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An Evaluation of a Public Sector Leadership Development Programme:
Leadership in times of Austerity
Report for UFHRD: Research Honorarium Middlesex University
2012 – 2013/14
Dr Mary Hartog, Chris Rigby and Dr Doirean Wilson,
Middlesex University Business School
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Contents Page
Summary 3 - 4
Introduction and Background 5 - 7
Theoretical and Practice 8 - 10
Methodology 11 - 13
Findings and Discussion 14 - 37
Conclusions 38 - 41
Recommendations 42 - 43
References 44
Appendix 45 - 47
Figure 1 7
Figure 2 10
Figure 3 37
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Summary
The research project and context
The aim of this evaluation was to reflect and explore the experience and impact of a
leadership development programme for a group of managers from a London Borough,
Children and Young People’s Partnership. 48 managersparticipated in the programmein
three cohortsbetween June 2010 and May 2011.A further cohort took part in 2012. A total
of circa 60 managers have since graduated with a Postgraduate Certificate in Leadership and
Management. The programme was designed and delivered in a partnershipwith Hay Group
and Middlesex University. The context for this programme was organisational change
necessitated by austerity in public service finances. The leadership programme aimed to
help managers deal with change and develop their leadership effectiveness.
The research questions
The aim of this research was to evaluate the impact of the Leadership Development
Programme. On the basis of feedback from UFHRDwenarrowed the focus of the research
from our original six questions to three core questions listed below, helping us to sharpen
our focus of enquiry around the leadership development programme and its evaluation.
What is the interplay between the context of the cuts, change and uncertainty in the
public sector and the programme?
How do participants talk about and reflect on their experience of the programme in
relation to their leadership skills and effectiveness?
What is the impact of the programme and its capacity to add value to the
organisation and the leadership of programme participants?
Findings
Austerity has shaped the context for learning and leadership development.
The experience of the programme has been positive for participants and in
particular, the role of the action learning sets have provided a safe space for
reflection and the containment of anxieties in the midst of turbulence and change.
The programme has added value to individual managers and their work teams, and
in particular, it has helped participants in crafting and clarifying what is important
about leadership to them in their work.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank UFHRD for awarding us a small grant which we have used to fund
this research project. It has been particularly helpful in paying for transcribing interviews
and bringing participants in the organisation together for focus group discussions. We would
like to thank our clientorganisation for supporting this project, especially the Workforce
Development Manager who has facilitated access to participants and the organisation. Last
but not least, we are especially grateful to the participants who have participated in this
research and who have shared their experience and stories with us.
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INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND
Between June 2010 and May 2011, 48 managers from a London Borough Children and
Young People’s Partnership took part, as three cohorts, in a leadership development
programme designed and delivered by Hay Group and Middlesex University. In 2012 a
further cohort took part, resulting in a total of circa 60 managers graduating with a
Postgraduate Certificate in Leadership and Management. This evaluation focuses on the
experience and impact of this programmefor the first three cohorts.
“The aim of this programme is to provide leaders and managers an opportunity to enhance
their core leadership and management skills and competencies, share best practice, develop
their ability to achieve effective performance from the children and young people’s
workforce and foster good working relationships for effective collaborative working. It is
hoped that this will help secure a competent, confident and strong team of leaders and
managers across the children’s services partnership, with the relevant skills and knowledge
to drive change and lead integrated services and practitioners from varied professional
backgrounds” ( Director of Children’s Service, 2010).
The organisational context for this programme has been challenging and remains so. This is
largely due to austerity measures reducing local government finances, resulting in budget
cuts both within the authority and to grant funding for voluntary sector project partners.
Austerity has led to the closure of some services, redundancies and organisational
restructuring and change. Additionally, significant change in the organisation has been at
the level of the senior team in the directorate. During the commissioning of this project
there was a change of director and deputy in the senior team. A number of senior
practitioners in the department also left. Later on, the senior team was joined by a new
head of Social Work.
In 2011/12, we worked with this newly established senior team to familiarise them with the
tools of the programme and to assist them in their development. All the members of this
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team have since left the authority or moved into other posts in the organisation. They were
replaced by new senior team in 2013.
In 2013 we were asked by the then head of social work, to provide follow up support to 16
of the graduates with responsibility for social work and family intervention work to further
facilitate their development and manage change. The follow up took the form of action
learning in small groups and one to one coaching. We are currently delivering the
leadership development programme for another 16 managers and a further 16 are due to
begin the programme shortly. We are now starting to work with the new senior team to
help the organisation move forward and embed the leadership development programme in
a broader HRD agenda. We are hopeful that lessons learned from this study will be carried
forward into this work.
Programme Design
The programme was designed with the following features: 360 Psychometric feedback of
individual leadership styles, a climate survey, a motives questionnaire and a series of
training and development workshops, delivered by Hay; Action learning sets and work
based assignments (including work based projects)were facilitated and supervised by
Middlesex University. We refer to this form of integrated learning based on an in-company
training and development programme, supported by academic provision as a ‘wrap around’
programme, leading to a Postgraduate Certificate in Leadership and Management.
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Figure 1: Postgraduate Certificate in Leadership and Management Framework
Source: Hartog and Frame, in association with Rigby and Wilson (2013: Fig 29.1, pp.206)
The programme begins with a core three day workshop designed to help managers
understand the impact of their own behaviours and attitudes on others and help identify
ways of becoming more effective at work. The main focus here is to improve personal
effectiveness at work. The design of the programme aims to enable all participants to go on
a personal change journey through the provision of 360° feedback about their behaviours
from a selection of people in their team. It involves self assessment as well as other
people’s assessment and provides an opportunity to look at what has got to change and
how it will need to change to enable personal effectiveness.
As the diagram indicates the integrated design of the programme the action learning sets
underpin the workshop programme, with the action learning meetings spread across the life
of the programme and the three assignments linked to the three action learning
sets.Between four to sixparticipants were brought together in small peer groups to form
action learning sets.
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THEORY AND PRACTICE
How literature has informed the design and evaluation of this programme.
Following Revans (1983) we have utilised action learning to support the taught element in
the workshops, combining the benefits of ‘programme knowledge’ with ‘questioning
insight’, an important feature of the reflective process of inquiry that takes place in the
action learning set. The work based project serves as a vehicle for the development of the
individual participants in their leadership and management roles, giving them the
opportunity to apply and test out some of their knowledge and insights in their
practice.Building on Revans, Weinstein (1995) in her approach to action learning employs
theidea of ‘a journey of discovery and development’, in which the project serves to validate
the learning drawn from real work issues and challenges. We found this analogy useful to
share with the participants on the programme. We have coined our approach ‘Learning
from the real’ ibid, since our design for learning aimed to helpthe participants grapple with
the issues they brought to the learning sessions, addressing their individual and collective
leadership and management development needs, rather than the more traditional
classroom based teaching about leadership and management in the abstract.
Additionally we were informed by the approach to action learning of Vince and Martine
(1993) and Reynolds and Vince (2004), whose work highlights the organisation of reflection
as a collective endeavour, rather than solely the reflection of individuals. Moreover, their
approach supports a critical turn toward action learningutilising reflection to explore and
identifying the impact of power, politics and emotions on the practice of leadership and
management. This was helpful to some of our the action learning set conversations, as the
impact of austerity unleashed anger and emotional distress, our aim being to support and
help participants navigate the dilemmas and tensions they were experiencing in this volatile
political organisation environment.
With the participants we also shared Wenger’s (1998) theory of social learning and
communities of practice, particularly where team learning and collective responses to
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organisational change was needed. This seemed to us to be relevant to this work, since
social work is itself a distinct community of practice and how people become
professionalised in this area of work relies on the learning, meaning and identity that
emerges from this setting and what is taken for granted in this cultural milieu.
