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Place leadership, partnership and collaboration
Professor Cathy Parker
Institute of Place Management
inspirational local leaders, working in collaboration with all sections of their community have put a buzz back into their town centreThe High Street Report 2018: Timpson
“a source of energy and capacity to bring about and manage change, spread across various groups in a particular location”
Place leadership
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/767529/High_Street_2030-Achieving_Change.pdf
(it) transcends from the actions of individual leaders, organisations or sectors to a series of more collaborative movements, in other words, partnerships. The partnerships focus on the actual work of ‘doing’ leadership, rather than sticking to an outdated, top-down hierarchical structure that just administrates place.
Place leadership
Coordination
Transfo
rmatio
nC
risi
s
RESTRUCTURE REPOSITION REBRAND REINVENT
Leadership + Governance
New and refreshed
partnerships
Collaborative Vision
Data and evidence
Placefulness
Constant dialogue
Multifunctional hubs
Innovate, activate, don’t
give up!
What is blocking transformation?
Place leadership not widely understood
Real capacity gap in local authorities
Lack of effective partnerships
Very few visions, most lack evidence
Little real engagement by community and businesses
EFFECTIVE VISION
3Key Elements
Must convey where the town is going
2
Bespoke to that town3
People make places –
Have a shared vision for change
1
STRONG PARTNERSHIP
BreadthInvolve all aspects
of a towns ecosystem
DepthEmpower local place leaders to make change
happen
Leadership and powerAll leaders need to be accepted and legitimate
• Community leaders are often issue focused and devote their available time and energy to that issue
(e.g. scouts or opposing a particular development)
• How to lift their focus on to broader issues?
• How to keep their interest and involvement once issue has faded?
Different types of leadership - which is more appropriate for community leaders?
• Structural from position in an organisation
• Charismatic leader – god given right – born to lead
• Moral - speaking on a social problem
• Expert - has knowledge to contribute
• Personal - a trusted person
Leadership
• Can be claimed
• Should be earned – by being trustworthy and trusted
• Needs work – need to be consistent and reliable and credible
• Use power and influence with caution
What do community leaders need
• Support and networks
• Time and some skills
• Resilience and energy
• Access to information
• Abilities
• Spot opportunities
• Keep people informed
• Take people with them
Who is the leader of the community
There are loads of leaders:
• Different types of leadership
• Different interests
• Different amounts of commitment
• Different amounts of time available
• Different skills and expertise
• Different roles
The real skill of a community leader is their ability to draw in
others and present a common voice
All councils are bureaucracies
This term just applies to a particular organisational form.
All have to keep recordsand have rules andformal structures.
Have choices about how they work.
Difference with LA is the two roles:
Councillors
Officers
Councillors
• Role comprehension - get stuck in the minutiae, stuff brought up by their electorate
• Role confusion – mix up their role with officers or campaigners?
• Quality of relationship with officers
• Intellectual abilities and ability to grasp the meta goals
• Need to be re-elected so there is a tendency to look after their own ward (even if they have a portfolio)
• Political imperatives and party politics
• Ego and abuse of power
Officers
• Not many people wake up thinking I am going to do a bad job today and get up the nose of a community leader
• Difference between senior and front line staff (focus changes somewhere)
• Professional arrogance – I know best or I have to keep these people at arms length; they might know more than me
• Role comprehension – expert or advisor, jobs worth or enabler
• Relationship with councillors
• Pressure and competing priorities
• Skill, stress, resources to do the job
Bureaucratic obstacles
• Need to keep records – formal systems take time
• Need to follow the rules
• Need to find the person in the hierarchy who can
make a decision
• Ultra vires – can’t do what we don’t have
permission to do
• Limited resources
• Different priorities – what are the priorities?
How can a community leader get the best from the local
authority?
• Understand the pressures and the system
• Work with the flow and seek to influence –
more effective than campaigning against
an issue
• Try to find common ground and solutions to
shared problems
• Identify areas where there can be joint wins
How can a local authority get the best from the
community leaders?
• Trust them – they can help!
• Involve them
• Work with them to head off problems
• Keep them informed
• Listen to them
• Give them the recognition of having
been heard