The Compassionate Leadership Interview

If you’re looking for inspiration about making a difference in today’s society, look no further.Dame Julia Unwin was Chair of the Inquiry into Civil Society Futures, which published in 2018. In the same year she wrote a report on The Role of Kindness in Public Policy for the Carnegie Trust. For ten years she was chief executive of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, where she was the driving force behind the 2016 report “UK Poverty: Causes, costs and solutions.” Julia thinks that we need “a fundamental rethink and recognise that we’re here to serve people in poverty, to serve people who are disadvantaged, to serve people who haven’t been given a fair chance.” That is not just about asking people questions, but also listening very carefully.Julia started her working life as a Field Worker for the Liverpool Council for Voluntary Services. Other roles have included Community Liaison Officer, Director of the Homeless Network, Chair of the Refugee Council, and Charity Commissioner. Julia says that most of her working life is the result of “accident and opportunity mixed with a bit of curiosity.” She’s always sought to work where she could affect social change, “but to pretend there was a plan would be to mislead you.”The report on Civil Society Futures contends that “Civil society risks becoming irrelevant if we do not change”: Julia believes that new ways of organising are emerging constantly in communities, for example the response to the recent flooding in the UK, and there is a risk to the established institutions if they don’t recognise the new ways of operating. Civil Society Futures has provided “a roadmap for how we can behave differently and how institutions and organisations can adapt their practices, behaviours and attitudes.”Julia maintains that local government has always been dependent on the network of association that naturally arises within any community. It’s a recognition of this that has made ‘The Wigan Deal’ a success, yet it is perilous to imagine that such networks are inexhaustible. She is concerned that there is a tendency to use the same procurement approach for all local authority services, and that the approach that works for IT and cleaning may be ill-suited to civil society relationships, with the consequence that the authority risks being further distanced from the community.The Wigan Deal and similar initiatives in the NW have positioned local government as a resource for the community, and not the community as a resource for local government. The deal embodies a new relationship for those organisations which are (to use a 70s turn of phrase) ‘outside the state.’The Wigan Deal and similar initiatives have also ushered in a different style of leadership, one which requires courage and flexibility, and the ability to follow as well as lead. Julia would contend that the success of such arrangements depends on a network of leaders rather than a single leader. The deep connections that people make with one another are essential to those networks. However, there are developments that militate against the new way of leading is that leaders don’t always have the permission and the space to lead on account of social media for example. Julia is “a huge optimist” – humans have always been at our very best in difficult times. “The Sheffield civil society that you can see outside of this office was created in the heat of the industrial revolution when people’s lives were utterly miserable…” She says it is “important that we have the tools and the self-belief to think that we can do something about it.”Julia sees the declaration of a climate crisis by the Government is a tipping point in the realisation (though it may not be a tipping point in action yet) that there is an issue to be faced. She would contend that the last general election was a tipping point that reflected the deep despair and anger in some parts of England.Julia would agree with Kirsty McNeill of Save the Children that civil society is losing the battle over narrative and we can’t afford to. Julia thinks that optimism matters because the people whose lives are not grim and who have a platform or a voice, and freedom and agency, need to be focused on systematically building a better future and not give in to the hostile narrative about people who are seen as unsuccessful.She refers to the work that Joseph Rowntree Foundation are doing to reframe the way we talk about poverty, making it clear that it’s a risk to all of us and not just to ‘them.’ She has learnt that “if we talk about things happening to people who are different from us we are always missing the point.” She says “nobody ever gets someone off the streets, people do that themselves, and our job is to serve and help them.Julia says leaders in civil society need the confidence to say “these social problems are not inevitable, we have the solutions to them, we know what can be done, and we know what the cost, risk, and threat to society is if we fail to do it.” She also thinks that future leaders won’t necessarily come with labels. “There is tremendous leadership in our communities.” Social change is driven by “love, anger, and a determination to have things different.”Julia believes that a lot of the scandals of recent times – Windrush, Grenfell, grooming and abuse in Rotherham – have arisen because we didn’t give people a voice and we didn’t listen acutely enough or were wilfully blind.Julia maintains that the growth in inequality in the UK is holding us back, “wasting our talent and skills and damaging lives at a rate that should make every capitalist quake because it is so dangerous what’s going on.” To become a divided country would be economically catastrophic and deeply damaging not just for the poorest people, but for the whole of society.Julia’s report for the Carnegie Trust “Kindness, Emotions and Human Relationships: The Blind Spot in Public Policy” arose from an invitation from the Carnegie trust to “think about something you haven’t had time to think about.” Julia said she wanted to consider where our emotions are in public policy, because everything about public service is about relationships and yet we talk as if everything is about outputs and metrics.With regard to her own leadership philosophy, Julia believes that good leaders take the blame and share the credit at all times, are humble, are there to serve, and are curious and want to find things out. “An awful lot of leaders find [saying sorry] hard but I just find it’s the best way to do things.” “And most importantly, listen really, really carefully…”Heroic leadership is no longer effective (if it ever was). Today leaders are to be found encouraging, supporting, and coaching. Certainty is far from a ‘superpower’ and often the most certain people are making the biggest mistakes. Empathy, compassion, and understanding are key.One of the achievements that Julia is proudest of is being part of a coalition of organisations that persuaded the then Thatcher government to back an approach to rehousing homeless people in London. She is proud of it because at the time it opposed a common view that people sleeping on the streets was inevitable. The experience taught her the power of collaboration, and of optimism.There’s nothing to stop the approach being adopted today. It involves ensuring that people don’t sleep on the streets for long, providing long term housing as an essential prerequisite to people rebuilding their lives, and listening to each individual. And compared to the cost of people going to prison, ending up in A&E and in mental hospitals, it would be cost effective. A mistake that Julia recognises in her career is in being intimidated from saying things by being “slightly overwhelmed by someone who appeared to be much cleverer.”Julia has been supported by so many people in her career, especially other women. “Anyone who gets to any position of leadership without saying they have been supported all the way is not telling the truth in my view.”Julia’s self-care regime includes a very supportive husband and family, walking and the great outdoors. She reads novels and finds that it provides her with an insight into the world of other people, for example Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams, and Ordinary People by Diana Evans.She would advise her 20-year old self to take her time, not worry so much about what others think of you, and have confidence in her instincts.

