Leadership commission sets out route map for generational change
A bold and wide-ranging report about how to make sure the leadership of the West Midlands reflects the communities it serves has set the starting point for generational change in the region.
Leaders Like You has set out a series of recommendations to improve the diversity of the region’s leadership, in terms of gender, race, disability, sexuality, age and class.
Mayor Andy Street pushed for the creation of the Leadership Commission after his previous experience of meetings of regional leaders that “involved many people who looked like me – white, male, middle aged”.
The Commission has identified a “significant leadership diversity gap”, and it pointed to research which “suggests that greater leadership diversity leads to greater prosperity and reduced marginalisation and disaffectiom amongst excluded groups”.
Street has made it a central theme of his mayoralty to deliver inclusive growth, and the outcomes from this report will be embedded into the West Midlands Combined Authority’s (WMCA) recently-created Inclusive Growth Unit.
“It is right thing to do and it is the wise thing to do,” said Street, who highlighted the region’s young and diverse population as “the ace card” in the successful bids for the 2021 City of Culture and 2022 Commonwealth Games.
He added: “It’s a call to action to every organisation, to every leader in the West Midlands. Everyone can play a role.”
The report, Leaders Like You, is the culmination of nine months’ work and was launched at Great Barr Academy in front of an audience of students, business people and civic leaders.
The Commission’s chairperson, Anita Bhalla, acknowledged the creation of the Commission was a “bold step” by the West Midlands Combined Authority.
“From the outset we knew there was a deficit in the diversty of leaders both in the private and public sectors but there was insufficient robust data to address this issue,” she said.
The Commission took a “heads and hearts approach”, with some commissioners, led by the academic members, concentrating on the data and others setting up focus groups to listen to people.
Although data gaps prevented the Commission from creating a “fuller profile of diversity in leadership”, it found enough information to determine there is a significant leadership diversity gap.
Bhalla added: “We the Commissioners feel that this is the beginning of a long overdue journey. The work for our current leaders in the private and public sectors begins now.”
As we reveal Mayor @andy4wm's Leadership Commission report, a message of support from Prime Minster @theresa_may https://t.co/a8Olw2J46U @10DowningStreet @AnitaBhalla #imhere
— West Midlands CA (@WestMids_CA) June 11, 2018
The report identified more progress had been made in the public sector, and particularly in the NHS and civil service, where female leaders are more common.
However it reinforced the point that people with disabilities and the proportion of BAME people are underrepresented, both in the workforce and in leadership positions, while there is a “huge gap” in information on people from working class backgrounds in leadership positions.
The report identified five themes to focus its recommendations – inclusive leadership, partnerships with business, recruitment and HR development, combatting the evaluation and learning deficit, and creating a route map for the next generation.
Its recommendations ranged from creating a live list of female, BAME, disabled and LGBT panellists and speakers from the region, expanding the Mayor’s Mentors scheme, and creating a Youth Combined Authority.
