Transparency about expenses and resilience are key qualities identified for public and voluntary sector leaders by leadership development charity Common Purpose.
The charity has released a series of interviews with 12 leaders from the private, public and voluntary sector about the qualities needed for good leadership in challenging times.
In the interviews, Peter Housden, permanent secretary at the department of communities and local government, says the ability to work in partnership has become increasingly important across the public sector.
"The type of leaders who will serve us well are going to be pretty open individuals who get their self confidence from that openness and sense of sharing and are always looking beyond their own circumstance – as leaders, as an organisation – to wider responsibilities and wider resource," he comments.
Dame Suzi Leather, chair of the Charity Commission says 2009 brought a big change in perceptions of public accountability for leaders. "One of the things that characterised 2009 was that it became the year of the personal," she said. "How much of what I used to think of as private information actually really is public information. People have a right to know what I spend on hotels, what I spend on taxis – actually I do think that is public interest information."
But Leather added that personal attacks on leaders are a real challenge to resilience.
Resilience was also mentioned by Sir David Normington, permanent secretary at the Home Office, who said personal resilience in a crisis is a real issue, but added that there are ways to deal with this.
"The model of leadership is not heroic leadership – it's about teams of people and building the capabilities of teams so that you can share the load and you can share the response," he says. "If you have built complementary teams, you will be in a better place in 2010."
Julia Middleton, the chief executive of Common Purpose, said she wanted to ask whether the country was facing a "crisis of leadership". She said the recurring themes of a good leader are trust, transparency, leading a crisis and the need for bravery.