Mark Michaux Brown is a coach, and author of the book ‘Outward Bound Lessons to Live a Life of Leadership’, former director of corporate potential at Grappone Automotive Group and before that course director at Voyageur Outward Bound School.His is a fascinating story, because he has used the transformative potential of Outward Bound to change his own life as well as that of others.Mark spent 22 years at Outward Bound, which is an international organisation with a presence in 30 countries around the world. It was founded by in Great Britain by a German born educator Kurt Hahn. It came to the USA in the early 1960s and involves taking people into the wilderness, not for the purpose of teaching them deep wilderness skills but to help them become more confident, to connect better with others, and to be more compassionate so as to be of service to others.On leaving college Mark worked in two start ups and found himself “burnt out at the ripe old age of 25.” He set out to find something with more meaning in the world. Outward Bound was his “running away to the circus experience.” He was so enamoured with it after initially taking a temporary job with the Voyageur School, he became an expeditionary leader for ten years and was course director for a further 12.After a business course at university he joined Grappone Automotive. He spent eight years there, during which he played a leading role in restructuring the company. They started by co-creating, with the existing management team, a clear purpose-driven mission for the business. They then redesigned the organisational structure around the new purpose, and aligned the reward structure correspondingly. The sales process was redesigned following feedback from an advisory board made up of current and former customers.Not everyone, particularly in the sales and finance departments, could subscribe to the new purpose and processes, and some left to be replaced over time by a new cohort of staff who had a closer affinity with the customer and with their colleagues, including former teachers, nurses and hairdressers!Part of the job of an expeditionary leader is to empower a group such that they no longer need you. After eight years, by which time Mark was also heading up sales, marketing, and communications as well as corporate potential, Mark felt that he had reached that point. “If you can create a group that does not need you any more then you’ve succeeded.”The book had been in gestation since Mark’s Outward Bound days. It was given impetus when by chance he met the creative director of Berrett-Koehler Publishers at a Conscious Capitalism conference. The book became a co-publication with Outward Bound USA.Mark interviewed 15 people to find out how they had taken the Outward Bound lessons into their lives. They included Arthur Blank of Home Depot, a former US senator, and members of the Kohler family (of bathtub fame). He wrote the book while he was still working at Grappone, so at four until six in the morning.On Outward Bound a group who normally haven’t met before assemble in an area of wilderness. The expeditionary leader facilitates a discussion around how the group wants to be with one another. The leader also teaches basic wilderness skills in the first few days.The expedition itself is a means, not an end. The focus of the leader is the process whereby the group achieves its goal. The leader is constantly watching for teachable moments, particularly with regard to interpersonal relationships and self-defined physical and mental limitations. The same model can be applied to stretch projects in the corporate world.Debriefing, both formal and informal, plays a large role in Outward Bound. Every day starts with a community meeting, and closes with a debriefing which reviews incidents, possibly conflicts, and lessons learnt. There are also event specific briefings. It’s the stretch places, on occasion failures, which are critical for people to grow.One of the people that Mark interviewed for the book is Rue Mapp, the founder of Outdoor Afro. When she faces a challenge she always remembers the advice of her expeditionary leader on a mountaineering expedition, which was to “trust your feet.”Outward Bound has been transformative for Mark himself. His first 22-day expedition was in pristine wilderness in Utah. He was drawn to the leaders of his trip and has spent a lifetime endeavouring to emulate their compassionate leadership, which he characterises as having no agenda, but was entirely in service of the development, growth, and safety of the participants.One of the great pleasures of promoting his book, was reconnecting with the many people that he had met and mentored on Outward Bound and discovering the impact it had had on their lives. He believes that Kurt Hahn has had a more profound impact on the world than any other educator.In the book Mark says “among the Outward Bound pillars, compassion stands above all.” The model originally arose from a concern that, as Germany evolved from an agrarian to an industrial society, young men were losing touch with the land and with community. Outward Bound was designed to restore a sense of responsibility toward one’s community. Writing the book reminded Mark that there is a wealth of people in the world showing up for their community.One of Mark’s favourite examples of an expeditionary leader is Delaney Reynolds, currently a sophomore in college, who grew up in Miami and attended a school with an innovative curriculum that included outward bound electives. She created a not-for-profit company at the age of 16 to focus on the impact of sea level rise, and successfully campaigned for the inclusion of funding in the county budget to address the matter. She is currently a student in marine science at the University of Miami and has spoken at the UN.Mark’s hope is that people will be inspired by his book to take the Outward Bound lessons to heart, and that, in particular, alumni of Outward Bound would apply their learning to serve their communities with particular regard to the challenges we face as a species right now. These include climate change, artificial intelligence, and the pace of change in all arenas of human endeavour. We could destroy ourselves or we could rediscover our responsibility towards our communities.Mark’s advice to his 20-year old self would be “you’re going to have an amazing journey. Be present and don’t miss it.”