As part of our own journey of development and discovery, ourunderstanding of the public
sector context, through the work of Hoggett (2006), has been valuable. Hoggett reminds us
of the contested nature of public service and its purpose, where on the one hand, there is a
traditional ethos of public service and on the other, a tension created by the modernisation
agenda of economic efficiencies balanced against service and social justice. He cautions of
the danger of ‘throwing the baby out with the bath water’, highlighting the wicked and
intractable problems managers and leaders in public service face. This seems particularly
relevant to our study in the context of austerity. Picking up the theme of local government
as a contested space and the application and use of action learning in the public sector, the
work of Rigg and Richards (2006) has also helped us see how there is a contested weight of
expectations in the evaluation of action learning, in the extent to which it is regarded as a
performance or development activity, in other words, what carries more weight with the
various stakeholders, for example behaviour change or some other personal or leadership
development outcome.
One aspect of critical literature that has been insightful has been that of discourse theory as
applied to leadership development. Mabey (2012) in his review of leadership development
activity has served to broaden our understanding of this programme in how we now think
and talk about leadership developmentand the different expectations in respect of
itsdesign, purpose and evaluation.The four paradigm perspectives (which in their purest
form are incommensurable) enable us to see more clearly what the different elements of
the programme design are intended to do (or can contribute to). I will return to this in the
discussion of findings, as these perspectives may also provide a way of looking at what is
taking place in action learning sets.
Figure 2: Four Discourses of Leadership and Leadership Development
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Ford, Harding and Learmouth (2008) provide further insight and critique, using discourse
theory to critique leadership as a performative function that serves toshape the identity of
individuals and leadership itself. They regard the language of leadership as problematic and
point out that the very act of naming brings to life that which it describes. They remind us
thatleadership is itself a product of social construction that perpetuates the ‘great man
theory’ contributing to individual perceptions ofa heroic idealleadership of what leadership
should be, serving more as a fantasy than a reality, that can result in a form of psychic
anxiety in leaders and managers about their performance and identity as leaders as they are
pulled between the ideals of what leadership should look like and the wicked and
intractable problems of organisational reality. They argue that the uncritical design of many
leadership development programmesserve to reinforce and fuel this anxiety. Moreover,
they are critical of psychometric tools and caution us to be aware of their limitations,
arguing that they provide a narrow lens from which to reflect on, act and evaluate
leadership behaviours.
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Four Discourses of leader/ship & leadership development
(Mabey, 2012)
a prioriemergent
consensus
dissensus
Functionalist/ normative discourse
Interpretive Discourse
Dialogic Discourse
Critical Discourse
METHODOLOGY
Following the award of the honorarium from UFHRD and the feedback from the panel about
the scope of our research proposal we refined our focus of enquiry and methodology as
follows:
Aim:
To evaluate the impact of the Leadership Development Programme
Research Questions:
Q 1)What is the interplay between the context of cuts, change and uncertainty in the
public sector and the programme?
Q2) How do participants talk about and reflect on their experience of the
programme in relation to their leadership skills and effectiveness?
Q3)Whatis the impact of the programme and its capacity to add value to the
organisation and the leadership of participants?
The client undertook regular evaluation in the form of a feedback questionnaire distributed
to participants after each training workshop and action learning set meeting, enabling Hay
and Middlesex to make adjustments or improvements to sessions based on this feedback, as
the programme progressed. Additionally, the client collected periodic feedback at various
points during the programme to get an overview of participant reactions and perceived
value of the programme over a longer period. The overall impression and feedback given by
participants through the feedback given in response to the client questions suggested that
the programme had made for a positive experience. However, the programme was coloured
by the impact of the recession and the subsequent cuts imposed on local authority
expenditure and thus, we were keen to drill deeper, to understand more fully, the interplay
between the cuts and the programme and in particular, what value our contribution to the
programme made, specifically, the value of the action learning experience to the
participants.
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Research and evaluation in this project are linked. Whilst the research questions provide a
systematic framework of enquiry the overarching questions of evaluation help us reflect on
whether the programme has been a worthwhile intervention. In considering this we are
informed by Easterby- Smith’s (1994) model, the three functions of evaluation: ‘Prove,
Improve and Learn’, which ask the questions: 1) Has the programme delivered what it says it
is going to; 2)Where is there room for improvement;3) What is the learning from this
intervention. Our approach to evaluation is qualitative and developmental. To move
beyond the reactions of the questionnaire feedback sheets and to consider both individual
and organisational benefits from this programme over a longer time-span we have also
drawn on Hamblin’s (1974) model of‘Levels of Evaluation’ which builds on the immediacy of
feedback reactions from the training event to consider the impact on the individual their job
and the organisation.
Our methodological approach was qualitative using interviews and focus groups and
utilising thematic analysis. Additionally, we have further analysed our findings drawing on
discourse theory as applied to Leadership development (Mabey 2012). Applying discourse
theory has enabled us to think and talk more critically about leadership and leadership
development. Moreover, the multiple discourse perspectives have helped us reflect on the
design and evaluation of this intervention, and appreciate the tensions that stakeholder
expectations of this programme can be expected to deliver.
Research activity involved:
• One hour semi-structured interviews x 15
• One Focus group
• 2 interviewers
• Each interview was recorded then transcribed
• End of course evaluation questionnaires
• Reviewing participant assignments to assess impact of work based learning and
development during the programme.
• Informed consent obtained from participants
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The interview schedule was designed using the three areas of questions, which were also
used as a conversational guide in the focus group, and used later used in the process of
thematic analysis. Whilst the interviews and review of projects sampled have proved to be
useful methods for us in data gathering the focus groups have not added the same value.
However, scheduling the interviews proved challenging as staff were busy with key change
projects which expanded the time frame in which data was gathered. In hindsight, using the
same framework of questions as the interviews for the focus groups was not ideal,
compounded by the fact that one of the focus groups was scheduled on a day when
redundancy notices were handed out. This had an inevitable impact on participation and for
the conduct of that focus group as the discussion turned toward supporting
individualsrather than conducting an enquiry.
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FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
Summary of Findings
Question 1:
Exploring the interplay between the cuts and the programme our findings reveal how
redundancy and reorganisation has shaped the context for learning and leadership
development.
Emergent themes include:
Risk of Redundancy &How it Feels (1.1)
How People Reacted (1.2)
The Relationship Between Uncertainty and Anxiety (1.3)
Change, Loss and Consequences (1.4)
1.1 The Risk of Redundancy and How it Feels
The risk of redundancy and cuts affected staff both in the local authority and in partner
agencies. Particularly affected were youth services and non statutory children’s services,
including play groups and children’s centres that received funding through local government
grants. The first round of redundancies began with ‘at risk’ letters being sent to all staff in
the autumn of 2010. This coincided with the early part of the programme for cohort one,
creating a period of uncertainty before decisions were finally made about how the service
would be reorganised, which jobs would be lost and what and who would be left on the 31
March 2011.
With the exception of those working in core statutory social work teams, risk appeared to
be affecting everyone. The practice of issuing ‘at risk of redundancy’ letters to everyone
appeared to confirm this. This section draws out the sub themes under this heading.
Hopefulness and desperation
The data presents a picture of two sides to this experience of risk of redundancy, one where
there is a feeling of hopefulness and the other, one of desperation.
