IoD Midlands Spring

IoD Events
Strategic Leadership: A
practitioner’s perspective
Charity spotlight
Linking society in
Lincolnshire
IoD members were treated to a fascinating
insight into how the RAF operates when Air
Marshall Andy Turner joined an online
event looking at Strategic Leadership: A
Practitioner’s Perspective.
Air Marshall Turner has been tasked with
guiding the RAF through a period of
significant change at a time when the force
faced a disaggregating enemy that did not
play by the norms of warfare, and in an era
of technological revolution that threatened
to make every design thought up now
obsolete by the time it is introduced.
He described himself as ‘clearly
institutionalised’ by the RAF. The son of an
RAF base commander, he had spent his
entire career in the service. He described
the RAF as rather like an airline – though
one where you were actively encouraged to
take weapons on the flight, and where a
surprisingly large number of your
passengers jumped out before you got to
your airfield!
Joking aside, the changes that were
coming to the RAF were profound, and
required real leadership to push through,
he said.
He considered the two disciplines of
‘leadership’ and ‘management’, breaking
them down to the military world’s
‘command and control’ philosophy.
Leadership was command; generating
inspiration and getting people to do
remarkable things. It was the part of his job
that involved vision and strategy, of ‘ends
- ways - means’. Management was
ensuring adherence to that vision; it was a
focus on KPIs and data, and holding people
to account.
To Andy, leadership is a combination of
biology and chemistry; management, of
maths and physics.
There is a bridge between the two and it
Event host and
former RAF man,
Gary Headland
Air Marshall
Andy Turner
required careful negotiation, which was
something Andy was very aware of at the
moment as he tried to steer arguably the
RAF’s most exciting strategic
transformation since its outset: the Astra
programme.
Aimed at making the RAF a service fit for
the future, it was tasked with scanning the
horizon to see what threats to the UK
would emerge in the decades to come, and
from where.
As with any business, Andy’s task was
made harder by conservatism and
resistance to change from within the
service’s own ranks – and paymasters
within Whitehall that were always looking
for budget savings. However, with foresight
and backed by a team determined to see
the programme through to completion, Air
Marshall Turner saw nothing but positives
from Astra, which would create an air force
capable of responding to the threats of
tomorrow.
Other challenges that would be familiar
to directors in business came from his new
recruits: Generation Z were, he said, more
demanding of its employer and expected
more than recruits when he had joined the
service.
Lincolnshire Community Foundation
was founded in 2002 and is part of a
network of 46 Community Foundations
across the UK delivering
environmental/societal
change and, most
importantly, positive
outcomes for people and
places.
Our work is grounded
in the value of #ChangeNotCharity, and
to date we’ve distributed over £16M to
community groups, charities and
organisations across Greater
Lincolnshire, reaching people from
Grimsby to Sutton Bridge and
Mablethorpe to Grantham, with
emphasis on small grants delivering a
big difference.
Our team offers support and advice
and delivers grant funding providing
local people with access to food,
warmth, good work and resources,
whilst improving their physical and
mental health and reducing social and
economic inequalities.
As well as delivering grant funding,
we have adapted and flexed alongside
the emerging needs of our
communities, convening a range of
resources (both financial and
developmental) to support small, but
vital, organisations that have the
greatest positive local impact.
Since lockdown, the Foundation has
awarded 250+ grants worth over £1.5M
to a variety of orgnisations ensuring
vulnerable residents are kept safe, well
and connected.
Our ambition in 2021 is simple and
links back to our values. We want to
continue to focus on and support local
communities in a fair and equitable way
to rebuild now and in the future.
We want to achieve this through
working together with local people,
communities, organisations, and
investors to grow bigger and create long
lasting change for the communities we
work for and with.
For more details, see
www.lincolnshirecf.co.uk
www.iod.com/westmids/events
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