This is Chris’s second podcast with Sarah. In the first, which is episode seven of this series, you can hear her backstory, some of her work-related achievements, and her approach to learning and to self-care.They gave this podcast the somewhat ambitious title of “the leader as philosopher, learner and listener” and imagined that it might be more of a conversation than an interview. Sarah has said previously that our politicians are no longer philosophers. She believes this matters because we live in a volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous (VUCA) world and things are grey rather than black and white. Philosophers embrace the idea that changing our mind is a legitimate, in fact healthy, thing to do. And politics matters more than we might imagine: politicians enact the laws that govern our everyday lives.Chris thinks that there are parallels in business. His favourite quote is from Emmy van Deurzen, who is an existential psychotherapist, and she says “Passive living comes easily; one can always fall back on it. Actively living requires much practice and study, as does any art.”Sarah is a big fan of the stoics. Stoicism acknowledges that life is a struggle and rarely goes according to plan. It helps her to appreciate the highs but not get too attached to them and to weather the lows in the knowledge that they too will pass. We have a tendency to ‘gloss over’ things when they aren’t OK and to say that they’ll be better in the future. In reality when one challenge goes away another will replace it.Chris would say that it helps in an organisation if the leader has a clear sense of purpose and can articulate what the current struggle is for. Without such meaning the organisation is in danger of becoming a product of the system in which it operates. Chris cites Tracy Allen (episode 12) as such a leader.For Sarah values and purpose help with prioritisation. However, she understands why some people don’t have clarity around values and purpose; she says “it’s scary.” Chris says it’s what Jean Paul Sartre would have described as “existential angst”, the anxiety caused by a person’s awareness of her unlimited freedom and the corresponding responsibility.In his book ‘Compassionate Leadership’ Chris includes ‘a spiritual journey’ under routes to development and asks Sarah where she is on that journey. Buddhism and the stoics have been reference points for her, along with Alain de Botton, Christian Tippett and David Whyte.Chris describes himself right now as a ‘Christian Existentialist.’ He believes in God, but also believes we need to take personal responsibility. He has found the books of Richard Rohr helpful, along with a lot of one-to-one conversations. He has come to a point where he can be comfortable with uncertainty.Sarah says that “a lot of therapy” has helped her, as have podcasts, in that you hear people’s thought processes out loud.When it comes to helping leaders clarify their values and purpose, Sarah sometimes uses the question “Which are those moments in your life when you have most thrived?”Beyond philosophy, there’s a whole lot more for a leader to master. Chris makes the distinction between informational learning – lectures, training, what passes for learning in most universities and business schools – and transformational learning – learning that enhances our ability to handle complex thoughts and ideas, and to consider our thoughts themselves objectively.Sarah says that she thinks this idea is useful and that transformational learning helps us close the gap between the knowing and the doing. For each person, the nature of the transformational experience that is most effective will be different, but what is important is that we get out there and experiment. Sarah recommends the writing of Seth Godin, who writes so well about mustering the courage to experiment.Both Sarah and Chris agree that talking with friends can be transformational, and Chris cites a book group that he is in where relationships have become more trusting and conversations have deepened.Sarah floats a theory that we are having more conversations about activism at a grass roots level, and Chris postulates that those conversations have been displaced from the political arena to the public. Finally, the leader as listener…Chris quotes Nancy Kline ““The quality of your attention determines the quality of other peoples’ thinking." For Chris, listening is the start of the compassion journey. Unless we attend and listen, we cannot understand or empathise. And unless we understand or empathise, we cannot help in any meaningful way.Chris has been trying to identify common denominators in the way that compassionate leaders work, based on his first 17 podcasts. He’s found: they seek and value honest feedback; they look for a partner or a team with complementary skills – they don’t try to do it all themselves; they ask their peers in other organisations for business advice – they’re not afraid to admit they don’t know something; they know, in the words of Tracy Allen, what their leadership is for.Two out of these four behaviours require advanced listening skills.Sarah has just been on one of Nancy Kline’s ‘Time to Think’ courses. Nancy talks about generative listening, which helps others to think more deeply. One of her approaches is thinking rounds, where everyone in the meeting has the opportunity to speak on the topic uninterrupted. Sarah and Chris end the podcast by talking about what they have learnt over the past decade and their plans for the coming one.The past decade has been the most challenging of Sarah’s life. Sarah has learnt to appreciate the relationships she has with the people that have supported her during that time. She has also learnt that grief never vanishes, it just becomes different over time. She is grateful that she is able to look forward with joy to the coming decade. She is going on a mindful self-compassion programme with the intention of bringing this more broadly into the leadership context.Towards the end of the decade Chris ended his corporate career and wrote ‘Compassionate Leadership.’ He learnt a lot writing the book, but has learnt at least as much through the companion podcast. The emphasis in Chris’s recent life has changed from doing to being. In a sense he is returning to his early years as a child on a council estate when relationships were central and life was simple. Richard Rohr calls it ‘Falling Upwards.’Sarah is intent on making space for the clients she really wants to work with, and generally becoming comfortable with space, silence and doing less.

Dr. Nate Regier, a clinical psychologist and the founder of Next Element, discusses transforming conflict into creativity through compassionate accountability. He shares the ORPO framework for navigating workplace challenges and contrasts it with traditional therapeutic methods. Regier emphasizes the rising global interest in compassion-based leadership and shares insights from his personal leadership journey, including mistakes that highlight the importance of transparency. He advocates for self-compassion as a vital aspect of effective leadership and offers resources for cultivating a supportive workplace culture.