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Sponsorship and political support
Shaping the service was the vision of ‘early intervention’, a strategy for working
with‘troubled families’, known to the service and who can take up significant resources over
time. Early intervention is seen to be a cost effective way of saving monies in the long term
by intervening with these families early on to facilitate good parenting and prevent worst
case scenarios. The following quotations come from two managers whose teams were
involved with this work:
“So, over the period of the first six to nine months of the course, although it was
uncertain for my team, the situation was never as black as it was for others because
it was very high on the agenda for the director that putting in place a team of
people, practitioners working with families, was his vision for the future”.
“All of my team and myself were at risk of redundancy from early December...the
early intervention grant was coming to an end and we didn’t know the allocation” ...
“I think, I was relatively hopeful about my staff and their posts because I knew the
agenda had quite a high profile politically and locally, but there were no givens” ...”I
think all I could do was try and be hopeful without offering any promises because I
knew it would be about the local political agenda here and I knew that that is what
my team would be instrumental in operating...The MAGs was something our director
was very excited about”.
Dislocated and desperate
By contrast, another manager describes the experience between the moment of getting the
‘at risk’ letters and the point at which notification was given of having lost your job, as being
one of “dislocation”. She said:
“It felt as if we were on the edge of a precipice, just waiting to see what would
happen”; and she went on to say: “People’s lives were pulled apart. How would they
afford the mortgage? Would they get other jobs? How would they educate their
children? As well as looking for other jobsthey had to re-apply for their own jobs
and to fill in a million forms of application. It felt demeaning”. She described the
atmosphere as: “numb, desperate and grey”.
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A hierarchy of risk and cuts
Commenting on the political nature of the decisions one manger said “of course we would
never think there was a hierarchy or anything like that, but of course there was a hierarchy.
There was a definite hierarchy”. Confirming this view another manager said:
“the director was very, very keen that the CAF (Children & Families) and Early
Intervention, was the way the Children’s Services was moving”. However, the future
of Children’s Centres was not secure: “We knew there were Children’s Centres that
were going to be closing and they were young low paid staff and that was quite
difficult”. Referring to youth services she said “I work quite closely with colleagues in
the youth services and they were traumatically affected and it was hard to say
goodbye to people that we had worked with, specifically with staff who were
working with and supporting schools”.
On the programme the risk of redundancy was palpable
“Being on the course we were aware that some of those people wouldn’t have jobs
by the end of it. So, it (the risk of redundancy) was very much ‘there’ when I was
doing the course”.
Feelings about leadership
The context of risk and redundancy heightened feelings about how leadership was
experienced by both the managers themselves and their leadership relationship with their
teams. One manager described this as feeling she:
“Wasn’t being led very well”.
In the same vein another manager revealed that she had raised her need for leadership with
her manager:
“When I was doing the modules the staff felt comfortable but I didn’t from higher up
and I think that was my opportunity to say;“Well hang on a minute, it’s a two way
process here. You’ve got to give me something. You have to give me that leadership
and management as well. If I am not getting that, then how can I do it with my staff?
So, I was quite proud of myself”. The same manger had also expressed a desire to
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hear from her staff, and reflecting on a conversation she had with them said: “I am
not an ogre. I want to know how you are feeling, especially in this situation, please
talk to me”.
Caring and feeling cared for
Commenting on the need for reciprocity: to care and be cared for, this manager said:
“I am nothing without my team. Now, I can have an idea and think oh, I am
wonderful, I can go and do this but you can not do it without others. It is the mutual
‘I care, you care. If I look after you, will you look after me’? It has to be. You have to
fill up at the gas station. You have to be able to keep going and that is done by the
dynamic and keeping it healthy”.
Discussion
1.1. The Risk of Redundancy and how it feels
The risk of redundancy and its significant to the background of this leadership development
programme is supported by the evidence. The comments regarding those who felt and
experienced hopefulness and those who experience desperation would suggest that the
direction the organisation was taking in respect of early intervention and multi agency
teams was clear for some participants on the programme (clarity of vision from senior
leadership), whilst others felt much less clear about their future, with the most extreme
cases describing their feelings as being akin to being on the edge of a precipice. In the
context of organisational change there are winners and losers. Whilst government cuts
reduced the overall budget, political and strategic decisions about how to reorganise
services creating long term benefit for work with families through early intervention was the
way forward.
That the risk of redundancy was very much there during the programme certainly reflects
the climate that participants experienced and which we witnessed in our work with them.
That it is described as feeling palpableby one of the respondents conveys well the sense of
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uncertainty present in the organisation and alive to everyone whether they were to be
personally affected by redundancy or not.
Anger and loss provide an indication of the emotional climate that participants were
exposed to. The comments, not being well led and not being cared for, suggest that some
participants felt abandoned and left with adequate leadership during this process of change.
Linked to this one respondent uses the analogy of filling up at the gas station, which
indicates a need to address the capacity of individual leaders and managers to be resilient
and for senior leaders to provide support in building resiliency down the line.
1. 2. How People Reacted
That people reacted differently to the cuts and change taking place around them is perhaps
in itself not surprising. With winners and losers there are gains and losses and depending on
where you worked in the organisation or partnership, the experience could be very
different.
Business as usual
For some it was business as usual, as this manager describes:
“For me and my team it was business as usual, mainly, the usual turbulence, a few
posts that are hard to fill where you might have locums, and they change, but I had a
full team”.
Setting up new teams
Others were busy forming new teams and getting new projects up and running. Referring to
the distress of those around who were facing redundancy, one manager said:
“I had so much to do to be honest with you because I had to recruit this brand new
team... and write all the policies and procedures. I had to start this team from
scratch and I didn’t have time really to get bogged down in what was going on”.
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Concern for survival
For those at risk of redundancy their experience and preoccupation concerned survival
forthem-selves and for the service they were responsible for. As the following quotation
indicates, managers are pulled between their personal concerns and those for a service in
which they have invested a significant part of their professional lives and which may survive
in some shape or form, with or without them.
“So, it has been a nightmare year and the whole time you are thinking ‘will I have a
job’? You might have felt this yourselves (referring to the interviewers, who also
worked as tutors on the programme) ... I had to stop thinking about how this is
going to affect me and look at how it is going to affect the service and what does that
mean for the service and how are we going to fight to keep the services, regardless
of whether I am here or not, what is in the best interests of the service. It has been
so hard because you come back to yourself. Well you do, obviously, because you
think: ‘I’ve got a mortgage to pay, I‘ve got bills, what can I do to save my own job’?
So it has been a bit of a battle in- between what I can do for me and how I can
protect the service”.
Fighting for the service
Fighting for the service was a common response that came up in the action learning sets and
formed for a number of participants the topic and purpose of their practice project. (An
example is provided in a forthcoming book chapter, Hartog and Tomkins, 2014).
Being philosophical about finding another job
Being a qualified social worker provided some people witha greater sense of security that if
they were to be made redundant they had something tangible to fall back on.
“I’ve been through a lot of restructures in my years in local government and I’ve got
social work qualifications, so I felt, ’ well, if I lose my job, I will get some agency work
for a while and see what happen ... I think personally, I was quite philosophical and
tried not to let it get in my way”.
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Discussion
1. 2. How People Reacted
Even in times of change organisations business as usual continues to some degree. At least
for some this was the reality, even where it involved the setting up of new teams, such as
the multi agency teams (MAG’s). For these managers it was a matter of keeping their heads
down and getting on with the job. Others were concerned for survival. For some it was
keeping their own job, whilst for others, it was their service area or project, as well as
themselves that they were concerned to ensure survived the changes that were taking place
in the organisation. Thus, fighting for their part of the service became the primary concern
for some managers and leaders on the programme. For some qualified social workers the
prospect of losing their job was not necessarily a major cause for concern. Compared with
other staff they had more options, such as agency work. For others concern about how they
were going to pay their household bills and pay their mortgage was a major cause for
concern.
