Jane Bruce's final blog as a Clore Social Leadership fellow reflects on the importance of connecting with other leader for support and encouragement
My time on the Clore Social Leadership Programme is up but I’m more convinced than ever that fellowship is essential for social sector leaders to survive and flourish.
Charity leadership is unrelentingly tough. It’s a cliché to call it a lonely, thankless task but it’s a cliché for a reason. Parts of the mainstream media portray the work as a non-stop gravy train characterised by six-figure salaries and lavish expense claims. This does not reflect the lifestyles of the charity leaders I know, who go above and beyond to serve their beneficiaries, improve their organisations, manage complex risk and keep things afloat financially.
In fact, rather than swanning about eating nice lunches, they are much more likely to be found leading painful redundancy processes, remodelling services or coming up with ever more ingenious ways of raising income. Today’s charity chief executive or social enterprise managing director needs to be ever more innovative, determined and resilient. In many cases it’s a fine line between keeping your head above water and losing your sanity completely.
This diverse group have developed into a personal cheering squad when I need a shot of motivation
Jane Bruce
This is where peer support can play a vital role. During the Clore Social Leadership Programme, I was fortunate to be part of a group of 18 fellows from across the UK and a wider network of 100+ leaders. This diverse group have developed into a personal cheering squad when I need a shot of motivation and a source of all things useful when I’m on the hunt for a template, policy or contact. It has also been hugely reassuring to realise that we share many of the same challenges and are all basically making it up as we go along, doing the best that we can.
I’ve now moved out of the charity chief executive space and into the creative world of social enterprise, aiming to set up a new social business to support young people on the margins. I’m optimistic by nature but this step into the unknown makes me feel distinctly queasy.
Having the support of others will be vital on this new journey. It’s for this reason, I now find myself based at the wonderful Melting Pot in Edinburgh, leading on business development for this innovative coworking community at the same time as developing my own new enterprise.
The Melting Pot offers a fantastic incubator programme, aimed at helping grassroots social entrepreneurs get their ideas out of the heads and into reality. I’ve supported this pioneering incubator on a pro bono basis and been struck once again by the potential of peer support to encourage leaders to be courageous and make things happen.
So, if you’re feeling out on a leadership limb, find a way of connecting with peers. It will be well worth the time invested and could be the difference between just getting by and fulfilling your leadership potential.
Here are my top suggestoins on how to do this: The Melting Pot Incubator; ACOSVO; Social Enterprise Academy; Clore Social Leadership Programme
