Leadership is back on the agenda, following a range of influential inquiries and reports calling for strengthened leadership in and of the voluntary sector, alongside improved governance and accountability.
There has traditionally been scepticism towards the concept of leadership within the sector, perhaps because it is seen as counter to notions of emancipation, anti-hierarchicalism and democratic practice prized in some accounts of the sector. Also problematically, this focus seems based on the premise that the sector needs to do better, and its leaders are not up to scratch.
This day seminar on 23rd November aims to examine this premise in more detail, and expose to greater scrutiny the idea that leadership is part of the solution. For a start, we might ask what is leadership? Is there a leadership deficit, as some think, or is this a distraction from the real issues? What leadership thinking is most relevant to the voluntary sector? And how could leadership be strengthened, if we agree it should be?