1.3. The Relationship BetweenUncertainty and Anxiety
Uncertainty about the cuts, whether funding would be found for projects, what the chances
of employment were for individual managers and their teams was significant. For some the
level of uncertainty fuelled deep personal anxieties that undermined their functioning and
performance in the workplace as the following quotation illustrates:
Will I be next?
Asked what was happening for her in the context of the cuts and being on the programme,
one manager described vividly how worried she was by the spectre of cuts and how it
played on her mind.
“I am not doing very well. My team isn’t doing well because where I though I was
spending time with them I am not spending time worrying about the impact that this
has had on me. Then of course worrying, ‘well, actually, if I am doing a really rubbish
job does that mean I am going to be cut next? ”... “It felt like the span of control of
the people I was managing was reducing. They were still employed; they were there
in the corporate centre, which made me feel like I wasn’t doing a very good job
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because they were being taken away and managed elsewhere. Of course, that was
happening across the organisation. It wasn’t about me and I see that now, but not at
the time”.
Empathy for others
Notwithstanding personal anxieties some felt able to show great empathy to others. One of
the voluntary sector managers spoke about her experience as though putting herself in the
shoes of her staff colleagues:
“I knew how I would feel. It made me think, well how would you feel in their
situation when you weren’t being told anything”...contrasting this feeling with her
own position of distress of not being able to participate in the interviews and
selection of her own staff because her own post was also subject to re-application
and appointment. “It was hard enough for me not being included in that interview
process and picking my staff and finding the right staff for the job”.
In this case was such that staff didn’t know, even if they were re-appointed, who they might
be working for or working with. What is striking here is that HR recruitment and selection
practices contribute to the levels of uncertainty and anxiety expressed, whilst following
procedures and processes designed to ensure equality and fairness yet failing to address the
feelings of staff already in distress.
Anxiety in the collective consciousness
In one interview a manager revealed how she doubted her own sanity in this period and
described anxiety as a product of the collective unconscious.
“I am not entirely sure that I was that sane during that period. I think you get caught
up, unless you are very careful, in the collective consciousness, the anxiety”.
Discussion
1.3. The Relationship between Uncertainty and Anxiety
The uncertainty of not knowing whether you were going to be made redundant fuelled
anxiety in individuals and the organisation, with some individuals wondering‘am I going to
be next’?In some cases, the re-organisation and moving of staff to other areas of the service
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compounded this anxiety. Some reported how they felt for others facing the prospect of
redundancy. The evidence suggests anxiety had permeated the collective consciousness of
the organisation and getting caught up in thisor some individuals had an impact on their
sense of security and well being.
1.4. Change, Loss and Consequences
The cuts invariably resulted in considerable change which affected people in different ways.
Inevitably in redundancy situations people lose their jobs. In this case, it was not solely that
individuals were leaving but that whole teams and distinct parts of the service were to
go.The following is a flavour of how some of the managers described and talked about loss.
Making People Redundant
“So, we did have to make a lot of people redundant. All of us went through a
restructure and we all had to reapply for our jobs, even the Children’s Centre staff.
So, it was obviously a very difficult time that we were going through”. This manager
told us: “When I first started the programme there was 20 of us, now there is nine”.
Losing relationships and professional contacts
A manager working in the voluntary sector said:
“Working with the teenage pregnancy strategy the whole SRE team just went. A lot
of the arts side here in the partnership also went. The youth workers were
decimated. The key people are there. I have good relationships with them and have
over many years, but there is this undercurrent of loss and if you don’t deal with that
loss, grief can be very destructive in many ways” ... I am saddened that I’ve lost
relationships that I had built up, which I have not been able to maintain either
because they just felt too tender or because I have not had the time and never
thought I would be in that situation. That you would know where people go, that you
would maintain contact and that continuity”.
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Workload and stress in the system
Even where the cuts did not directly fall there was evidence of stress in the system. One
manager whose team was not directly affected by the cuts recalled what it was like for him
and the team he worked in:
“I wasn’t affected by the redundancies or the cuts. It seemed to have bypassed my
team that I work in. We work in Safeguarding, so I guess that is deemed a high
priority area and the cuts didn’t touch it at all............In terms of what was going on
for me and my team at that time, I remember it being quite a hectic period. I think
we were going through a period of change, some staff were leaving so that made
things more pressurised in terms of workloads. It was a little bit of a stressful period
to start a training programme. That is how I remember it”.
Challenges for day to day working
On a practical note, a real challenge for day to day workingdescribed by managers was that
of staff turnover affecting continuity of work and as highlighted earlier, relationships:
“ You are dealing with that churn of people...you might have a group, people who
are part of a working team and then the next meeting down the line, say three
months later, they are not there. So, there is an immediate challenge for day to day
working”. Another reflected on the challenge of changing their place of work and
moving into a corporate environment from an old building based in the local area:
“So we moved to The Business Park ...... which was paperless and making huge use
of technology, in a way that all of us had not been used to before... people
complained about it, the building feeling anonymous and impersonal”.
Discussion
1.4. Change, Loss and Consequences
One might describe the sense of loss as systemic. It would colour the learning for many
participants on the leadership programme. Redundancies and re-organisation meant for a
number of the participants they had to reapply for their jobs. One of the consequences of
change was the loss of working relationships and professional contacts such as the example
of the teenage pregnancy services. The youth service was particularly hit hard by
23
redundancies, some would say even decimated. Perhaps not surprisingly, work loads
transferred to others during this period. Staff turnover, described as: the churn of people
had a knock on effect on teams such as, safeguarding, who were protected from
redundancy.
Summary of Findings Question 2:
How participants talked about and reflected on their experience of the programme in
relation to their leadership skills and effectiveness.
Emergent themes include:
That the 360° feedback on leadership styles along with the three core development
days on strategy and change had the greatest impact in participants learning about
leadership and their own leadership styles (2.1)
The role of the action learning sets provided a safe space for reflection and the
containment of anxieties in the midst of turbulence and change (2.2)
The assignments provided an opportunity to embed the learning in the work (2.3)
2.1. 360° Feedback and the Core Development Days
Feedback from managers about the usefulness of the 360° feedback has been extremely
positive, giving them the opportunity to learn about themselves.
Helpful – becoming more aware
“It helped me. The feedback from the staff was really helpful and very challenging to
start with. ....When we did that first questionnaire, which I gave to two senior staff
(one who was on the way out) was strange...... I couldn’t understand the
scores.........and that was interesting, because things I saw as totally insignificant
were obviously a big deal to them and it brought it home to me as well. I consider
myself to be a good people person, to be quite sensitive to the needs of others and
that brought home to me that I was missing out on a lot and not picking up on
things”. “One of the statements....was that I take things too personally. I thought
that was spot on. But I would never had said that about myself”.
24
Powerful – changing behaviour and doing things differently
“I think the 360° feedback was very powerful and I did really learn and think about
doing things differently from that”.
Seeing things differently - a different perspective
“It was very interesting to see the feedback forms. I had this idea that I was a really
directive, stroppy old boss who set really strong targets, and actually, I think my
team think I’m a pussy cat.........that made me relax a little, and realise, maybe I
could ask them to do more”.
On the same note, another said:
“I always thought I was a good leader but it just made me think about how I was
holding them back”.
Finally, one manager described the 360 as akin to “having the staff input to the course”.
“It opened my eyes, it was like a descriptive noise, that helped me to think - if that is
what they are thinking, then this is what I need to do to move on”.
Discussion
2.1. 360° Feedback and the Core Development Days
For a number of participants the 360° feedback served to raise self awareness, reminding
participants of things they already knew but might choose not to reveal about themselves.
