What are the leadership and development challenges for charities currently?
Dame Mary Marsh and Professor Sharon Turnbull share their views
Professor Sharon Turnbull, The Leadership Trust:
The instinct of many charity leaders in the current climate is to retrench, cut overheads and headcount, and hope to ride the storm. The focus of their leadership energies becomes solely on reorganising and restructuring, finding ways to survive with less, and on dealing with the subsequent organisational upheaval that inevitably ensues. Effective charity leaders today, however, don’t stop scanning their environment for new opportunties, even when they are going through these changes. If organisational survival is the only objective, then a downward spiral will follow, along with feelings of loss and detachment from the vision and purpose. This also affects the beneficiaries of the charity. Balancing internal needs with external focus is a vital element of leading through the crisis.
Author: Sharon Turnbull
Professir Sharon Turnbull is director of the Centre for Applied Lerdership Research at The Leadership Trust Foundation in Ross-on-Wye. She is also Visiting Professor at the University of Gloucestershire, Senior Research Fellow at Lancaster University Management School, UK, and a Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Insitute of Personnel and Development
Author: Mary Marsh
Dame Mary Marsh has been director and chief executive of the NSPCC since September 2000 after a career in teaching. She has contributed actively to the leadership of the FULL STOP campaign and appeal ansd sought to strengthen partnerships with statutory services and other voluntary organisations. She was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the Queen's 2007 New Year's Honours for her services to families and children. Dame Mary strongly supported the decision for Childline to join the NSPCC in February 2006
There are no comments on this article. Be the first to comment.