Is there a need to rethink leadership for the voluntary sector?

This blog is written by Dr James Rees, the former Director of the Centre for Voluntary Sector Leadership.

After the recent tumultuous ‘snap’ election, sector bodies waited with baited breath to find out who would be announced as the new Minister for Civil Society (former incumbent Rob Wilson having lost his Reading East seat).

Tellingly, it was a full week before the announcement was made, and in a further sign of the Government’s waning interest in voluntary sector issues the civil society brief was folded into the Sport, Heritage and Tourism portfolio: there is no longer any mention of civil society in the junior minister’s title. Behind the scenes, the Office for Civil Society has itself quietly slipped from the Cabinet Office to DCMS in recent years.

Nevertheless, sector figures cautiously welcomed the appointment of Tracey Crouch – and this blog certainly intends no criticism whatsoever of her. The point here is that given the background described above and the fact that an already weak – even unstable – minority Conservative government is likely to be consumed by the fallout from the UK’s intention to leave the EU, it is appropriate to ask what this means for the locus of strategic leadership of the voluntary sector as a whole.

Although this has been coming for some time, in my view the present political landscape entails a hard conversation, and indeed a shift of mindset from those seeking to represent and lead across the voluntary sector. Should sector leaders look to government for a lead at all? It also begs hard questions about the way the sector represents itself.

Leadership ‘of’ the sector

In a study of leadership of and across the voluntary sector in 2012, Heather Buckingham and colleagues at TSRC noted that leaders seeking to provide leadership had to be politically astute in reading the policy environment, and ‘socially skilled’ in motivating others to cooperate. A key part of this is negotiating numerous forms of legitimacy which are hugely important in the voluntary and community sector.

But this all assumed a relatively engaged and functioning Government that had an interest in leading on policy. Government now appears, frankly, to be sclerotic and disengaged. That's not to say it doesn't remain an important stakeholder with some key functions, but what does it mean for the sector if it cannot or will not take a real lead?

It may be for instance that without second guessing government or expecting a lead, it can represent itself with a more confident and expressive voice – stressing its strengths rather than its supposed subordinance. This was one message of the recent Lords committee report on charities. This could prove beneficial for the sector’s sense of its independence and as a consequence the degree of trust placed in it by wider society. But it begs multiple questions about who can play this leadership role, and how they do it. I don’t necessarily mean individual ‘figurehead’ leadership but a recognition of the 'ecology' of complementary organisations, voices and networks.

Because an ever-present challenge (yet paradoxically source of resilience) for the sector is its sheer scope and diversity. On the one hand it might seem attractive to imagine it can get closer to speaking with 'one voice' – but in reality what is sometimes said to unite the sector – mission, voice, values – is not necessarily the case. And it is therefore quite right to question whether the sector can continue to hang together in a 'strategic unity' to use Pete Alcock's phrase.

One implication might be a serious recognition of the need to lead in an increasingly decentered collaborative environment.

6th July 2017