DEVELOPING POLITICAL LEADERSHIP: Political Mentoring

1. DEVELOPING POLITICAL LEADERSHIP:Political Mentoring 7 December 2011 www.local.gov.uk

2. The project • Research sponsored by ESRC & LGA • 12 months • interviews with 40 mentors & 40 mentees • Aims • To understand how & why political mentoring works • To inform best practice (a toolkit) • Undertaken by Prof Jo Silvester, City University, London

3. Mentoring ….an intense interpersonal exchange between a senior experienced person (mentor) and a less experienced person (protégé) in which the mentor provides support, direction, and feedback regarding career plans and personal development (Kram, 1985). 1. Career Sponsorship Exposure-and-Visibility Coaching Protection Challenging Assignments 2. Psychosocial Counselling Acceptance-and-Confirmation Friendship www.local.gov.uk

4. Mentoring in a Political Context Politicians • aren’t appointed on the basis of role-related knowledge • are expected to possess all the KSAs they need to be effective • are expected to decide how they wish to perform their role • become vulnerable if they admit a development need • operate in a highly ambiguous, fluid and contested environments • require unique skill sets (political skill) • regularly deal with major organisational change • The challenge for traditional HR/Learning processes in politics is to provide support & development sensitive to political and democratic process.

5. Reasons for Mentoring New roles New councillors New executive members New Leaders Problems Leader Leader-CEO Political group Change

6. Mentoring for New Councillors ‘apprenticeship’ ‘buddying’ ‘learning the ropes’ ‘socialisation’ “I was training her so that she understood how councils worked and how committees worked, because the training that she’d received from the council was all mechanistic, it hadn’t gone down and explored how you actually implement those mechanisms.”

7. Mentoring for new roles New executive members “It was about people realising that they didn’t have to just do what the officers said… officers tend to want to make life easier for themselves and they would suggest things, because that was easier for them. Whereas you didn’t need to do it like that.” New Leaders “You’re trying to make sure that we keep everything beneath the radar screen because new political leaders don’t want to be seen to be weak.” “If you’re the leader of a council ...it’s not easy to come and say I’m having this terrible problem about so and so.”

8. Mentoring to address organisational problems “It was arranged because it was an under-performing authority.” “All four authorities had been labelled poor by the Audit Commission.” “...you’ve got a local authority, let’s say, that has not been performing well or has got particular issues, so the Chief Executive and possibly the Leader of the council have decided to bring the IDeA in to try and do some work.”

9. Process of Mentoring Learning Sharing Knowledge Explicit Tacit Problem Solving Perspective Taking Support Confidence Feedback Normalising Performance Directive Brokering

10. Process of Mentoring Learning “We discussed his role as leader and what sort of powers and influence and opportunities he had.” “He said I don't even know what questions to ask. … I helped him to ask all the different questions he needed to know from the officers”. “I don’t know what the issues are for the local authority. They’re the ones who are elected not me, so I’m not at all suggesting to them that I know what they should be doing in terms of policy. But I can challenge their ways of going about things and whether they’re too operational or things of that nature.”

11. “unless the leader has got the confidence to carry out the role he won’t earn the respect and support of his immediate colleagues.” Support A mentor is... “...somebody who is able to give you some confidence in what you were doing, so yes in fact you are doing a reasonable job. Because ... it’s not like in a business where you would have one-to-one appraisal.” “...someone to bounce ideas off and someone to sort of get some feedback from as well about their own performance or about ideas, so really someone there who’s just like a constructive friend.” “you give confidence to that person, they know what they’ve got to do, they know they’ve got to do this, that or the other, but it’s actually giving them the confidence to say right I’m going to do that.”

12. Process of Mentoring Space to talk “people in leadership positions... find it very difficult to find space to talk, because they are expected to be all-powerful, all-knowing, omniscient and omnipotent.” “If you’re the leader of a council or something it’s not easy to come and say I’m having this terrible problem about so and so.”

13. Factors that influence success Mentor Knowledge & Experience (Reputation) Skilled Trustworthy Supportive not Directive Committed (Availability) “... clearly they've got to be knowledgeable on the subject haven’t they? They’ve got to know about local government (and have) experience of the political process and the decision making process.” (Knowledge & Experience) “She had this ability of being able to quickly understand the nature of the people she was dealing with so she could then best position herself to them.” (Skills)

14. Factors that influence success Mentee Motivation Willingness to learn Open-minded Commitment Ability Self-awareness Cognitive Understanding (of mentoring)

15. Factors that influence success Mentor-Mentee Trust “... the last thing you want is for confidential information to be bandied around afterwards.” “…I’ve never heard of people’s positions being compromised by a mentor but you’re talking about politics which is first and foremost about paranoia.” “...knowing that my mentor is (from the same party) means that ... he knows the foibles of the party and understands how it works.” “..if it were some sort of specialist subject like... being a children services portfolio holder, then you could imagine that (cross party mentoring) might work. But this was political leadership, so it doesn't work does if it's someone from a different party.”

16. A ‘darker’ side to mentoring…? “We had to arrange for the, not elimination, but the removal of the Leader.” “They’re now the official opposition in this council. They were the third party when I started working here, and I think it helped them to come up with a much clearer definition of what they’re actually about, what policies they’re going to put to the electorate and going about managing the job of being the official opposition.”

17. Questions We know a political mentoring scheme can work at a national level. Can it work • within a council where the councillors will know each other? • Across neighbouring councils? • At a regional level?