Shaks Ghosh

Sarah Brennan: 00:03

Hello, I'm Sarah Brennan, and welcome to leader to leader. This is the podcast series where leaders in the third sector talk about their experience of what it's really like to be a leader today. My guest today is Shaks Ghosh. Shaks is the chief executive of Clore Social Leadership. Their mission is to support and develop leadership in the social sector. So Shaks is the perfect person to talk to about leadership in this sector. Shaks has worked on projects for central government, the private sector and the Indian NGO sector, following 10 years as CEO of Crisis, Shaks led the establishment of the Private Equity Foundation, and she's now also a commissioner for the Commission for Civil Society. She's passionate about social justice, and says that she now wants to focus on strengthening the voluntary sector. Shaks, welcome to Leader to Leader.

Shaks Ghosh: 00:58

Hi, Sara, this is so great. Such a pleasure to be with you today.

Sarah Brennan: 01:02

Thank you, Shaks, I think you're a perfect person to join us today Shaks, given your background and experience. You grew up in India, and you say that nuns were a role model for you. I was fascinated by that.

Shaks Ghosh: 01:16

This does seem to be the year of nuns doesn't it, there seem to be all these films and programmes about nuns! But absolutely central to shaping have been all the women in my life. You know, my mother was incredible. My grandmother who was even more incredible, because I grew up in India, when I was growing up in India, all the English medium schools were run by the Catholic Church, I was dragged up by nuns. So off I went every day to the convent. And we're surrounded by these incredible women who, when I was very young, tended to be Irish, but came from other parts of the world as well. And then by the time I finished my schooling, and in fact, I went to Loreto college. So even my first degree was done in a convent. And by then they were Indian nuns, the incredible thing is their strength and resilience, and just how self contained they are. So despite the bad press that the Catholic Church I guess, the world over has received, I was taught and mentored and jolled along in my life by some of the most incredible women.

Sarah Brennan: 02:42

I also had a convent grammar school education. And I wouldn't say that they were my role models, there is something very different in your experience. Was this, do you think because these were women who had gone very bravely to very different countries, and maybe it had their eyes opened in a different way, had no social awareness that maybe those nuns who were in England or Ireland didn't have?

Shaks Ghosh: 03:08

They were educators, that's what they wanted to do. And that really shone out of them. But this passion for growing young people that left a mark with me, I can hear myself now sometimes, you know, sounding a bit like that. But the other bit of context was India, the really big shaper in my life was that I came to the UK as a young immigrant, I didn't come until I was 21. So I had all of my formative years in India. And when I was growing up in India, women didn't have such a great time, you know, if you got to be educated, and there was really only a minority of women that were educated, if you had that opportunity, that was it, you know, there was no sense that would then lead to a career. So you would go from your father's house to your husband's house, and that would be your life, that would have been my life. Except that my very clever mother, I suppose, realised that if she sent me off to the nuns, I would have these role models that were really very different. These were women who had careers that devoted themselves to justice and the relief of poverty and the education of women. So I guess when I was looking around for role models and thinking, "Well, who do I want to be like?" These were all the larger than life characters that were around me, some clearly better than others.

Sarah Brennan: 03:09

But that sounds really great and a really positive experience, and looking at your career, you have led change yourself, not just within organisations, but these are organisation that have also had a role in changing society, so at Crisis, you were Chief Executive, and that was an organisation not just helping homeless people directly, but also raising awareness and raising public attitudes around and understanding about homelessness. And then you went to the Private Equity Foundation, now known as Impetus, which was, was fairly radical in what it was hoping to achieve from there then to Clore Social Leadership, which again, is about changing leadership within the charity sector. So you have been a real change agent through your career as well. Would you say that was something you were driven to do?

Shaks Ghosh: 05:44

Oh, yes, definitely. It's so nice to hear you say that. Because actually, if I think about myself, as a young person, as a middle aged person, now maybe as a an older woman, I think that is really what I want to be, when I grow up, that's what I want to be, I want to be an agent of change. It comes from somewhere way back, and again, probably connected to the nuns in some some very deep way of thinking about social justice, and wanting the world to be a kinder, fairer place. As a young person, that was really how I saw my role in the world. To make the world a more just place, I guess, I see social justice as being about two kinds of social work. One is social change. And the other one is social service. And I think both of them are equally important. And both of them are what we in the social sector do. So I remember going to Crisis, for example, and we ran soup kitchens, we provided clothing, we provided shelter, it was very much a social services role. And what I then wanted to do was add in the piece, which was about social change, which was about advocacy, which was about speaking up, which was about saying social services is great and fine. But actually, there's a better way of doing it, which is giving people the skills to do it for themselves, empowering those communities, so that they also flourish and thrive and don't just need to be the receivers of social service.

Sarah Brennan: 07:30

That seems to really reflect very clearly in your roles and in your achievements. But it's interesting that you're not without criticism of the charity sector. And in your role at PEF, you talk about how you were hoping to improve how the charity sector works, how we could learn from private companies...