For others, it facilitated a change in behaviour, in other words, doing things differently and
for others, seeing things differently, resulting in new insights to their leadership style and
behaviours. It was described as powerful by participants, opening their eyes and helping to
point toward change that they needed to make in their own leadership behaviour.
2.2. The Role of the Action Learning Sets
Action learning sets comprise of small learning groups of circa 5 mangers who in this case
met on three occasions during the life of the programme, with a university tutor/ facilitator
to: explore the challenges of change and austerity that presented in their work, identify
personal and leadership development needs, and undertake a live work based or practice
project work in which they could stretch themselves, apply learning from the programme
25
and that would add value to themselves, their team and service are. For many of the
managers this was new learning experience. However, social work managers remarked on
the similarities between the action learning process and their experience of using reflective
practice and supervision in their work.
A new learning experience
For a number of participants this was new learning experience for them, one which took a
bit if getting used to. But once they were over this newness they found it to be a useful and
supportive learning process, as indicated by the following comments:
“I’ve never experienced anything like that before and I thought initially they were a
bit weird.If I can be perfectly honest, I have had the opportunity to speak so frankly
and openly. I found it a bit uncomfortable initially but that is because I wasn’t used
to talking in that way............and then by the end, I found them really, really, useful”.
Commenting on her first ALS another manager said:
“When I walked in, I thought, I don’t understand why I am here, what is going on?
Then when we all started opening up and talking, listening to the others and their
experience, what they were going through. ...........Just to have that voice, somebody
else saying to you, you are doing something right. You are good at this and maybe
you should think about it this way”.
An Emotional experience
For some participants the action learning experience was emotional in that they were able
to share feelings and anxieties about what was happening as result of the cuts and the
organisational changes. It is not unusual for action learning sets to provide a container for
distress and emotional feelings, or a space in which these feelings may be explored in the
context of the political organisational context in which change is taking place. Commenting
on this process one participant said:
“I think the learning sets were fantastic. It was a really useful way of internalising
and thinking about it (the cuts and changes) and how it was impacting on us. It was
a hugely emotional experience in many ways, but so valuable”.
26
Another said:
“I think actually having that experience really helped me to deal with it (cuts)
because at the time, I was quite thrown and upset about it........I can see that later
on I actually got all the changes I asked for.........When I sat down with people in my
learning set they all had quite similar experiences and I think it was just hearing it
and getting reassurance ... it was part of the process and it was learning from that
and standing back and thinking about some of the forces that were at play”.
Space to think
Crucially, participants reported the significance of the action learning sets in providing them
with a space to think. One manager reflected on the benefit saying:
“If I had that conversation with someone on a daily basis, then maybe, I would be
able to think more strategically about what I am doing and why I am doing it”.
Another said:
“I think for me one of the most immediate impacts was that I would go away
thinking: I have just had that time to think!”.
Another expressed her frustration at not having such a space when the programme came to
an end:
“The most frustrating thing was coming away from the course and then not having
that time. The action learning groups we had were so invaluable just to have that
space, that thinking space...to sit, think and talk and reflect...consider what you are
doing............ and what you might be doing”.
One manager said:
“I thought the action learning sets were really good. It just gave a forum and a
space to discuss thoughts, some of which were quite personal experiences...I
thought that was useful because you don’t have time to do that in any other
capacity, and it gets you thinking as well”.
How the learning is organised
Whilst the process may appear at first, informal, the learning and more importantly, the
reflection is organised to facilitate learning. Building on the value of creating a space to
27
think, we asked, ‘what was it about the action learning process that she thought made it
work’? This manager said:
The structure
“ I think, one, it was the structure, even though it is an informal space, it was actually
structured, in that you are coming here and in this time we will explore what has
been happening...that little space to think and focus your mind,and then having
other people there that help you reflect”.
Another manager suggested thatthe action learning guided and helped focus on the
academic work (the assignments). More so, than what she called the therapeutic side:
A guide to the academic work
“I think in some ways the action learning sets probably helped guide the academic
side more than the therapeutic. There was a bit of that. I was expecting it to be
more therapeutic, sharing information but actually, it wasn’t. It was a bit more
focused in some ways which was fine. It wasn’t necessarily what I was expecting but
it was helpful”.
For another it was:
An opportunity to talk about how you feel about the work
“I found the action learning sets really useful..............................This is an opportunity
to talk about how you feel about the job, the work. Obviously, there has to be some
confidentiality, the feelings that it evokes. If you can do that and get that out of the
way, then you can do the rest of the work so much better, I think”.
One manager talked about how the conversation in the action learning set helped her think
about the need to move on:
“I was looking at workloads for my team and what that meant and if I could make
things easier..... What I came up with in the endwas I couldn’t really change much
but I probably needed to move on, which was where I was”.
Bonding
The sets also served to facilitate bonding and camaraderie, key to helping managers learn
from one-another and lead and manage in challenging and changing circumstances. For
some participants this bond extended beyond the course itself.
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One participant described the experience as follows:
“Action learning sets were enormously helpful in bonding. So, there was a great deal
of honesty and sharing of skills. In my particular set we had a loss of one person who
got another job, gone. So, I had that on the inside and I had my chair on the outside
losing her job and doing the same course, as well.......Just having the delight of not to
put a pretence on about the quagmire I think that we all found ourselves in and the
learning that went with it”.
Asked about the highlights of the learning experience the above manager went on to say:
“I have a special relationship with everyone who was in the set now. I am an
experienced manager, the others were more junior to me and I felt I had something
to offer both with the course context and outside of it”.
Discussion
2.2. The Role of the Action Learning Sets
Traditional action learningutilises a work based project as a vehicle to assist learning and
stretch the leaders’ ability to grapple with and manage their new roles (the task). There is a
danger however, that the action project may be overly valued as the end product, missing
the opportunity for deep learning that a balanced process of reflection can facilitate when
properly regard as a vehicle for learning. With effective facilitation, learning takes place in
the action learning set through a process of reflection and inquiry.The learning set as we
have seen can also provide a container for feelings about work and in this case, the
challengepresents buy change and austerity to the participants. As the evidence has
indicatedthe structure provided in our action learning sets has provided a valuable space to
think, a guide to academic work and a space wherefeelings can be explored without turning
into a pseudo therapy session. The action learning relationship requires both support and
challenge. This would seem to have enabled some strong bonds and relationships in the
workplace to develop, that have continued outside of the programme.
We experienced and witnessed whilst facilitating the action learning sets, an outpouring of
anger and loss which invariably coloured the learning experience for many participants. Our
response as facilitators was to support participants (as described above) giving them
29
permission to talk about their experience in the learning set and write about it in the
context of their assignments.
Additionally, we drew on our knowledge of change theory to help participants better
understand the issues and change processes that were live for them at both a personal and
organisational level. The work of Ibarra, on career transitions and the work of Kubler- Ross,
on loss and bereavement, were some of the academic references /resource that we shared
on the programme. When we first began facilitating these action learning sets, we were
somewhat unprepared for the extent of the feelings that were expressed of loss and anger.
We were concerned for the participants that they should not become overwhelmed by the
distress these feelings evoked and neither did we want to find ourselves overwhelmed by
them and unable to facilitate the work. Recognizing this, we engaged a supervising coach to
facilitate our tutor team during the programme to help us work more effectively and to
learn together about how to facilitate action learning in this context.
2.3. The assignments provided an opportunity to embed the learning in the work
The programme required participants to undertake three work based assignments. The first
involved a review of learning, the second a stakeholder analysis and the third a work based
project. A typical example of how managers used and applied their learning from the
programme workshops was to take ideas back to their teams and incorporate them into
team building and development days. For some managers this kind of activity featured as a
basis for their assignments:
“I actually did a team day, where I included one of the modules within the team day
and got them to say what they felt they were (based on Belbin team roles), which
was brilliant because I could then understand them better and their thinking”.
