Sector in danger of lack of leadership development

Charities are in danger of neglecting leadership potential, as they chase a shrinking funding pool, a director of a major initiative on social leadership said today.

Dame Mary Marsh, director of the Clore Social Leadership Programme, who will be speaking on 12 February at the HR Society's President's Forum, believes that while the challenges in the not for profit and charity sectors are significant, a lack of planned and supported development opportunities will hamper third sector leadership and therefore its capacity to deal with a rapidly changing environment.

"There is a real gap in the need for sustained and holistic development of senior people in the Third Sector and in depth opportunities to acquire new skills," she said.

"Many charities are so focused in delivering benefits to their constituents, they are unable to focus on the needs of their leaders to develop, which has potentially significant consequences for organisations which will be looking at delivering services in the community."

Dame Mary believes that in an already challenging year, the need to develop leadership potential is acute, but that charities find such expenditure difficult to justify.

"My presentation at the HR Society in February will be looking at my own leadership journey and presenting the model for leadership developed as part of the Clore Social Leadership Programme," she said.

"But I'm also looking to HR practitioners to contribute to the model, point out what we might have missed and to discuss ways of trying to build in funding for leadership development as core to their budget.

"I'm also interested to know how we might facilitate better connections between the public and private sectors to equip Third Sector leaders with skills they might not otherwise have, given the sector in which they operate."

Andrew Mayo, president of the HR Society, said: "The Third Sector needs really effective leadership and much of this can be provided by experienced leaders from the private and public sectors. But this has to be in parallel with internal development planning. This Forum is a great opportunity to learn about and debate these challenges."