Marie Cooper is Chief Executive of engineering business CBE Plus Group. Right now she finds herself stalking Jenson Button on Twitter with a view to him participating in a Get up to Speed with STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Maths) event.CBE Plus Group was assembled in 2016 by Marie and Chris Brown, her chief operating officer, who provides the technical expertise behind the organisation. The four businesses within the group comprise CNC machining, electroless-nickel plating, laboratories, and gear cutting.Marie ascribes her rise to CEO to her willingness to take opportunities and ask “What is the worst that can happen?”She intended going to university but had a car accident that prevented her taking her A levels. When she had recovered she trained to be a bus driver. She left after six months to work in the accounts department at DC Cook, a car dealership. When they went into receivership in 2001 Marie found herself “overpaid and underqualified.” She took a job at David Brown Union Pumps, who paid for her to train as a management accountant and ultimately to become ACCA qualified.Subsequently she moved to Flow Group in Sheffield as Finance Manager. After five years, she took the opportunity to participate in a management buy-out. She built up the business between 2010 and 2015 when they were bought by Parker-Hannifin Corporation. In her new role as plant manager she missed the ability to operate entrepreneurially, so left after 12 months, along with Chris Brown, to form Cooper-Brown Enterprises.Marie’s advice regarding creating a unified group culture is to “have a lot of patience and take things slowly.” You have to understand the (Elisabeth Kubler-Ross) change curve and expect resistance to change. It’s also about making the most of the available talent within the business. “It’s all about people; people in the business, customers, and suppliers.”Marie sees her leadership as being “to empower, inspire, and create a next generation bigger, better and stronger.” She seeks to “get the best out of people, enhance their strengths, and develop their weaknesses.”Her proudest achievements include winning the Young FD of the Year 2012, Manufacturer of the Year 2015, and Businessperson of the Year 2015. She is also enormously proud of being part of the CBE Plus team.She thinks it is important to learn from mistakes and says you need to “trust your instincts, do the right thing, and move forward.”She defines success as seeing CBE Plus face the future with a stronger management team than it has at present. Marie considers retirement to be “doing something different”, for example developing her work with schools and sharing her experience with others.Apprenticeships are close to Marie’s heart: BG Engineering won its category in the North Midlands and South Yorkshire Apprenticeship Awards and CBE Plus were one of exhibitors at Get Up to Speed with STEM in 2019. Marie is a trustee at the Work-Wise Foundation and an Enterprise Advisor.Marie says there is not a particular business that she is trying to emulate. “There are a lot of great businesses out there, and a lot that have shared their experience with us.” “The more I networked the more I learnt.” She hasn’t met a business yet that is not prepared to share their expertise and experience.Marie talks about “changing a person or changing a person” but doesn’t do so lightly. You should have given them every opportunity to develop themselves, educate themselves and be mentored before you take a decision to replace them. But in the final analysis “we can’t have one person jeopardising everybody else.”Marie has met a number of inspiring people during her career, but one that stands out is Gordon Bridge, the finance director of AES Seal. He was willing to share his experiences and allow people to visit his business, helping Marie and Chris to transform President Engineering. Now CBE Plus open their doors to other businesses to pass that expertise on.Gordon also helped Marie, a 35-year old FD “in a man’s world”, feel comfortable and confident.Chris Brown is the other half of CBE Plus. He has skills that are complementary to Marie’s entrepreneurial drive and strategic thinking and “that is what makes it work.” They had already worked together for 10 years before they struck out on their own. His quiet and measured approach balances Marie’s action orientation. They have similar values in terms of developing staff, doing the right thing, delivering expertise, being the best.Marie’s self-care regime warrants attention! She does have supportive friends and family, and has found walking her beagle, Belle, provides her with opportunities for exercise, reflection, and ideas generation – she takes a notebook with her. She encourages her board to find time to zoom out and reflect.Marie’s reading is a combination of fiction and business magazines. Someone bought her ‘How to Be Calm’ by Anna Barnes for Christmas as a joke but she has found it helpful.Her advice to her 20-year old self would be “Don’t be frightened to take opportunities.”Her husband, Gary, is also a finance director, but is more like Chris Brown in personality. Like Gordon, he is also someone who has encouraged and believed in Marie.Hugh Facey (episode 8) is not keen on accountants running businesses. Marie has a lot of respect for Hugh and would agree with him! – as a business leader she is an entrepreneur and strategist as well as a financial expert. She has always asked “what does the business want to do?” before asking “where do we get the money from to do it?”Like Hugh she has given her employees an interest in the business, albeit from a profit-sharing scheme rather than a shareholding.By listening to others, such as Rob Graham at Go Outdoors and Chris Rea at AES Seal, Marie has learnt to employ people better than herself and empower them to do what they are good at. Ultimately you want the business to be bigger, better and stronger and you need to recruit accordingly.Marie and Chris are building a culture around safety, quality, delivery, teamwork, and diversity. Positivity is also an important element. “It’s like when the sun is shining…”