Shaks Ghosh: 07:54

Oh, yes, Sarah. I mean, you know, from your years of service in our sector, that we are so imperfect, our beloved sector has so many laws, and so many difficulties, and more porous, social sector, which we are becoming, and it's not without its problems. But a more porous sector, which borrows ideas from the private sector and the public sector could be really exciting. This is where maybe we could get some of our ideas of bringing in new ways of doing things, new infrastructure, all of those things needs to come from somewhere. And sometimes, you know, you can discover them sitting in the bath, but more likely, you're likely to borrow them from sectors that have innovated before you. The other thing that was very clear to me from the way the business sector and the private equity sector, particularly was successful, is through focus on leadership. So I didn't come into the Clore role to promote leadership by accident. I had learned from the business sector, how important leadership was. And you know, one of the things I often say is that I ran crisis for 10 years, I never thought about leadership. I didn't know what it meant. I never thought about myself as a leader. I certainly think there was a whole skill set up there that would help me to do my job better. And oh my god, if only I knew then what I knew now.

Sarah Brennan: 09:40

What happened to open your eyes to the importance of leadership or the existence of leadership thinking of yourself as a leader?

Shaks Ghosh: 09:49

While I was at the Private Equity Foundation, these guys would go out and look for companies to buy - the decision would pivot on whether the leadership of that organisation was right. And I hadn't ever thought that before. I do have to say, though, that the approach to leadership from the business people that I was working with, was very focused on the CEO and the senior team. If they were right, they could run the business, they could lead the staff. I think one of the differences in the way that I see leadership now is that I really don't see it as the person at the top or that small group of people that are at the top. I think that more distributed model of leadership is the one that is right for our time, that actually the world is a very complicated place and becoming more complicated by the day. And no one leader, no one person can have all the answers and have all the solutions can have all the energy and passion to bring an organisation along - one of the mantras, for example, that Clore fellows have, and the Clore fellows have some wonderful mantras, but one of their mantras is that leaders grow leaders. So this idea that leaders have followers, I think, is slowly moving on to a model where what leaders need to do is develop the next generation of leaders, you know, it doesn't like you know, I'm the shepherd and there's a whole herd of sheep following me, it has to be about if I'm a leader, my responsibility is to grow the next generation of leaders to take forward my ideas and to grow their own skills and to grow their own impact on the world around them.

Sarah Brennan: 11:49

At Clore, do you talk about what it is to be led?

Shaks Ghosh: 11:53

We talk about it all the time, but mostly in the context of really democratising leadership. So there's a school of thought in the States, which is really interesting. And it comes out of adaptive leadership. What those guys say, this is a group of Harvard professors is we need to move away from leaders and focus more on leadership skills. So the basic idea is that leadership is a set of skills and behaviours. Everybody can learn those skills and behaviours, there's nothing innate about it. So if you're in a building, for example, and there's a buyer, who leads is it the chief executive, who you would follow out of the building, while the chief executive really doesn't even know where the fire escape is? You follow the receptionist, don't you? So more and more, we talk about how can we give people the skill set to exercise leadership in their everyday lives, whether it's their domestic lives, whether it's their social lives, whether it's their professional life, and, you know, maybe that's one of the other differences between the social sector and private and public sectors, which is that if you choose to work in the social sector, I think you have already taken your first step into leadership. No matter where you are in the hierarchy of an organisation, you have decided that you want to change them that you want to serve. And therefore, that makes you a leader, no matter what your position is. So our role then becomes how do we get them the skill set to do that, working at Clore where I'm surrounded by amazing leaders, but also lots of conversation, and lots of thinking about leadership and the way it's going. It's also very clear to me that the private sector is starting to borrow and can do a lot more borrowing in terms of the way we in our sector lead. You know, when when you talk to business people, they say, Well, you know, it's just really difficult to motivate staff. They don't have the kind of passion that we see in the social sector. And when I think back on my 40 years of experience in our sector, motivation of staff has never been a problem. Sometimes, you know, they have almost too much passion. You can't, you can't keep them under control, because they just have this great energy and passion for social change.

Sarah Brennan: 14:36

So what next?

Shaks Ghosh: 14:38

I have two really, really important things to achieve. The first is the community platform that we have just launched, and it's very, very early days. It's about peer learning. So what our new platform is going to do, I hope is provided fantastic communities for social leaders to learn from each other, poach each other, help each other, answer each other's questions because I absolutely believe that. And, you know, our fellows told me this every single day that people learn more from each other than they ever learn from us when they come on our programmes. The second thing I want to do is something around black and minority ethnic leadership. I myself came into the social sector, at a time when equal opportunities was the big buzz, and black and brown people were getting lots of opportunities to move into responsible positions in the public sector and in the social sector. But then I don't think we did enough to provide the helping hand for the next generation coming up. And I feel bad about that. I sort of feel like you know, there's a special place in hell for black and brown people who don't help each other. And that is going to be my probably my next and last project that I want to do at law, which is run rather by ratable, empowering leadership programme for all those black and brown leaders. It's so important for them to give leadership in their communities at this time.

Sarah Brennan: 16:24

And I have no doubt Shaks, that you will do it. Thank you so much for joining us today and telling us about your thoughts and experience and what makes you get up in the morning as a leader. Thank you.

Shaks Ghosh: 16:36

I have so enjoyed Sarah, thank you.

Sarah Brennan: 16:39

That's it from this episode of leader to leader. I hope you enjoyed it. And if you did, please rate and subscribe so you don't miss an episode. That's also it for this series. But there has been a great response to hearing from leaders. So I'm delighted to tell you we have more fascinating guests lined up for the Autumn. Please join us then. Until then take care