With over 25 years of experience at HR director level, Tony Vickers-Byrne’s career has included roles at The Health Protection Agency, the NHS, and Public Health England.
In 2016 Tony set up a compassionate management social movement that over 250 senior leaders across the public, private and charitable sectors, professional and academic organisations, trade unions and expert consultants, signed up to, to help make compassionate workplaces where people can bring their whole selves, every day, to an environment which is fair, inclusive, safe and supportive.
Tony is also a member of Professor Sir Cary Cooper’s National Forum for Health and Wellbeing at Work and a Trustee at the Royal Society for Public Health. Read on to find out how Tony defines soul, and for his personal example of a successful business driven by soul.
NB: What does soul mean to you Tony?
TV-B: Soul is being personal and genuinely believing in what you say. Professor Aidan Halligan inspired me when he was Head of Leadership at Public Health England, speaking about gaining authority through caring. He described relatively junior people in the NHS as having real authority through the way they cared for colleagues and patients. When you see the power of this, in the current situation, daily, then it really brings it home.
It’s a shame that it’s taken COVID-19 to bring this out as an integral leadership criterion. Dr Gareth Goodier, my previous CEO at The Royal Brompton & Harefield NHS Trust, was so strong on supporting people, even when he was going through his own domestic tragedy. And Aidan Halligan, Cary Cooper and Peter Cheese have been talking about the need for caring, fairness, equality, and wellbeing in leadership for many years. Compassionate leadership is here to stay. It will be the bedrock of all future successful organisations.
When you see journalists like Piers Morgan on TV talking about the critical importance of caring across society, and every public leader talking daily about the heroic frontline NHS and care staff, the country’s new and future priorities are clear. Woe betide any business leader or politician who does not address this going forward. You look at the way Jacinda Ardern has handled the response to the pandemic in New Zealand – her messages to the population have been masterpieces.
Leading with soul means having leaders who can visibly reflect the principles of their organisation. The annual Edelman Trust Barometer survey keeps highlighting just how much people want their organisation to do ‘good’ for their employees and their communities. They want to see senior managers addressing social issues, to have humanity, as well as being effective performers. Soul can’t be seen or photographed; but it can be described as a person’s inner feeling about what they want to achieve while they’re on this earth, at the deepest level, what it means to be ‘me’.
The soul of the organisation is about giving the best possible service to customers and caring for its people. People can quickly see through leaders who are not authentic. With social media, 24/7 television, with managers expected to be so much more visible to their teams, a lack of authenticity is quickly spotted.
NB: Can you share an example of a business that you have experienced that has soul?
TV-B: The CIPD is particularly good at working with soul. Peter Cheese and the other directors are very visible, and they stress the importance of people looking after themselves, including their mental health.
I’ve seen leaders come into organisations and change things very quickly by telling people how it really is, by giving people the facts of the situation. They often stress the importance of equality and fairness. The title Senior Manager is just a name badge, not a guarantee that they will be respected or engage their teams. Great CEO’s have courage and personality and a willingness to engage with all their staff. Culture change doesn’t have to take a long time when you have someone who is true to themselves, who communicates the priorities clearly, who faces opposition but can change people’s previous practices around.
The three most important leadership development priorities are unchanged from when I heard Peter talking about his vision four years ago:
- Give staff the time to undertake paid charitable work in their communities
- Offer people flexibility in their working arrangements – in every post
- Be seen to ‘give a damn’ about people
The latest 2020 CIPD Survey of Health and Wellbeing at Work, surveying over 1,000 HR and L&D practitioners reports:
- 37% of respondents said that stress-related absence had increased in the last year
- 60% of respondents said heavy workload is the top cause of stress, closely followed by management style (41% of respondents)
- 60% report an increase in common mental health conditions among employees
“Even the most conscientious, committed people, in the face of poor leadership, can see their own performance change for the worse. Some people just turn up. And if the labour market allows, then they leave. This is especially the case for younger people, who often join an organisation for its ethos and values, only to find in the ‘real world’ that it’s nothing like what was sold to them at the interview, and they leave quickly.”
Contact us: https://soulcorporations.com/contact/
…or for online and live keynotes and masterclasses with me personally: https://nicholasbrice.com/book-me-to-speak/