Professor Rob Copeland is Director of The Advanced Wellbeing Research Centre (AWRC) in Sheffield and Professor of Physical Activity and Health at Sheffield Hallam University.Rob is a keen cyclist. He says “if it’s going to be a good day, it’ll start with a bike ride…”He arrived at the studio having just played host to Andy Anson, the new CEO of the British Olympic Association. That meeting focused on the work that Rob and colleagues across the city have been doing on the Olympic legacy, supporting the population to be more physically active.Rob graduated in Sport and Exercise Science from Newcastle University. He studied for a Masters at the University of Sheffield before working for two years as a Community Health and Fitness Officer in Mansfield, supporting people with chronic health conditions into physical activity. That laid the groundwork for an academic career that started at Sheffield Hallam University, where Rob took a PhD in ‘Psychology and Childhood Obesity.’ Over the past 18 years Rob has worked on over 100 projects supporting people into a healthier lifestyle. The story of the Advanced Wellbeing Research Centre conventionally starts with the 2012 Olympic Games, but before then Professor Steve Hake had a project called ‘Sports Pulse’, which was about how academia and elite sport, particularly sports engineering, could support local companies to advance their technologies.With London 2012, Sheffield was awarded foundation partner status in the National Centre for Sport and Exercise Medicine and received £10m of investment from the then Department of Health. Sheffield established a city-wide partnership with representation from every aspect of civic life, led by Sir Andrew Cash and Sheffield Teaching Hospitals. The money was used to collocate NHS clinics with leisure centres. Three leisure centres in Sheffield now host 80,000 clinical appointments per year.This in turn became part of a much bigger programme called ‘Move More’, Sheffield’s physical activity strategy. The ambition of that programme was to transform Sheffield into the most active city in the UK. Rob led that programme and Steve Hake became the Research Director. That programme morphed into the AWRC. At its heart is the vision of transforming lives through innovations that help people move. The AWRC is located in Darnall, a ward of 22,000 people, a neighbourhood of 90,000 people, where there is “huge health inequality”, so the centre has a contextual local vision, “it’s not just a grand vision.”The £14m funding for the building came from an application to the Department of Health and Social Care. The European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) provided just under £1m for the equipment. The research work of the AWRC is coordinated around three themes: Healthy and Active 100, which looks at how someone born in Darnall today could expect to live 100 years of healthy and active life; Living Well with Chronic Disease, which considers physical activity as a treatment for cardiovascular disease, diabetes, stroke etc; Technological and Digital Innovations to promote independent lives, which talks to the NHS 10-year plan.The centre has a programme of engagement with the private sector, including new start-ups and SMEs. Deputy Director Dr Chris Lowe secured a grant of £850k from Research England to create a ‘Wellbeing Accelerator’, which supports the private sector with academic expertise.To be remotely successful the AWRC will have to have tackle the 38% of the population who, according to the latest NHS report, average less than 15 minutes per day of vigorous activity. In relation to this, Rob is “wholly convinced by the power of people.” All communities have assets, talents, and drive, and the AWRC is concerned with creating the conditions within which they can thrive. But the social, economic, and environmental conditions are not the same across all communities. Therefore, this has to be a conversation about empowerment and not blame.If Rob could take over from Matt Hancock, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care for a year, his priorities would be a) supporting the workforce in their own health and wellbeing, b) prevention, albeit Rob can’t point to a meaningful programme around prevention right now, c) improved coordination of services for older adults, and d) the use of exercise to improve fitness prior to treatment.Rob hasn’t had a long-term career plan. He has gone where he has felt called to go, or to places that interest him. He has a real heart for Sheffield and he has chosen to stay there. His personal ambition is to support communities into better health and wellbeing. Rob claims not to have thought explicitly about his leadership philosophy, but says he sees his role as creating the culture in which members of his team can “thrive, excel and surprise themselves in terms of what can be achieved.” Part of this involves setting the direction in terms of the why and what, and also articulating how the journey should feel. He would summarise his approach as “believing, belonging, behaving and becoming.”He is wary of overplaying his strengths and says he has to compensate for his natural bias towards caring for his team, by working hard at setting the direction of the organisation. His lesson from his mistakes is that “we won’t get things right… but it’s what we do with those things that’s important.” Rob says he has had “incredible support” during his career from both within the university and outside of it and mentions David Whitney, Sir Andrew Cash, John Mothersole, Professor Sue Mawson, Dr Ollie Hart, his wife and family, Sir David Brailsford, and Lizzie Armitstead.Apart from cycling, Rob’s self-care regime includes close family relationships, taking time out to reflect, and his faith – he is a member of St Thomas Philadelphia. His book recommendation is The Rabbit and The Elephant by Tony Dale, Felicity Dale and George Barna, which is story about church planting that focuses on how you can create agile communities. His advice to his 20-year old self is “find something you enjoy, treat people with dignity and respect, and ride bikes.” Finally, Rob describes the ultimate goal of the city region’s London 2012 Legacy activities: an active population is an economically vibrant population; an economically vibrant population will help to close the health inequality gap; sport can harness hearts and minds in communities, and drive up aspiration (in the right conditions, with the power given over to the right people); for Sheffield to become one of the healthiest and wealthiest cities on the planet.

