Senior Leadership Development Programme

Context

Redcar & Cleveland Borough Council (RCBC) is a unitary authority and one of the area’s largest employers, with more than 3,000 staff delivering services across directorates including Children & Families, Adults & Communities, and Growth, Enterprise & Environment. The borough, stretching from industrial Teesside to the North York Moors and the heritage coast, is home to around 135,000 residents. Known for its commitment to regeneration, economic growth and improving opportunities for local communities, RCBC plays a key role in maintaining the unique cultural and natural assets of the region, as well as its economic future.

Within a Local Government Association (LGA) Peer Challenge report, RCBC received feedback on some key areas of organisational functionality where improvements were possible. LGA Peer Challenges are written by a team of experienced elected member and officer peers – in this case the team included an elected Mayor and a council Chief Executive – acting “as critical friends, not as assessors, consultants or inspectors.” They are improvement-focussed and tailored to meet a council’s needs – designed to complement and add value to a council’s own performance and improvement focus.

Requirement

In response, the Council sought the consultancy and support of an experienced learning & development provider with the aim of using the report’s recommendations to shape an impactful development programme for council leaders.

Following meetings with the senior team and other RCBC stakeholders, Eliesha presented thoughts on how a series of bespoke interventions could be used to support the Council’s Executive Management Team (EMT) in making the necessary progress. We outlined a plan to advance the team, identify areas for improvement and facilitate their growth as an effective unit.

The report’s key recommendations were that the Council worked to:

1. Develop a compelling narrative, a shared vision, agreed priorities and plans for regeneration and economic growth in Redcar & Cleveland, and communicate these widely.
2. Systematically deliver and track progress against these priorities and plans to ensure they deliver real impact to local communities.
3. Maximise opportunities, potential strategic partners, and regional & sub-6 regional structures by aligning priorities.
4. Maximise member and officer capacity through educational and skills development and develop a ‘one council’ organisational culture.
5. Further develop some of the necessary management processes to ensure the Council is maximising its potential and effectively deploying its capacity.
6. Use scenario planning when developing the medium-term financial strategy to consider the options, because of uncertainties over future funding arrangements.
7. Further embed its approach to developing the capital pipeline to ensure that all additions are fully evidence-based, considering the revenue cost (i.e. Debt funding and operational).

It was critical that any development programme reflected what the report highlighted as positives for RCBC, in order to avoid ‘over-correcting’ in their efforts. The team faced complex and varied challenges and needed support to carefully blend both new and old approaches, rather than starting from scratch. These positives, along with recommendations and clarifications sought from RCBC around their objectives and goals, formed the programme’s foundation.

The avoidance of drastic, short-term changes can make an organisational transition more viable in the long-term and for established members of staff. Protecting that portion of organisational expertise was vital for the Council’s success, as evidenced by the report’s positive feedback. Opposing drastic change, we took a measured approach which evolved the existing capacity for strong leadership.

Solution

Central to our proposed solution was instilling attributes we knew to be valuable in senior Local Government leadership teams. These included:

• Confidence – feelings of competence, effectiveness, and confidence in the team and their own ability.
• Adaptability – responding positively to, and recovering from, changing situations in a way that focuses on achieving organisational objectives.
• Purposefulness – having a clear and shared sense of purpose, clear values, drive and direction.
• Social support – establishing relationships that give and provide in a non-judgmental way.

We produced a framework/design for the programme which reinforced the importance of these values and nurtured their development within EMT members. Practical, manageable development steps centred around three questions:

1. Where are we now?
2. How do we work together effectively?
3. What is our function?

This ensured our programme aligned with their real concerns and challenges. The first stage included personal insight, team insight and sought to challenge their perception of the team:

• Initial group session to establish ‘where we are’ using the work of Patrick Lencioni as a framework for a structured conversation analysing current practice and systematically identifying successes and successes.
• EMT members undertaking a Myers-Briggs analysis followed by a personalised feedback session with a qualified practitioner. The debrief created an objective picture of the individuals’ current personal strengths and development needs. A group debrief of results to contributed to the identification of effective working patterns, practices and behaviours.
• Final sessions to identify what it is that the EMT need to be responsible for, what actions they need to take in the short and medium term in relation to the recommendations above, and to identify their training needs as a group.

Picking up from the final session of stage one, we moved on to co-create a tailored Leadership Development Programme that would satisfy the Council’s strategic objectives (i.e. the report’s recommendations) as well as these newly-identified priorities.

A section was individualised e.g., one-to-one executive coaching, and the delivery of each section of Eliesha’s solution closely involved our experienced leadership development facilitators – individuals familiar with public sector training at a senior level. The team worked to understand the skills and behaviours needed for progression and knew that highly interactive sessions would provide the opportunity for knowledge to be shared and applied at this stage, reinforcing development.

Outcomes

Initial use of psychometric profiling and discussion around contextualised team development theory allowed us to establish a solid foundation for the programme. Utilised alongside more direct feedback to the facilitator and input from the leaders themselves, it supported the development of stage two.

The atmosphere of trust that has been created resulted in all parties embracing the opportunity to gather feedback on their own approaches as well as sharing their vulnerabilities to facilitate a more effective team working environment. This process required open reflection and produced a range of specific practices and behaviours for development:

• Clearer direction and more sharing of thinking
• Direction linked to council wide vision and priorities
• Developing a structured space to create discussion, clarity and buy-in
• Ensuring a ‘no-blame’ approach – in thinking and behaviours
• Sharing approaches that are working
• Sharing challenges and making appropriate team demands
• Keeping a balance between robust discussion and driving for solutions

This ultimately led to a shared agreement on specific next steps and priorities:

• Development on the Vision including the service offering, budget and corporate plan
• Further development on how collegiate leadership is working in practice
• Clarity on purpose and expectations of the differing management groups
• Develop clarity re: escalation and authority levels re the corporate plan
• Establish effective 2-way channels of communication between the differing management groups

The broad roles and functions of the differing management groups were agreed and the EMT has focused on progressing their work as a collective unit and now are engaging in quality debate, collaborating between directorates to develop systemic solutions, and have committed to at least fortnightly dedicated leadership time.

Please note that further details of this leadership development programme for Redcar & Cleveland Borough Council’s Executive Management Team are not yet eligible for publication.

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