Discussion
2.3. The assignments provided an opportunity to embed the learning in the work
The example of running a team day as illustrated above was a typical activity that
participant reported undertaking in the action learning sets, drawing on lessons they had
30
learned on the programme, such as team building. Indeed, team activity was used by
participating managers most successfully on the programme as a form of communication
management and as a means of supporting employees during the major organisational
change, restructuring and redundancy process.
Similarly, experimenting with using power and influence to mange up the hierarch,
particularly during the period of budget and resource allocation, was also an activity
reported in the learning sets and featured in assignments. Indeed, one example reported to
us in a set meeting and again during the interviews, was of a manager trying out her new
found negotiating skills with a union representative, reputed to be a difficult character. To
achieve his co-operation on a particular issue, she reported having courted him and getting
him to buy into a strategy outside of the formal meeting space, so that come the meeting,
he was with her as opposed to being against her.
Summary of Findings Question 3:
How participants judged the impact of the programme and its capacity to add value to the
organisation and their leadership. Emergent themes include:
Managers who participated in the programme reported an increased confidence in
their ability to lead and manage and moreover, less fearful of doing so as a result of
the programme
Linked to the above managers reported a greater ability to let go and delegate, and in
so doing, improve their work loads and WLB
Work based projects revealed both evidence of personal development for individuals
and in some cases specific leadership behaviour change. Additionally, some projects
provided evidence of benefit and added value to the teams led by participants on the
programme
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3.1. Increased Confidence in Leading and Managing People
Developing confidence and self belief is one of the personal outcomes that a number of
managers reported. It is an important outcome that is reported as adding value primarily to
the person but there is also a benefit to the organisation. It is perhaps an example of a soft
return on investment but one that makes a difference to how people feel about their ability
to lead and manage as a direct result of their experience of the programme. One manager
summed how the programme has made a difference to her as follows:
“I think it is about confidence and self belief. I think that underlines it all for me. I
know I can do it now, and I know how to do it, and probably, two years ago I would
not have said that, not at all. So, thank you”.
Benchmarking and discovering extra tools to use in one’s management repertoire
One manager described her increase in confidence stemming from now being able to
benchmark what she did previously and having a few extra strings to her bow:
“It is about giving you that confidence that you are doing the right thing and you are
doing it in the best way. Like most managers I’ve just got on and I’ve managed for
years and no- body has told me how to, I’ve just done it. It’s quite nice to know that
some of the things I was doing were OK but I now have a few extra ways of doing the
things now. I now have the confidence that I can have those difficult conversations.
I still don’t like them but I don’t lose a week’s sleep over them anymore. I’ve learned
to be very clear with people. I’ve learned that actually pussyfooting around and not
saying it, actually, doesn’t help at all”.
Shared terminology and recognising what you are doing
Developing this idea of benchmarking what you do compared to others one manager talked
about how their confidence was increased by learningnew terminology on the programme
and having a shared language that helps you recognise and name what you have being
doing:
“So, I think I have gained a little bit of confidence, whereas I might not have got that
had I not been able to compare and hear other people’s accounts, and to hear this is
a model that we use. I didn’t know what coaching was until I came to the training
32
and I didn’t know I do it on a regular basis. I think my team scored me the highest in
that area..... The legacy is I’m a bit more confidant now... you can’t buy that”.
Addressing the problem
Another facet of increasing self confidence in people management was described by one
participant as learning how to use one’s role and authority:
“I wasn’t addressing the problem because I didn’t know how to because I lacked the
confidence. I didn’t know how to use a management role to do that. That was a big
thing. I was able to replace them with people I interviewed that i wanted to be
working with, people that I could trust to do the job”.
Seeing leadership in others
Noticing how others behave differently and with greater confidenceis another example of
how value has been added by the programme. Commenting on colleagues in her team who
also completed the programme, one manager said:
“I can see some changes in them in terms of them feeling much more confident as
leaders. They are senior in their role and I think they were able to build up better
relationships. Like I was saying, I’ve built up good relationships with the group, I did x
with, and they have done the same. I see interactions between them and my
management colleagues that are much more appropriate, so maybe people could
see that with me.”.
Discussion
3.1. Increased Confidence in Leading and Managing People
Confidence and self belief were overwhelmingly the most generic benefits reported by
participants that they gained from this programme. As we can see from the comments
made, this is about how participants feel. In that respect it is difficult to measure but it
should not be underestimated how important if not essential to leadership confidence and
self belief is. Critical leadership literature points tot the dark side of identity formation in
leadership developmentas we strive toward an idealistic or heroic style of leadership and
the often unrealistic expectations and pressures that can bring. Moreover, critical
33
leadership theory points to the role of discourse theory and language bringing what it
describes, into being, and reminding us of the socially constructed nature of leadership. The
majority of participants on the programme had not previously benefited from leadership or
management training and development, even though, some had been in management and
leadership roles for some time. Whilst some had just got on with the job doing and doing
what they though best, and modelled others they saw as good leaders and managers, some
participants admitted to us that they had secretly felt they had been bluffing it for years.
Developing an identity as a leader and manager is part of a performative process of
leadership, which comes through naming and discussing what leadership is about, having a
shared language of leadership and management, and knowing and reflecting on, what our
experience tells us about a good boss and a bad boss, using management tools to
benchmark our work, and having specific tools and training in skills such as having difficult
conversations. These ingredients were all part of the programme.
3.2. Letting Go and Delegating
For some mangers their 360 feedback enabled them to appreciate that they needed to
change their behaviour. Letting go, delegating more and give their teams a degree of
autonomy was a common example that managers shared with us in respect of how the
programme had made a difference to them and the people they worked with.
One manger describes her learning around letting go and delegation as:
Not trying to do it all herself and monitoring her internal critic
“I am very aware of not trying to do it all myself. I’ve learned to be able to delegate
and to advise and support as opposed to thinking: ‘I will do it myself, or if you want
a good job doing, you’d better do it yourself’ so, it looking at what this person can do
not doing just how I want it done, which has created some magic, because when
someone knows that you are supporting them they feel encouraged and they will
blossom”.
Whilst another described her turn to delegation as:
Not needing to be in control of everything anymore
“I think generally it has made me more relaxed....I don’t need to be in control of
everything”.
34
This manager went on to illustrate by examples how letting go and delegating helps to:
Getting the best out of your staff
“Management isn’t something that everybody instinctively knows how to do. I have
had some really awful managers in my time and I know how awful it is to be
managed by somebody who is very controlling, who micro manages and doesn’t get
the best out of their staff.”
Importantly, such behavioural change in managers can enable others to become more
engaged in the work. Another manager offered the following example:
“ Just this week one of my team did a brilliant piece of work with another colleague
where she developed a parent forum to obtain some user feedback............she got
on with it, she set the ground rules, she developed the questions................I
encouraged her and I listened to her planning and I looked at her plan. She ran with
it, and it was great”.
The same manager offered another example regarding the need to refresh a practitioners
group and letting go:
“When I first got here, I used to chair the group. My team were aware the format
was becoming a bit tired, it wasn’t very interactive. One of the staff suggested she
wanted to do a focus group to look at the terms of reference, to think about making
it more thematic and more interactive. I said ‘this is really positive but I am going to
step out.............I am happy to give you feedback but I am going to let you facilitate
the groups. They now take it in turns in their networks to facilitate these
groups........ I consciously made the decision to step back. I suppose I could have
taken it as critical of how I had previously run those groups but I could see they had a
point. I thought, no, this is good, this is breathing some life and developing
autonomy. I didn’t get upset about it. I was able to relate it to some of what I had
done on the course”
As described by another manager letting go anddelegating can help:
Freeing up time to do other things:
“It has added value to the organisation because I could then spend my time on other
things, which helps my manager, so that she’s got more time. I am now doing
35
practice assessing, which I have never done before, because I felt I had the time to
do something else now, other than just the work”.
