Thursday, August 14, 2008

Leadership and Management in UK

Some of the educational bloggers I follow have been blogging about management and leadership this week - must be that back to school week. see John and Don Leddingham

Meanwhile I have just been at meetings with industry and standards setting bodies who blame decline on education mmm is this Six Degrees of Separation or more likely they are already looking at the changes that need to come in management and leadership across industry.

A good place to look are the national occupational standards NOS in UK for management and leadership these are developed by the Management Standards Centre. We use these standards as basis for awards in Scotland and rest of UK and we work closely with the Chartered Management Institute to make sure our HN awards lead to Chartered Manager Status.

I attended a rather entertaining launch of some new standards in London on Wednesday here are the main points from the morning. Making UK Management and Leadership Skills World Class by 2020: Pioneering Change

In reverse order from twitter (slightly edited with other notes from day)

It started out in quite a focused way and by end - well it's all the fault of teachers and television.

But some useful nuggets - I've not checked these "facts"

On serious note we have some recognised serious shortcomings across the Scottish public and private sectors and we are going to see what else can be done about this and that was why my journey was necessary.

Joe Wilson
Television finally getting blame for promoting bullying and poor values The Apprentice and Devils Den and the swearing chefs not good role models
Joe Wilson lesson from this morning give people around you continual opportunities to step up and take risks manage challenges
Joe Wilson where do children learn to be leaders in todays schools ? not enough challenge
Joe Wilson leadership and management failures in UK being piled at education's doors. Grumpy corporate rotters or is this insight ??
Joe Wilson despite credit crunch stilll queues for private schools in london and across UK in Sweden money follows learner this drives up standards
Joe Wilson or driven by a lack of values and attitudes to learning there is no simple answer
Joe Wilson current school system (england) "only" fails 54pc of young people this is higher than anywhere in the developed world. A scandal and driven by academic snobbery
Joe Wilson do you do intense leadership coaching with all staff and offer rewards on how on well they develop the next leaders
Joe Wilson have you got staff who are able to "not take " or opt out of responsibility for what they do from beginning to end if so redesign work
Joe Wilson don't do top down plans they don't work
Joe Wilson good example of mindmaps rather than using business reports massive added value in large corporation over night
Joe Wilson still problem at policy level in UK we are too arrogant to look at rest of world
Joe Wilson UK low esteem and a lack of pride in achievement and too many managers who don't have proper values , aspirations or goals in private and public sector - ouch
Joe Wilson leadership and risk has to be in our industries context but we should all take more risk
Joe Wilson chinese best qualified managers and good at identifying their weaknesses deep understanding of skillsets required UK USA too complacent
Joe Wilson if you are not growing next leaders in your company or in your industry - serious problems with your leadership and your industry
Joe Wilson leaders need constant challenge and validation and should never be too busy to think - reflection should be regular
Joe Wilson we learn leadership by doing it and being open to challenges not through courses or qualifications How do you move staff around no comfort zones if you want to grow managers and leaders??
Joe Wilson There are no low tech industries but there are too many low tech organisations in the UK

2 comments:

John Connell said...

What does 'back to school' mean, Joe? :-)
John C

Joe Wilson said...

I know we just get to work all year round these days.

I still really miss the students and exploring new things with them.

But don't miss the staff/workroom in August and the reluctant learners there ;-)

My 5 year old starts week on Monday.