Working to make government more effective

In-person event

Women Leaders Series: Leading Organisations

This is the second event in our Women Leaders series. The series focuses on how women contribute positively to government, business and politics.

In this second event in our women leaders series, women who play leading roles in government, business, and the media discuss their experiences of building their careers and how organisations benefit from women in leadership roles. They also discuss the different challenges of leadership in the public and private sectors and share their perspectives on how leadership teams contribute to success.   

Panelists:

  • Helen Ghosh, Director General, National Trust
  • Lin Homer, Chief Executive, HMRC
  • Fran Unsworth, Deputy Director, BBC News and Current Affairs
  • Vivienne Cox, Lead Independent Director on the Board at DFID, Chairman of Vallourec SA, Senior Independent Director at Pearson plc and and non-executive director of Rio Tinto plc and BG Group,
  • Liz Bingham, Managing Partner, EY.

Chaired by Miranda Curtis, Chairman of Waterstones and of Camfed, Non-Executive Director of Liberty Global, Marks & Spencer and the Royal Shakespeare Company, and a governor of the Institute for Government.

Sponsor: EY

Take interesting opportunities which will develop you. Take the long view – but don’t feel the need to have a mapped out route to the top. Understand what you want to be – rather than what others want you to be – and recognise that can change at different times of your life. And focus on organisational values which are much more powerful than monetary incentives to build teams and lead successfully.

These were the key messages form the panel of women leaders convened at the Institute for Government’s second event on women in leadership.

Lin Homer, now Chief Executive of HMRC, emphasised how she had moved jobs, often to confound people’s expectations of what she could do – so she had moved from local government solicitor, to a general administrator to corporate finance to local authority chief executive and then into central government.  Leadership experience was transferable – and successful leaders needed to plan well, obsess about outcomes, and focus on developing talent – female and male – within the organisation.

Fran Unsworth had spent 30 years at the BBC. The series of BBC scandals had led the FT to ask whether the BBC was unmanageable – and when she had joined it had an “antediluvian” male culture. But although no woman had yet become director-general, it had had women in many other key leadership positions – and her message was to hang onto your personal and organisation values – and treat your career as a marathon not a sprint.

Helen Ghosh, now Director General of the National Trust, but formerly a permanent secretary, was often asked to contrast leadership in the Civil Service with leadership of a charity. She had made the move because she had come to understand that you could serve the public both from within government, but also from outside – but the motivations and passion were very similar in both organisations. The connecting thread was her interest in “people and places”. She found two big differences: you were a much more independent operator – and could express your own opinions – even on tattooing on Any Questions. She didn’t see a significant difference between men and women leaders – personality made a difference and she was very different from her female predecessor. But all leaders needed stamina and optimism to succeed.

Vivienne Cox had also changed direction after 30 years at BP, which had offered her great opportunities – when she realised she had hit her personal ceiling – and developed a new “portfolio career”. She had taken a series of non-executive roles, which was a big contrast to having an executive role– but ones where each one connected to allow her to transfer experience. She was now the lead non-executive at the Department for International Development and enjoyed seeing the different environment, and had developed huge respect for the way civil servants interacted with ministers. But she thought there were the same basics: planning, budgeting, monitoring and measurement – the problem in the public sector was the lack of profit as a yardstick She agreed that personality was what mattered – and that leaders needed to develop their won authentic style. 

Despite EY’s Liz Bingham’s background – a non-graduate in a professional services firm, a lesbian and a woman, she had never felt that obstacles were put in the way of her succeeding.  She had been able to be authentic. Her message was that leadership starts early on. She found it strange that so-called leadership development always focused on weaknesses, not building on strengths. She felt – though others disagreed – that the top was lonely and people needed to rely on external networks for support.

Miranda Curtis asked about the impact of adversarial “bearpit” politics and how to incentivise where money was not available: Lin Homer thought that managing complex relationships was part of the job; Helen Ghosh was more frustrated by ministers who took bad decisions for bad reasons.  Fran Unsworth was concerned that people who needed to “think aloud” might be undervalued. Vivienne Cox thought values always trumped monetary rewards – even in BP’s trading arm. She had never seen an incentive package which incentivised. In response to questions, the panel emphasised the need to ensure that organisations created conditions for women to succeed – and Lin and Liz recommended training to iron out unconscious biases in recruitment.

Publisher
Institute for Government

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