Lara Bundock is founder and chief executive of The Snowdrop Project, a charity that supports survivors of human trafficking. Her Twitter page describes her as a “speaker, adventurer, actress, human rights advocate – embracing a life of faith, expecting the unexpected.” So far ‘the unexpected’ has included advising the government of Turmenistan on how they can support the NGOs in their country to address human trafficking, and interviews with displaced persons in Libya against a backdrop of gunfire.The Snowdrop Project supports adults who have been trafficked with long-term care in order for them to achieve a position from which they can live independently – they were the first charity in the UK to provide such long-term support. They have a casework team comprised mainly of social workers who assist with finding a job and/or claiming benefits, child protection, and legal matters. The therapy team is made up of counsellors who help the survivors work through anxiety, PTSD etc. Their volunteers help with a mother and toddlers group, sewing, dance, and lessons in English as a Second Language. The fourth team within Snowdrop deal with housing renovations.On a strategic level, Snowdrop works on national policy development and advocacy. Lara trained as a social worker at Sheffield University. After a period in statutory social work she worked in a government safe house for victims of human trafficking. She realised that the statutory 45 days was not an adequate period of time to stabilise survivors: when they tried to live independently after that period, they typically experienced mental health issues, tenancy breakdown, and drug and alcohol addiction. They often returned to abusive relationships.She says “I thought ‘I can’t do nothing’ because I’m not that type of person.” She started a training programme for volunteers and took it from there.The Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner set up pursuant to the The Modern Slavery Act 2015 says, on its website, that it “demands a consistent response across the UK to ensure that victims are properly supported…” but Lara says that the system is “pretty broken” and demand is growing exponentially: in 2011, 700 people were referred for support, last year (2018) the figure was 7000. An ongoing issue is the identification of victims of trafficking. Early intervention is in its infancy, and there is a need for the dissemination of best practice nationally.30-40% of the 7000 referred never receive any support. Long-term reintegration support is a “post-code lottery.” Snowdrop and two other organisations provide it, but in most areas it doesn’t exist.Laura’s typical day includes a senior leadership meeting, one-to-ones with team members, meetings with stakeholders such as the NHS and housing associations. In London Snowdrop is a member of The Anti-Trafficking Monitoring Group and Lara is an advisor to the Anti-Slavery Commissioner. She sees her role as looking after the health and growth of Snowdrop on the one hand, and informing best practice and national policy on the other.Her leadership philosophy embraces compassion and a willingness to listen, to be challenged and to take feedback and advice. Snowdrop endeavours to look after its staff and volunteers. They pay for their staff to see external counsellors once a month. Paid case workers receive case and individual supervision, and volunteer case workers are supervised by a senior case worker. Volunteer case workers and befrienders receive group supervision. Snowdrop equips its teams through extensive training before they meet survivors of trafficking. Snowdrop ran for the first three years without funding. Lara and her operations coordinator Rachel Medina didn’t receive a salary for two years. Then they applied to the Big Lottery Women and Girls Fund for £130,000 per year and were successful. Over the next three years they worked hard to diversify their income stream. They have just reapplied successfully to the Big Lottery, but now that funding represents 30% rather than 100% of the total. Lara has become popular on the BBC, Sky and radio in connection with human trafficking. She has given evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee, chaired by Yvette Cooper. Along the Snowdrop journey Lara has made small mistakes, such as an inadequate allowance for interpreters in the Big Lottery bid, and larger ones around communication with staff during a recent office move. With regard to the latter, Lara was grateful for the help provided by businesses such as Arm (the computer chip manufacturer), Arup and John Lewis. She has learnt that it’s impossible to run a charity like Snowdrop without making mistakes and to listen, apologise, and move on without beating herself up too much about it. Two people that have inspired Lara are her parents; their compassion towards others, their preparedness to listen, and also their ability to move things forwards. Lara’s self-care regime includes exercise – running, netball and the gym - and acting. She finds exercise provides emotional resilience and helps her think more clearly. Friends and family are also important to her.At present Lara’s work ambition is to develop all aspects of Snowdrop. But she is going to set aside time in 2020 for thinking about her work goals in more detail. In her personal life, she would like to be a mum.The advice she would give to someone starting a charity is “be prepared that it will be hard, be prepared to constantly learn, be willing to have other people help you on that journey… try not to do it on your own”: Lara was advised at the outset to find someone to work alongside her. She took that advice and Rachel is still with her 7 years later. 

Michael West is professor of work and organisational psychology at Lancaster University and visiting fellow to the King’s Fund, the NHS think tank. How did he come to those appointments? He observes that careers often unfold rather than are preplanned. After university he worked in a coalmine for a year. There safety and mutual support were prominent features of the culture. When he returned to university, the experience led him to take a particular interest in teamwork in organisations.His 35-year involvement with the NHS originated in a study contrasting the working conditions of student nurses and health visitors. He has just co-chaired (with Dame Denise Coia) an enquiry into the mental health and wellbeing of doctors. He contends that “chronic excessive workload” is the leading predictor of staff stress, but such a workload has become “the unseen pattern on the wallpaper.” Additionally, the complexity of the conditions that patients are presenting with is increasing, whilst resources are constrained – the UK has one of the least well-funded health services amongst the OECD countries.Michael says that it is tragic that we don’t demonstrate care for a body of people – NHS staff - who have chosen to dedicate their lives to the care of others.Lately, Michael has turned his attention to compassionate leadership. He views compassion as a core value of the NHS and sees clinician compassion as the most powerful intervention available to the NHS. But if we are to create a culture within which staff can deliver compassionate care, then the leaders of the organisation have to model compassion. This involves attending/listening, understanding, empathising/feeling and helping.In 2015, Michael jointly wrote a King’s Fund blog with Suzie Bailey entitled ‘The Five Myths of Compassionate Leadership.’ He felt it necessary because compassion can conjure up an image of “soft cushions, scented candles, pilates…” whereas in reality compassionate leadership is tough, involving a strong focus on purpose and quality, being prepared to have tough performance management conversations in a compassionate way, and challenging ruthless power.Michael believes that people can be trained in compassionate leadership: we are already “hard wired” to be altruistic, to want to help, to be kind and to find giving to others rewarding. Mindfulness and reflective listening are two elements of his approach to engage these characteristics. And compassionate leaders take the view that their role is fundamentally about removing the obstacles to people doing their job well.Michael points out the crucial difference between empathy and compassion: in empathy the pain centres of the brain are activated, in compassion the reward centres are activated.In 2016 Michael addressed the leaders of all the national bodies of the NHS in England. Since then Compassionate Leadership, expressed in “Developing People, Improving Care,” has become part of the national strategy for the NHS. It has also become part of the strategy for the NHS in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.In 2017 Michael co-authored a report by the King’s Fund entitled “Caring to Change: How Compassionate Leadership Can