Discussion
3.2. Letting Go and Delegating
The second most generic difference reported to us was the increased awareness of
participants, of the need to delegate more and how this helped get the best out of staff and
freed up time for those in more senior positions to get on with other work. In section 2.1,
of this report a respondent tells us that she has changed her perception of herself as a
leader and manger as a direct result of the 360° feedback, reporting, that she is now able to
ask her staff to do more work having previously been fearful of being seen too demanding.
Letting go and enabling autonomy in work is itself a behaviour motivator, if not source of
employee satisfaction. If the ability to manage staff performance has been improved by the
participation on this programme (as indicated by some participants in their assignments) the
ability to let go and delegate is more likely to take place when leaders and managers are
confident that standards are being met.
3.3. The value of Work Based Projects
Findings suggest that the programme has added value to individual managers and their
work teams but we are not been able to put a figure (Return on investment) on this ‘value
added’, we can only report on what that means in the context of participants work. A table
is provided in the appendix of a sample of work based assignment titles (see Appendix one).
Discussion
The Value of Work based Projects
We have 60 work based projects produced by participants on the programme. However
they vary in type and thus, a one size fits all assessment of their worth or valuecan not be
made. The initial plan was that projects be agreed and signed off by senior managers but in
the change process that unfolded in the organisation, this did not happen. We then agreed
with our partners and the client representative that participants could choose a project they
felt most fitting to their own circumstances. For many the live work based project involved
36
something concrete that they and or their team were working on in their service area. This
included responding to the agenda for change and austerity in some cases. For others, it
was a more personal project of their own leadership development journey, in other-words,
where the participant was the project. Using the discourse theory paradigms as applied to
leadership development and mapping a sample of project titles from the list against this
model, we can see more clearly what type of projects emerged (see Figure 3 below). Some
are traditional management projects, others reflect a journey of sense making - the before
and after stories of change , others reflect of a journey of leadership development and the
crafting of a personal leadership identity, and some are more critically challenging projects
that respond to the impact of austerity on their work.
Figure 3: Mapping of Participant Project Titles to Discourses of Leadership and Leadership
Development
Adding value through work based projects can be judged in a variety of ways in terms of
benefits to the individual, the team and the organisation.
37
"Becoming a better manager and leader (34)"Dissensus
Consensus
A PrioriEmergent
CONCLUSIONS
This section addresses the research questions:
Q1) What is the interplay between the context of cuts, change and uncertainty in the
public sector and the programme?
Q2) How do participants talk about and reflect on their experience of the
programme in relation to their leadership skills and effectiveness?
Q3) What is the impact of the programme and its capacity to add value to the
organisation and the leadership of participants?
Austerity
In asking this research question we wanted to know to what extent austerity affected the
conduct of the leadership development programme. It was important for us to drill down
and examine this question with fresh eyes, to see whether it was as bad as we had thought.
We were after all, also affected by the tsunami of feelings that flowed into our learning
relationships with participants in the action learning sets.
Our findings confirmed that austerity has more than coloured the learning and development
of this leadership development programme. The risk of redundancy was palpable, it was
there in the either, and as the data reveals, it gave way to feelings of hopelessness,
dislocation and a sense of living on the edge of a precipice. The consequence of this was a
profound sense of anger and loss experienced by many participants. With some, identifying
that they were not well led or cared for by the very organisation whose remit was to care for
children and families. We have identified that people reacted in different ways. For the
survivors, it was business as usual, in so far as they had a job to be getting on with. For
those less fortunate, concerns expressed revealed the very human cost of austerity and
redundancies in the public sector. We found staff asking: ‘how will I pay my mortgage’? (A
question posed by a staff working in children’s centers and youth work, mainly women in
part time employment). This uncertainty and consequent anxiety permeated the
organisational zeitgeist, yet staff expressed genuine empathy for others, even when they
were not directly affected by the prospect of redundancy themselves. They still felt for
others. Like a storm, austerity has wrecked havoc with the service, and it has resulted in
38
many losses. Moreover, loss was systemic: the loss of jobs; Loss of funding in service areas,
with a significant reduction in funds for partners in the voluntary sector; Loss of
relationships and professional contacts, with some service areas hit harder than others.
Finally, for some participants, their personal resiliency was affected and professional
identities ruptured.
Experience
Participants have reported overwhelmingly a positive experience of the leadership
development programme. The three core days with the 360° psychometric feedback has
been significant in helping participants reflect on what leadership means to them, what
images and assumptions they carry with them about what effective leadership looks like,
giving them a context into which they can reflect on their personal feedback from their
team about what is working and what it is about their style of leadership that might benefit
from change. Not withstanding criticisms of psychometric tools as having a limited frame of
reference, the participants have reported that they have found this a powerful addition to
their repertoire to develop their own awareness and leadership practice.
Significantly, the action learning set experience has given participants both the space and
time to think. As indicated in one of the quotations, if managers had a space to think at
work and have critically reflective - robust conversations concerning the challenges and
dilemmas they face, they could be much more effective in their leadership roles. One
important feature of this action learning intervention was in the structure it provided it to
facilitate learning from the real. In other-words, the real work issues and challenges that
the participants were facing in their work, whilst they were on the programme. This
approach enabled learning to be embedded in the work and avoided the classic problem of
training interventions where learning has to be transferred to the work place at a later date.
Examples of work based learning included, team learning and using ones power and
influence.
Moreover, the action learning sets have been described as providing a safe space to learn,
one where feelings and emotions were permitted and used to support individual and
39
collective learning and reflection around the wicked problems that public sector mangers
increasingly have to face. As well as providing a container for these emotions, the evidence
suggests that the action learning set process has supported learners in making sense of their
experience, work on their own leadership identity projects, and clarify their professional
values and engage critically in their work as leaders.
Impact
The impact of the programme has added value, though the weight of expectations may
differ between stakeholders about what added value may mean. There is evidence to show
benefit both to individual participants and the organisation, will a number of particular
examples of learning being applied to team working during the life of the programme. For
individuals, we have identified increased self confidence to practice as leaders and
managers, including an increase in confidence in managing people. Letting go and
delegating offer both important outcomes for individuals but also their teams, enabling
work to be more effectively shared and staff given opportunities for development.
Significantly, we can see how important these seemingly small gains are fundamental to
forming one’s identity as a leader.
At the organisation level, there is also evidence of change, as staff, adjust their ways of
working to accommodate efficiency savings and structural change. But there is also
evidence of tensions for some staff as they grapple with the competing demands of
economic austerity and social justice in their work. Evidenced in some of the projects are
the hidden benefits of some of this work. For example, even where services were subject to
closure or radical change, the quality of care exercised by staff supporting clients and
colleagues and celebrating the work that had been achieved in the service over many years,
even when they were subject to redundancy themselves, speaks volumes about the
professionalism of staff in the children and families service. We are in no doubt about the
positive legacy this work has left in the community.
The findings show that the intervention of this leadership development programme has
added value to individual participants and the organisation. What has worked has been the
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combination of the taught programme with feedback on leadership styles and climate, and
the action learning sets which have provided a safe space for learning and a structured
framework for work based leadership development projects. On a practical note we are
satisfied that the programme has enhanced the leadership and management capability of
the participants. Following the interviews and focus group activity we were asked to
provide an additional programme of action learning and coaching to all social care managers
who had participated in the programme and this activity will ran to December 2013. We are
currently working with the next two cohorts.
