Leadership and Management Review
Evidence Gathering Phase – Stakeholder Interviews
Introduction
The purpose of this report is to set out the findings of the stakeholder interviews
conducted to explore the views, understanding and experiences key stakeholders
had of leadership and management across Scotland. Stakeholders were asked for
interview on the basis of their extensive experience of working in leadership and
management in Scotland and the informed insight that they could offer on the
subject.
The findings are reported and analysed in sections based on three key themes, that
were drawn out after extensive review of the findings, namely: (i) the current state of
leadership and management in Scotland; (ii) support and development initiatives for
leadership and management in Scotland; and (iii) recommendations for the future of
leadership and management in Scotland.
The report will firstly present a summary of the key findings from the interviews,
followed by each of the sections detailed above. All of the findings reported are
wholly opinion based and encapsulate only the views of those interviewed who were
all individuals with a strong background in working in areas related to leadership and
management.
Summary
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Leadership and management were widely viewed as being important issues in
Scotland and generally it was held that there is some form of connection
between the two issues.
Views on the quality of leadership and management were mixed, whether within
Scotland or in comparison to the rest of the UK, but overall it was felt that
management was stronger than leadership in Scotland. There was a consensus
however that Scotland performs poorly when compared internationally on both
leadership and management.
Scotland’s cultural attributes, including a fear of failure and risk aversion, were
widely believed to be a key cause of leadership and management issues.
Several concerns were raised over leadership and management development
including a lack of collaboration across sectors and too much focus on
qualifications. Course based provision was particularly considered to be
problematic as it does not place learning in the context of the learner.
That there is not enough evidence on the impact of past provision was noted to
be problematic, although the difficulties in evaluating development provision
were also noted.
Recommendations for the future were wide in scope and include the promotion
of good practice case studies to generate interest in leadership and
management, more partnership working for a cross sectoral approach and
using current provision to its full potential.
Section 1: The current state of leadership and management in Scotland
To assess the current state of leadership and management in Scotland interviewees
were asked a series of questions on the quality of leadership and management in
Scotland and their importance to the Scottish economy.
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Firstly, to frame the discussions stakeholders were asked for their perceptions of
what leadership and management actually are, and what the nature of the
relationship between them is. Not only is this an intuitive starting point for discussions
but it also ensured that the interviewer understood fully what the stakeholder was
referring to when discussing leadership and management throughout the interview.
Broadly speaking, most participants held similar views on leadership and
management as concepts. There was, however, more disagreement regarding the
nature of the relationship between them with some arguing they closely resemble
one another and others that they are markedly different. These differing perceptions
were argued to cause widespread confusion and are cited as being the reason for
poor conceptualisation of leadership and management in many organisations.
On the role of leadership and management in the Scottish economy there was more
consensus. The vital importance to the Scottish economy of leadership and
management through their effect on productivity, skills development, innovation and
ultimately economic growth, was acknowledged by all stakeholders. Views on the
quality of leadership and management were much more diverse, however, with some
arguing that the quality is poor and others that it is far stronger. It was a widely held,
though by no means universal perception, that management was stronger than
leadership. Why this should be the case though was not at all clear to stakeholders.
An important concern for the review is the issue of measuring the quality of
leadership and management. It was noted in the literature review on current
knowledge1 that these measurement problems make international comparisons, to
determine Scotland’s relative performance, very important as we have no optimal
benchmark against which to chart our progress, we only have the performance of our
competitors.
Opinions on Scotland’s relative leadership and management performance can be
split into two categories: (i) Scotland’s performance relative to the UK; and (ii)
Scotland’s performance relative to its international counterparts. Relative to the UK
views were very mixed with some arguing that there is a huge difference in
performance, whilst others argued that performance across the UK is similar. In the
second instance, relative performance internationally was nearly universally agreed
to be poorer.
The main factor identified as being the cause of Scotland’s leadership and
management ‘issues’, if indeed stakeholders agreed that there was an issue, is
Scotland’s culture. A widely used term by the stakeholders, ‘cultural issues’ refers to
an array of attributes including, not exclusively, a fear of failure, risk aversion, ‘tall
poppy syndrome’ and too introverted an approach to leadership and management.