Stimulate Innovation in Healthcare.” (It’s the most downloaded paper from the King’s Fund website.) Purposeful focused compassionate leadership creates an environment of psychological safety in teams. This allows people to talk about errors, overload, and bullying as a starting point for dealing with these issues.Examples of innovation catalysed by compassionate leadership include substantial reductions in bureaucracy, the use of physiotherapists in primary healthcare to handle the 40% of consultations that involve musculo-skeletal conditions, and the use of community psychiatric nurses.His involvement with the theme of Compassionate Leadership and its embedment in national strategy is Michael’s proudest career achievement. He is also pleased to have been involved in the preparation of the evidence-based resources that are located on the NHS Improvement website under culture and leadership. Other countries, including Denmark, Canada and New Zealand are also making use of this resource, which is freely available.The failure from which Michael has learnt most was a lack of humility in his early leadership roles. Did it emanate from a lack of confidence as a leader? Over the years he has developed the courage to admit when he doesn’t know something.The people who have inspired Michael during his career include staff at every level in the NHS, and also Nelson Mandela, the latter a leader whose compassion overcame an understandable clamour from his followers for revenge.Michael’s self-care regime includes time with his family, an hour a day in meditation, cycling in the Peak District, reading and taking adequate sleep.If Michael were to be put in charge of the NHS, a service that employs 1.4 million people and provides services to a million people every 36 hours, his top priority would be to address the chronic excessive workload that the organisation faces. How can it be more effectively managed?Michael would recommend the book ‘Awakening Compassion at Work’ by Monica Worline and Jane Dutton.His advice to a young NHS leader today would be to a) recognise the privilege it is to lead a body of people that are so highly motivated and skilled, and b) to be compassionate leader – if all 1.4 million NHS staff experience compassion, along with their patients, those people will take that compassion out into their communities and families. And, in Michael’s view, “compassion is the most important focus we should have now as a species…”The NHS has the capacity to change the very nature of our society and our experience.

Tracy Allen is Chief Executive of Derbyshire Community Health Services NHS Foundation Trust (DCHS), a primary care trust with 4,000 staff. Tracy was recruited to the NHS Management Scheme straight out of university and, apart from a brief spell in academia, has worked for the NHS throughout her career, close to 30 years. For the first 20 years she worked mainly for secondary (acute) trusts but for the past 10 years she has specialised in primary (community) healthcare.She established DCHS in 2011 as the Chief Executive and has been there ever since – that is quite a stint as an NHS Chief Executive. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has recently rated the Trust as Outstanding overall and Outstanding for well led. Tracy attributes this to “great people who want to do a great job, a really clear set of shared values and a common purpose… and a golden thread that connects the way we go about our jobs every day back to those common values and purpose.” And this was evident to the CQC.In the next episode of The Compassionate Leadership Interview, Chris is intending to interview Professor Michael West, author of the report ‘Caring to Change: How Compassionate Leadership Can Stimulate Innovation in Healthcare.’ The Trust has given a lot of thought to providing people with the autonomy and space to innovate. This has meant, inter alia, thinking hard about how to handle assurance and governance in a less time-consuming way.An example of innovation at the Trust is the introduction of health coaching, an approach based on the notion that healthcare is co-created between patient and clinician, rather than dispensed by the clinician. Using this approach the Trust has significantly improved outcomes for leg ulcer patients, for example. Health coaching improves the patient experience, enhances overall community health and wellbeing, delivers best value and is more fulfilling for the professionals involved.Tracy views her leadership philosophy as closely related to her philosophy about being a good human being. “It’s a people business … it’s the interactions between each one of us every day that determine the quality of the services we are going to provide.” Kindness, respect, teamwork, and feeling comfortable to bring your whole self to work are critical.The body of evidence that the CQC has built up has established a strong correlation between quality of health outcomes and how people in the healthcare provider feel they are treated, especially minorities. “Looked after people look after people. Hurt people hurt people.” The Trust is trying to create a culture where everyone feels supported and engaged, they all understand what is expected of them, and they truly believe they are all there to care for one another as well as to care for their patients.Tracy acknowledges the “inexorable” pressures within the NHS – rising demand, resource constraints, workforce challenges. And innovating, working with ambiguity, and empowerment within the context of a system under pressure places ever increasing demands on leaders. One of the lessons in leadership that Tracy has learnt from experience is the imperative to have difficult conversations with colleagues at an early juncture. Conversations at the right time are kinder than having to work round an individual and postponing the point at which things come to a head. If matters are dealt with well, an individual can be supported to find the right role rather than leaving under a cloud, and everyone benefits. “The compassionate thing to do is to step up and have the conversation. It’s about how you have it.”One of the people that has inspired Tracy is Professor Donna Hall, formerly Chief Executive of Wigan Council, now Chair of Bolton Foundation NHS Trust and also Chair of The Local Government Network. She introduced ‘The Wigan Deal’, a multi-agency service delivery approach founded on the strengths of individual communities rather than their deficiencies. Tracy sees the role of the Trust board as acting as an umbrella or filter for what comes down from the centre. Their role is in part to prevent the pressures, financial imperatives, targets and policies from defining the Trust. It can’t all be about counting things and negotiating contracts. But this takes a compassionate approach – time, patience, exploration.Both the opportunity to start with a clean sheet of paper at the Trust’s inception and the subsequent stability of leadership and organisation have been important in delivering the current culture and level of performance. Tracy is not resting on her laurels. “We’re not an organisation yet where everyone feels as great about working for DCHS as I do.” Other matters for attention include a gender pay gap and the treatment of BAME staff. And Tracy feels the Trust has only scratched the surface so far in innovatively deploying the assets under its control in service of community health and wellbeing.Tracy herself has a long-term health condition which has led to two ‘life-changing’ operations. But her self-care regime includes Nordic walking and swimming (at Hathersage outdoor pool.) She has used the Trust’s staff counselling service in connection with the surgery she has had, and has found that her openness about this has given psychological permission to other staff to do the same. She has gone to part-time working: 9 days every fortnight.In Tracy’s mentoring of ‘almost ready’ Chief Executives, Brene Brown is the leadership thinker that she refers people to most often. And her favourite question to ask aspiring leaders is “What is my leadership for?” The clearer you can get around that, the more people fly subsequently. “It helps you decide where you’re going to stand amidst all that noise.” Tracy’s own answer to the question is “in pursuit of social justice” and this stems in part from her family background. “I really do believe that the NHS is a core part of the potential we have as a country to develop a much more socially just society.”Tracy has a concern that while there is an enthusiasm for compassionate leadership in the NHS at present, there is a danger that it will be reduced to what can be measured! And while Tracy is not an optimist about social justice in the UK as a whole right now, she remains convinced that DCHS can be a force for good locally, with that common purpose, shared values and partnership model.

