolio, and how those officers go on to treat their managers, and so on. Is a lack of achievement simply sanctioned, or are all parties keen to examine what can be learned from the situation? The trickle-down effect of leadership culture from the very top cannot be underestimated. If people are afraid to fail, they will certainly be afraid to innovate.

A final cultural factor to consider in ensuring that local authorities are able to embrace new commercial relationships with partners and nurture local business is abandoning the belief that “vision” is only required at senior levels in an organisation. Rather, knowing how to build shared visions of success and how we will get there together is a skill needed all the time by pretty much everyone. It is critical to being able to transcend traditional silos within organisations as well as with the full range of Council stakeholders, such as partners, suppliers, local businesses and the wider community. It helps dismantle barriers created by departments or whole organisations jealously guarding scare resources when they could be better used for shared success. It also helps reduce unfair advantage by one party over the other. Developing this ability at every level is another key to maximising efficiency and creating a win-win between the Council trying to achieve its vision and the ever-changing world around it.”

Juliette Alban-Metcalfe, Chief Executive, Real World Group