Five Attributes of Effective Leadership within the SFPC Programme

Leadership has a huge influence on the successful implementation of any innovation. This learning report describes five attributes of effective leadership, which were gathered through interviews with leaders in local authorities that are currently successfully implementing with fidelity one of the three innovations: No Wrong Door, Family Safeguarding or Family Valued. The implementation of these innovations in these adopting authorities will be challenged as the leaders that introduced these innovations move on to new roles in their careers.

This learning report does not form part of the formal Strengthening Families, Protecting Children evaluation process. Implementation is yet to be validated by the independent evaluation and the content in this learning report will be revised once that evaluation is available.

The content described in this report aims to answer the following three key questions:

1. What are the attributes of leadership, and the contexts for leadership, most associated with successful implementation of:
   • Family Safeguarding;
   • Family Valued;
   • No Wrong Door?
2. How can we best support local authorities faced with a change of leaders in key roles?
3. How can we best support existing leaders with tools for self-reflection and coaching?

This review has found five key attributes of successful SFPC leadership.

1. Values driven leadership
2. Leadership that changes how decisions are made in the interests of families
3. Leadership that changes practice and culture
4. Leadership that creates successful partnerships
5. Leadership that secures buy in from corporate leaders and politicians

Collectively, these five attributes describe leadership which is most associated with successful implementation with fidelity of Family Safeguarding, No Wrong Door and Family Valued.

Two recommendations have been made from these findings.

• The first recommendation is that these five attributes are carefully considered and communicated throughout the recruitment, advertisement and selection of new leaders.
• The second recommendation is that these five attributes form part of ongoing leadership development, self-reflection and leadership coaching for leaders in children’s social care.

Download the learning report for further discussion of the five attributes of effective leadership within the SFPC programme and helpful tools for applying the attributes.