Learning:
Learning for individuals: In conclusionthis has been evidenced by the research findings, the
work projects and their successful graduation from the programme.
Learning for the organisation: whilst this is containedin the reportand recommendations, in
view of the findings concerning the interplay between austerity and the programme, it is
worth reminding the organisation of the necessity to support employees during change,
ensure that the climate is conducive to this and ensure effective communications
management, which participants have suggested were lacking at the outset of this
programme.
Learning for us: This evaluation has provided a learning opportunity for us. It has helped us
develop our understanding of undertaking research in and with a live group of managers in
an organisation. It has caused us to reflect on what we do, how we talk about leadership
development and how we design and work with leadership development interventions and
the evaluation of them. In particular, we have learned much more about working with
managers in the public sector than we previously knew and in particular, we have learned
about the dynamics of action learning in this setting in and
Areas for improvement are addressed in the recommendations to the organisation.
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RECOMMENDATIONS
Engaging line management in supporting participants on the programme and in
particular their involvement at project proposal stage
Introducing the new senior team to the core elements of the programme and the
action learning process
Establish Show and tell events with the help of the Workforce Development manager
at the end of each programme, so that impact and the outcomes of work based
projects, as well as the development of individual participants can be recognised and
celebrated by the organisation
Work with the senior team to integrate the leadership development programme into
a wider organisation development agenda for leading and managing the ongoing
organisational change
Provide coaching for individuals and in some cases teams to help embed further
learning and deliver on change projects,on completion of the programme for 4-6
sessions, as required.
Dissemination of Findings
During the life cycle of this project we have engaged in the following:
Presentation at UFHRD workshop Portsmouth 2012
Presentation at HRD week Olympia 2012 in the Learning Arena
Book chapter: Hartog, M and Frame, P. with Rigby, C and Wilson, D. Chapter 29,
Learning From the Real, in Bilham, T. (Ed) For the Love of Learning, Palgrave
Macmillan 2013 (publication imminent)
Presentation at HR Director’s Forum (Middlesex University) 30 April 2014
Book chapter: Hartog, M and Tomkins, L. (2014) forthcoming, In Mabey, C and
Mayrhofer, W. (Eds) How can an ethic of care support the teaching and management
of change, Questions Business Schools Don’t Ask, Sage Publications
Hartog, M, Rigby, C and Wilson, D. (2014) Conference paper titled: Leadership
Development: Reflecting on the past – shaping the future, UFHRD, Edinburgh, UK
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Expenditure
We were awarded an honorarium of £2,000 and to date we have spent circa £1,500. Please
see finance report from RKTO office at Middlesex. As you will see the majority spend has
been on transcription of the interview data and we would propose to spend the remainder
on dissemination related activity.
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REFERENCES
Easterby- Smith, M. (1994) Evaluating Management Development, Training and Education,
2nd edn. Aldershot: Gower.
Ford, J. Harding, N and Learmouth, M (2008) Leadership As Identity, Palgrave Macmillan.
Hamblin, A. C. Evaluation and Control of Training, McGraw-Hill, Maidenhead.
Hartog, M. Frame, P. Rigby, C and Wilson, D (2013) Learning from the real, chapter 29, pages
204-211, In Bilham T(Ed) (2013), For the Love of learning: Innovations from Outstanding
University Teachers, Palgrave Teaching and Learning.
Hoggett, P. (2006) ‘Conflict ambivalence, and the contested purpose of public
organizations’. Human Relations, Volume 59(2):175-194.
Kubler-Ross, E. On Death and Dying, Tavistock: London. (1970).
Mabey, C. (2012) Leadership Development in Organizations: Multiple Discourses and
Diverse Practice, International Journal of Management Reviews, Vol***(2012), British
Academy of Management and Blackwell Publishing
Revans, R. W. (1983) The ABC of Action Learning, Bromley, Chartwell- Bratt
Reynolds, M. and Vince R (2004), Organizing Reflection: An Introduction, In Reynolds and
Vince (Eds), (2006), Organizing Reflection, Ashgate, Hampshire, England.
Rigg, C and Richards, S. (Eds), (2006), Action Learning, Leadership and Organizational
Development, Routledge Studies in Human Resource Development, Routledge, Taylor
Francis Group, London and New York.
Vince, R and Martin, L. (1993) “Inside action learning: an exploration of the psychology and
politics of the action learning model”, Management Education and Development, 24 (3),
205-215.
Wenger, E (1998) Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity, Cambridge, U.K.
Weinstein, K (1995) Action Learning: A Journey of Discovery and Development, Harper
Collins, London
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Appendix - Participant Project Titles
Number Project Title
1 A work based learning project into the Development of an Early Intervention & Prevention Service of Family Support
2 Leading the team through change: How can we provide our service differently at a reduced cost?
3Reflective practice in Change Management: An analysis of my personal learning & development based on my experience of my professional practice, whilst planning and leading a commissioning project for NHS Barnet.
4 Action research – WBL: Reflections on the evolution of a NEETS project & self as leader
5Raising the educational achievements of vulnerable young people: a reflective look at my leadership- influencing & impacting the work of others
6 A WBL Project developing EI via transition at Finchley Youth Theatre
7 Prevention of Permanent Exclusion of Barnet Looked-after pupils using planned satellite L&Mgt
8 An Action Research project enabling the 331 Service to close in 2011
9 Understanding leadership Complexity in a time of unknown certainties (Restructuring Youth Support Service)
10WBL project: Review of effectiveness of the m-agency groups MAGS to see if they are achieving their objectives & reflections on my learning through this process
11 A WBL: Identifying a strategy to maintain team morale in an increasingly competitive environment (School Governor Services)
12Evaluation of the frames of reference I have developed over the years that have enhanced or blocked my learning: Discovering how to do things differently
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Number Project Title
13 A review of my journey and practice
14 An AL Project: Developing and ongoing 360 positive feedback system for the Family Intervention project (newly-formed) – requiring leadership at its centre
15 What are some of the emotional factors that affect my ability to work with small groups?
16A WB Project providing opportunity for reflection on my own personal development: The implementation of a Child in Need Services Personal Safety Guide
17 How can I trust a word I say? An exploration into personal crisis and professional conduct.
18 A WBL Project: To consolidate services into a single contact centre
19 A critical evaluation of the Occupational Health Service in an FE College
20 Intro of pre-pay debt cards in LBB
21 The deconstruction and reconstruction of my identity
22 A WBL project: Reflecting on lessons from the course and sharing with my team
23 Reviewing admin tasks to eliminate inefficiencies to the needs of the safeguarding division
24 Community Barnet: Exploring the complexities of being a PT manager managing a PT team
25 Making myself the project
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Number Project Title
26 Ultimate Change Leadership Project: A Test in Survival
27 A Review of my personal learning throughout the L&M Devt Programme: Exploring and Awareness behaviour change
28 Meeting organisational targets for assessment timescales and developing my use of directive and pacesetting leadership styles
29 Youth Service and Education Business Project: A reflection on leadership in context
30 How can I reorganise my team where some will lose their job and do so with minimum personal cost to me?
31 Piloting a new system of case review
32 A review of my role as a manager of the CW Development Team: developing my professional practice as a leader to enhance my team’s performance
33 My evolution as a leader: personal process essay
34 Becoming a better manager and leader
35 My new emerging leadership emblem (Leaving Care Team)
36 Restructure the team via climate and coaching and develop my EI
37 How can i develop and reinforce a positive outcome delivery within my team?
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