Overall the opinions forwarded on the current state of leadership and management in
Scotland tell us that although leadership and management is undoubtedly an
important issue, there is much disagreement on what the current state of leadership
and management in Scotland actually is i.e. no consensus on the level of quality
across Scotland. There is no consensus that there is a leadership and management
‘issue’ in Scotland and similarly there is no consensus on what the cause of this
potential issue may be other than a general notion of ‘cultural issues’. The evidence
suggests that Scotland is likely not world leading in its leadership and management
See the full report of the literature review for detail. Also see OCEA’s literature review on
productivity.
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but otherwise there is not enough agreement on Scotland’s relative performance to
measure national performance.
Therefore, the evidence from stakeholder interviews does not take us very far
forward in identifying the current state of leadership and management in Scotland
other than to say it is clearly an important issue around which there is much
disagreement and confusion.
Section 2: Scottish initiatives to support leadership and management
After the current state of leadership and management was explored stakeholders
were asked a series of questions on the initiatives that have been implemented in the
past to support leadership and management.
Firstly, stakeholders identified the most commonly undertaken support activities in
Scotland for leadership and management and these have changed over time. For
instance, course based provision, bespoke training and mentoring and coaching
were all identified as commonly used methods of support. Mentoring and coaching
were noted to have grown in prominence over recent times and technological
advances were changes the methods of course delivery with more e-learning being
undertaken.
General discussion of these activities highlighted concerns, particularly regarding
course based provision, which if carried out on a one-off basis from an academic
standpoint was perceived to lack effectiveness. Nearly all stakeholders held the view
that development courses needed to be placed in the context of the learner and
needed to occur over the long term, as opposed to being unique events. Customised
provision that supports learners over a long period of time was thus propagated as
the best alternative form of support. Other key issues raised were concerns regarding
the inconsistency of approach across Scotland to leadership and management
development, a lack of collaboration and cross-sectoral training and too heavy a
focus on qualifications and quantity as opposed to quality in provision. The lack of
appetite and understanding amongst support customers was also noted, for instance,
SMEs do not engage enough with provision and there is a general lack of excitement
amongst organisations for developing leadership and management. Overall a lack of
intelligent demand amongst support customers was noted to exist.
On the impact of support interventions, stakeholders generally agreed that there was
not enough evidence to assess impact due to a general lack of evaluation of activities
that have been carried out. Despite this it was widely held that short term
interventions have only short term impacts and that a longer term approach would
yield more impact. It was generally agreed that much of the current course based
provision does not have as much of an impact as it should do.
Overall it is apparent that there is an array of support activities for leadership and
management available in Scotland but that their impact is unclear at best, or at worst
not as effective as it could be. There are clear concerns over the current support
available, mainly these lie with what is seen to be a generally short term, incoherent
and relatively ineffective system of support that makes too much use of one off
course based provision. In the main stakeholders felt that provision could be
improved upon and clear suggestions were made on how this could be achieved i.e.
less short term provision, learning placed in the context of the learner, more
consistency of approach at a national level.
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Section 3: Recommendations for the future of leadership and management in
Scotland
Stakeholders forwarded a diverse range of recommendations for the future of
leadership and management in Scotland. These can be split into two categories, the
first pertain to future support activities that should be undertaken; the second
consider more broadly the future direction of this overall review.
In the first instance, stakeholders made a wide range of recommendations on how to
improve leadership and management support initiatives in Scotland. Convincing
organisations of the importance of leadership and management development, and
helping them to determine their development needs, was cited as being a key issue
to be dealt with. The promotion of case studies of effective intervention in leadership
and management was forwarded as being a possible means of achieving this. It was
argued that these should be taken from organisations of all sectors, sizes and
locations to ensure as broad an appeal as possible. More partnership working to form
a cross-sectoral approach was also forwarded as a key action to improve support
provision. This should help to create a more consistent approach across Scotland.
Lastly, ensuring that current provision is used to its full potential was considered to
be important to achieve more of an impact than is attained currently.
