Do you need frontline experience of a service to lead it?

You certainly don’t have to be a doctor to run a hospital, says Blair McPherson, but if you don’t have the relevant experience you better have someone you trust close to you who does

A recent article in a national newspaper brought together a number of interviews with public sector senior managers to discuss the growing trend of appointing people to lead services they had no background in. The overwhelming view was that it was neither necessary nor even desirable to have frontline experience of a service to lead it.

You don’t have to have been a social worker to be director of social services. You don’t have to have been a teacher to be a head teacher. And you don’t have to be a doctor to run a hospital.

Senior management posts are about management skills and these are transferable so your professional background is irrelevant. Chief executives of local authorities come from a range of backgrounds – they may be a solicitor, an accountant or an engineer by profession (although admittedly they do usually have a background in local government).

As organisations reduce the number of management posts and increase the spans of responsibility, what holds true for chief executives is frequently being seen as applying to an increasing number of posts, not just senior management posts.

Those who argue in favour of this approach point out you don’t need to know how to do the job of people you manage – in fact, it is better you don’t then you won’t be tempted to try. You will instead rely on your management skills of delegation, negotiation, and inspiration alongside knowing the right questions to ask, establishing the priorities and taking the strategic overview.

I certainly found this to be true when as a senior manager in social services I suddenly found myself responsible for libraries, museums, adult education and registrars (births deaths and marriages).

My experience of managing big budgets, large staff groups and a diverse range of services equipped me for the post. And yet, there are things I know which I only know because of my frontline experience, things which made me a more effective senior manager, things which enabled me to ask the right questions.

As a senior manager I chaired a lot of disciplinary hearings, a large proportion of which involved staff from residential, day and domiciliary services. Not only had I first line management experience of these services but I had worked in residential care for several years so I had a good insight into what really goes on in these institutions when the manager isn’t around at weekends and during the night shift.

I knew about the staff room culture, how difficult it is to stand up against the small powerful clique who unofficially run the place and the scope for the subtle abuse of power when people need help to go to the toilet, get out of bed or have a drink. I knew how shift systems could be operated for the convenience of staff rather than the needs of residents, how the overtime arrangements could be manipulated and how the recruitment process could be abused.

As a manger leading a transformation of services, I was expected to be able to paint a picture for staff of how things would look different in the future. I was able to use my frontline experience to provide examples that my audience related to .I talked in terms of choice, dignity and respect because these were the professional values of my audience and I adapted my language because different groups refer to clients, patients, services users, customers or residents. Using the wrong terminology may seem trivial but will undermine your credibility.

I know an experienced head of policy for a large housing association( HA) who became the director of operations for another HAs. With no frontline experience in housing, when they realised that things weren’t as they should be they didn’t know the right questions to ask of a group of managers who had a vested interest in keeping them at arm’s length. And when something went wrong – and something always goes wrong – they learnt about it too late. Their subsequent claim that they had been reassured that everything was fine only served to confirm the view that they were out of touch with frontline services.

The answer appears to be that management skills are transferrable but if you’re leading a service that you don’t have frontline experience of, you better make sure you have someone you trust close to you who does.

Blair McPherson is author of ‘Equipping managers for an uncertain future’ and ‘People management in a harsh financial climate’, both published by Russell House www.blairmcpherson.co.uk