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n a recent piece for The MJ, Mark Rogers, Chief Executive of the Leadership Centre and current interim Chief Executive of East Midlands Combined County Authority looks at the skills needed to become a successful combined authority chief executive.
Mayoral Combined Authorities are no longer new; but they are not as mature a part of the government and governance landscape as other public administrations. That, of course, is a function of time – not a reflection of ambition and endeavour, before anyone starts shouting. Accordingly, an appreciation of the most relevant characteristics of the chief executive and other senior leaders of such bodies is at a relatively early and evolving stage – not least, for me, evidenced directly by the range, quality and insight shown in the applications for the permanent roles at the East Midlands Combined County Authority.
This is all to be expected. Government and councils have been around for a considerably longer period of time than mayoral combined authorities and what we look for in the appointed leadership has a reasonably well-established taxonomy – although still, rightly, contested at times and subject to regular iteration. Does any of that pre-existing body of knowledge and experience help us when thinking about the new regional entities? I would argue only somewhat. My experience of helping to establish two mayoral combined authorities and working with one or two others is that there is some significant distinctiveness to be considered – although I don’t suggest an absolute uniqueness. I will reflect on three aspects here, although there are certainly more, and my own views will undoubtedly be contested.
Firstly, because the mayoral model in general is not common in the UK, as a body of public servants we have not yet matured our understanding of how its deployment demands a new combination of leadership thinking and approaches. The regional mayoral set up is not the same as the strong leader/mayor, committee or hybrid models found in local government. The mayor I work to does not have a traditional cabinet around her of other politicians elected to serve on the combined authority board. They are there by dint of their ‘home’ council membership and this means that dual (in our case, sometimes treble) sovereignties are continuously in play in a way that is not the same as in a single council.
Political capital is, therefore, arrived at a little differently. Combined authorities, consequently, need their appointed (and elected) leaders to be willing and able to spend their time navigating this complexity – every suggestion, every conversation, every recommendation, every decision is a sophisticated negotiation and, critically, an interrogation of the ‘we’ question: how do we – all those who have a formal part to play in this joint enterprise – operate effectively in an environment where there are multiple mandates and accountabilities at work? And that’s before you even get into the wider partnership spaces.
Secondly, the beauty and, for some, bane of a mayoral combined authority is that is it new. Not without a genesis that brings pre-existing cultural, behavioural and other influences from its founding members at the outset, but still malleable and ductile in a way that is far, far less the case in the much longer established entities that spawn them. And this too requires a distinctive leadership: one that can continuously co-imagine, co-create, co-modify and collaboratively run something that will simultaneously be in programme, organisation development and business as usual modes. And, co-production is a leadership characteristic that needs constant nurturing and attention, not least because working systemically is a team sport and requires much time, patience and perseverance to be modelled if it is to flourish.
Thirdly, I have really enjoyed working with a new conundrum – new for me, anyway. The co-creators of a mayoral combined authority when they come into contact with the new organisation’s leadership – even if that leadership has been working with them to build the new institution during the setup stage – find themselves having to pivot from one form of collective, collaborative, inclusive leadership (in the case of the East Midlands, principally among the four constituent bodies) to a significantly changed new form of leadership where the mayoral combined authority team is also in play and running the new organisation.
As one of my East Midlands colleagues puts it: you shift from there being four members of The Beatles to five – where the fifth is also the front person (or, in my less melodic musical lexicon, you find that Lu Edmunds has joined The Damned for their second LP).
I am not arguing that the features of the leadership task in mayoral combined authorities are previously unrecognised. But I do consider that there is a very clear case for understanding that mayoral combined authorities – while perhaps council-like – are not councils. They have a distinctive genesis, governance, modus operandi, and evolution that are highly suggestive of a chief executive person specification that leans heavily into the adaptive leadership space where the commitment to and capabilities of relationship-forming, congenital collegiality, achievement through others, and leading through influence are in very sharp relief.
Oh, and quite to the contrary of fans’ expectations (not least because a member of Pink Floyd produced their second LP), Music For Pleasure really was a decent follow up to The Damned’s debut and, significantly, paved the way for their third effort. An uncontested masterpiece characterised by a creative leap made possible by the whole band investing in the new songs, sound, production and touring schedule.
Mark Rogers