Lisa Leighton is joint Managing Partner of BHP Accountants, who have 350 staff in five offices across Yorkshire. They are the only Sheffield business named in The Sunday Times Best 100 Middle-Sized Companies to Work For. They have tripled in size in the last ten years.They act primarily for SMEs, but also in the healthcare sector, and for charities and not-for-profit organisations.Their strap line is “Reassuringly Straight Laced”, a phrase that reflects the personality of a business which has a family culture and doesn’t take itself too seriously.Initially a shy only child, Lisa had to dig deep when her dad died while she was in her second year at university. His heart attack at 46 has shaped Lisa’s life ever since. “I was almost searching for a new family” and she made BHP that family. “Everyone looks out for each other” she says.It also awakened her to the fact that we have one life and “you need to live it. There is no point in not doing things on account of nerves or thinking that you can’t. Just try.” She feels that Sheffield has given her “so much” and so she is committed to returning some of that: she is Executive in Residence at Sheffield Hallam University and was treasurer at Cavendish Cancer Care for a five year period.Lisa doesn’t understand why people would say accounting is boring. It gives Lisa the privilege of “being nosey” and asking questions in a huge range of businesses, without being asked why! She loves the human contact and arriving at solutions in partnership with her clients.What is it that makes BHP a great place to work? Becoming one of the Sunday Times Top 100 Employers became a formal part of BHP’s strategy in 2010. Some of the changes they have made are simple and straightforward but mean a lot to their staff. They have introduced an email curfew between 7pm and 7am (anyone who works in professional services will understand how radical that actually is), they have introduced a volunteering day, free fruit, and a wellbeing week with Katie Bell Physiotherapy.The ‘Why’ of BHP, the outcome of an exercise prompted by Simon Sinek, is “to support, develop and inspire our people and our clients so that they are able to realise their true potential.” The firm is investing heavily in technology, as Lisa believes a lot of the services that BHP provides will disappear in the next five years and that technology skills, for example data analytics, will be essential to the employability of the next generation of accountants.  Technology and people skills in fact are the top priorities of the business, which recently won Audit Team of the Year. The organisation is on a journey from audit to advisory. Transforming young people into rounded advisors is challenging because some of the grass roots experience that was the foundation of Lisa’s training is no longer available to the profession. In lieu of that, partners take younger staff to meetings in order for them to listen to what is going on.I asked Lisa if the auditors of Thomas Cook and Carillion had been doing their job. Lisa acknowledged that the profession had been coming under pressure in relation to audit quality. Her view is that training is key. But data analytics also helps.Lisa is Joint Managing Partner (with Hamish Morrison). It is working well. She personally had not appreciated how lonely it is at the top and being able to share on a daily basis with Hamish has helped a lot. They have complementary skill sets and work in complementary geographies. However, they work hard to ensure that they manage BHP as a single unified practice. Lisa has moved around in the business, at her own volition, from audit to small scale advisory to corporate finance. In between she has had two children. She picked up the role of staff partner on returning from maternity leave, assuming responsibility for the HR function and this proved significant for her development. In particular it enabled her to hone her coaching and mentoring skills.Lisa considers becoming Managing Partner one of her big achievements. She credits her supportive family, in particular her mum, as instrumental in this. Going forward she wants to make sure the business is there for the next generation.The mistake she’s learnt most from she calls “crashing and burning.” Five years ago she was at a partners meeting and they experimented with some ‘post-it feedback.’ The feedback Lisa received was consistent and made her question the long hours she was working and the toll it was taking on her family. She acknowledges that resilience is a two-edged sword and can enable one to sustain unhealthy routines as well as to cope with change and adversity. She started to look after herself and to “say no” and now makes the most of her PA. She has kept the ‘post-it’ notes from the meeting. The people who have inspired Lisa include her mum, Stephen Ingram, John Warner (other partners in the practice) and plenty of young technology enthusiasts, and clients. Her philosophy is “Every day is a learning day.”Her advice to aspiring young leaders would be “believe in yourself” and take responsibility for your career.