Leadership Conversations: Why good leaders need to liberate creativity to re-build a better world after Covid 19.

We’re delighted to continue our leadership conversation series with Lord Michael Bichard. Lord Bichard has served at very senior levels in local government as the Chief Executive at both Brent Council and Gloucestershire County Council. He then moved into central government working as the Chief Executive of the Benefits Agency and then as Permanent Secretary at the Department for Education and Employment.

Since his retirement from the Civil Service in 2001, he has held a variety of positions including Vice-Chancellor of the University of the Arts London, Chair of the Legal Services Commission, founder Director of the Institute for Government, Chair of Shakespeare’s Globe, Chair of the Design Council, and has recently retired as Chair of the Social Care Institute for Excellence. He also chaired an inquiry into the Soham murders in 2004.

Lord Bichard is currently non-executive director of The Key (an education support company), Chair of the National Audit Office and has recently retired from chairing Bristol Business School advisory board and his trusteeship of the River and Rowing Museum.

He received a knighthood in 1999 and became a cross-bench member of the House of Lords in 2010. He was for five years a deputy speaker of the House.

Today we’re talking to him about how leadership might be different in this post viral world. A world disrupted by Covid might just be the greatest opportunity for radical change…

It is a cliché now to say that the world has changed. But it has and the consequences for Leaders will be profound. - the virus has reinforced the case for the kind of changes that were already needed and has, maybe, created a world more prepared to accept radical shifts.

It is what academics have referred to as ‘a critical juncture’ which makes big change possible and leaders need to seize the opportunity. As Obama often said, ‘never waste a good crisis!’, paraphrasing Churchill. So, how might leadership be different? a question I have been exploring with Create Gloucesteshire as they scope Create Leaders and launch a new place based leadership programme called catalyst.

Leaders must liberate the potential of individuals

For a start, leaders have hitherto been admired for their ability to control events, people and resources and have been encouraged to develop the skills to do that effectively. But in a fast changing, unpredictable world in which controlling anything is well-nigh impossible those skills become of limited value.

“It becomes more important for leaders to help their people to manage and live with uncertainty; to liberate the potential of individuals and help staff to use their initiative responsibly and with confidence.”

Whereas, in the past, risk was something to be avoided, especially in the public sector, risk is now unavoidable, and the best leaders are those best able to manage it well. That requires leaders to develop in their teams the capacity to identify the type and level of risk; to mitigate it where possible and to put in place contingency strategies to deal with things that go wrong-as they will.

We need creativity more than ever

Managing risk well is also an integral part of building a creative culture where innovation thrives because every innovation brings with it the chance that things will go awry.

“We need creativity more than ever to cope with challenges the like of which we have never seen.”

So, good leaders will value their most creative people; import fresh ideas from outside; support colleagues if things go wrong and free their people from unnecessary bureaucracy which saps energy and demotivates. They will be recognised as people who like to say yes to new ideas and whose personal example shows they have the courage to do things differently.

My experience has taught me that centralised bureaucracies tend not to be creative or to respond quickly to local circumstances and during the early weeks of lockdown I was struck by how difficult the centralised approach to Covid 19 made things. Centralised bureaucracies crave regulation and uniformity and find it difficult to adjust swiftly to changing circumstances. It is the same within organisations where a powerful centre can stifle initiative.

“So, leaders need to manage devolution in a way that it is not an abdication of their power nor a surrender to anarchy.”

Managed well, devolution can inspire staff and give them a sense that their contribution is valued. It can build confidence, increase creativity, and realise people’s potential. Devolution can reap huge rewards, but leaders need to understand how to make it work.

Leaders need to prioritise diversity and collaboration

This search for innovation and creativity, which is so important, requires any leader to prioritise diversity and collaboration. Diversity ensures that your team benefits from different cultural perspectives and different life experience. It brings challenge and fresh thinking in equal measure and often a better understanding of the customer/client experience. Most leaders understand the importance of having a diverse workforce, the evidence is unassailable, only the best achieve it. It requires visible commitment from the leader and persistence through what can be a difficult, sometimes unpopular process of change but ultimately hugely beneficial.

Why is collaboration a priority?

Taking the public sector as an example, we have created a fragmented system of small special purpose agencies with their own targets, resources, customs and even language. And yet few if any have the capacity to meet the needs of citizens working in isolation. Leaders need to understand that and realise that they should measure their success not just by how they lead their own organisation but by the contribution they make to leading their community and ensuring that vulnerable citizens receive coherent, joined up services.

“They have to master the art of collaboration and recognise that it is another route to innovation.”

Leaders in the statutory sector especially must embrace the part which charities, the voluntary sector and civil society can play in meeting the needs of a place or community. They need to learn how to engage with these very different bodies with humility, developing, as they do, a genuine sense of common purpose which can be so powerful in a local community. We have seen more evidence of that since the pandemic but the challenge is to maintain and build this collaboration when this situation passes.

Which brings me finally to the issue of trust.

Trust is essential for any leader. I have always been aware that if people didn’t trust me, then I would fail as a leader. If partner organisations didn’t trust me, they would not collaborate with me. If my team didn’t trust me; how could I expect them to innovate when they were unclear how failure would be treated? If you lose trust and respect it is so hard to recover and has to be treated as the most precious of all commodities. It makes everything else possible.

“If people do not believe in your integrity, they will never follow your lead.”

The reality is that leaders are often defined by the way they react in a crisis because their values shine through, for good or ill. People can see what they stand for not least whether they genuinely care for their colleagues. In my observation some are struggling and it is painfully visible. The best leaders are shining lights in this crisis and we should do all we can to support and appreciate them.

In our next leadership conversations, we will be talking to Aysha Randera who works in women’s development at the Friendship café in Gloucester. She has been successfully designing and implementing ways to give the unrepresented a voice for a very long time both within the local inner city community and more widely.

Find out more about catalyst and see all the Leadership Conversations here