On the future direction of the review stakeholders made the overarching
recommendation of ensuring that leadership and management become a long term
national objective. Otherwise most of the recommendations stem directly from the
observations made in the interviews such as raising awareness of the importance of
leadership and management, creating a culture where leadership and management
are stimulated and generating high quality demand amongst customers for support
provision.
Conclusions
This report has reported the findings from interviews with key stakeholders on the
views, understanding and experiences of leadership and management across
Scotland. To thoroughly explore these issues the evidence gathered from the
interviews was reported under three key themes, namely (i) the current state of
leadership and management in Scotland; (ii) Scottish initiatives to support leadership
and management; and (iii) recommendations for the future of leadership and
management in Scotland.
Appendices
Annex 1: Methodology
Given that the interviews aimed to capture as wide a range as possible of the views,
experiences and understanding of the stakeholders interviewed, it was decided that
semi-structured interviews would be the most appropriate methodology. Arranging
the questions around key themes ensured that information was collected on all the
key areas the study needed to look at whilst at the same time allowing the wide
range of stakeholders to openly discuss their own viewpoints.
Most of the interviews were conducted by telephone as the stakeholders came from
a wide variety of organisations based all over Scotland. As 3 stakeholders from
Scottish Enterprise were to be interviewed it was decided to hold a meting to discuss
the issues and this was held in a similar manner to a focus group. The same semistructured questionnaire was used for all interviews except for the focus group with
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Scottish Enterprise where the number of questions was cut down considerably due to
time pressures.
The interviewees were selected through a process run mainly by policy colleagues in
the Employability and Skills division. Key contacts throughout policy teams in the
Scottish Government were asked if they could suggest any potential interviewees
who would have the knowledge and experience necessary to usefully answer the
questionnaire. Some interviewees were also selected by Education Analytical
Services staff and a list of 23 people was compiled. Of these there were uncertainties
over 5 and after initial contact 3 of these ruled themselves out of being interviewed.
The remaining 2 it was agreed could possibly be covered by a separate exercise of
the evidence gathering phase where Scottish Enterprise carried out interviews with
members of their GlobalScot network.
The remaining 18 individuals were sent an email to introduce the study and to ask if
they were interested in participating. This was followed up with phone calls, all
undertaken by Education Analytical Services staff. Consequently interviews were setup and completed with 15 stakeholders. Of the 3 who were not interviewed, 1 could
not be successfully contacted by phone or email and the other 2 either failed to
complete an interview at the arranged time or a suitable time could not be arranged
for an interview.
Interviews were carried out in meeting rooms in Atlantic Quay with phones on
loudspeakers, to allow accurate notes to be taken. A small proportion of the
interviews were also quality assured by attendance from a senior social researcher
from Education Analytical Services. The focus group at Scottish Enterprise was also
attended by the senior researcher. The handwritten notes of the interviews and the
one focus group were all transcribed into separate typed up notes, the analysis of
which forms the basis of this report.
Most of the interviewees were very keen to participate in the study and shared a
great deal of their views and experiences through answering the questionnaire. Many
had put in a great deal of thought and preparation before the interview and this is
evident from the wealth of information collected, presented in this report.
Consequently, it can said with all confidence that the methodology meets the aims of
the study.
Annex 2: Stakeholders Interviewed
Sir Andrew Cubie
Graeme Fraser
Linda Hanna
Prof Susan Hart
Ian Howie
Linda Murray
Alex Patterson
Jack Perry
Phil Prentice
Anne Ross
Prof George Stonehouse
Julian Taylor
Prof Sandra Watson
Stephanie Young
Zoë van Zwanenberg
Independent expert
Cramond Frasers
Scottish Enterprise
Strathclyde University
Procurement Scotland
Scottish Enterprise
Highlands and Islands Enterprise
Former CEO Scottish Enterprise
East Renfrewshire Council
Highlands and Islands Enterprise
Napier University
Scottish Enterprise
Strathclyde University
Skills Development Scotland
Former CEO, Scottish Leadership
Foundation
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