Our not-so-great leaders

Like most managing directors I try – try being the operative word – to read through all the reports from the Audit Commission that identify potential areas of improvement for my housing association.

Usually, they sum up the history and the context in which the organisation concerned operates. Then they deliver an assessment of the service and seek, in the usual regulatory language, to address the very complex judgment of how good the service is.

All great stuff!

I should probably make clear at this point that I am a fan of the regulatory approach in the absence of market drivers – or other means of raising service standards for residents of housing organisations.

Any well-run organisation must keep its customers in mind – as Jan Carlzon, chief executive officer of successful private company Scandinavian Airlines System, has been quoted saying: “If you are not serving the customer, you’d better be serving someone who is.”

But customer perceptions of how good a service is are shaped by three main factors: the smoothness of processes that deliver the service, the physical environment around the service or their homes our sector’s case – and people.

And yet the bulk of the reports I have read simply do not address the people and culture issues which, in my opinion, are the most important for improving customers’ feelings about the service.

We as leaders of social landlords certainly hold forth often enough about how our staff are our greatest asset – often only to totally contradict such speeches by, for instance, not backing up what we say with proper resources.

Sometimes I really start to wonder whether senior managers truly appreciate the limitation their influence has on shaping customer perception of our organisations.

A touch of humility here and there might help us to refocus our minds on what truly matters: our frontline staff.

After all, they are the ones who are in touch with the organisation from the customer’s perspective; they are the custodians of the organisation’s reputation.

So just how is it that are we helping them to do their best and present the customer with an efficient and friendly front when we constantly send out contradictory messages through the range of initiatives and policies we ask staff to implement?

We seem unable to differentiate between cost and efficiency, for example. In one breath, we will say we want volume in terms of numbers of homes built and, at the same time, talk of sustainable communities.

We harp on about choice-based lettings and yet do not produce the size of homes people want or, worse, build them in the wrong place.

We say we aspire to diversity and yet our consultants and contractors do not reflect our local communities. And we go on about the Decent Homes Standard and what do we come up with? Rent restructuring.

The more I go out with my staff, the more I empathise with the challenges they face. But while we keep churning out new policies and diktats, I think we are just pushing them ever closer to the edge.

To be honest, I don’t think I would even have the ability to do their job.

So I raise my glass to all you frontline staff – and I pray that the leadership in the sector will improve for you.