Our work: Leaders like you
Established by the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA), the Leadership Commission was set up to identify the fundamental issues within the West Midlands that prevent high-level positions being reflective of its communities.
WE LEAD’s Director, Professor Kiran Trehan, was appointed as one of the Commissioners on the project which conducted a nine-month research programme on leadership diversity in the region.
The report, commended by then Prime Minister Theresa May, identifies new and compelling evidence and makes a number of recommendations to address the leadership diversity gap.
Our projects
WE LEAD is working with the Institute of Leadership & Management to inform and shape the development of responsible leadership practice in a variety of contexts, through engaged scholarship.
The project covers three workstreams:
The future of leadership in the public sector
Focusing on:
• How is leadership practice changing to reflect the use of technology in public services?
• How can effective leaders be developed and supported in this future space?
Leadership and leadership development in micro and small businesses
Addressing two key research questions:
• How do leaders in micro and small firms meet the challenges of building sustainable businesses?
• How are leaders developed in micro and small firms?
Inclusive leadership and inclusive workplaces
Investigating two key research questions:
• What is inclusive leadership?
• What types of leadership practices foster inclusive leadership in organisations?
This review was conducted by WE LEAD’s Director, Professor Kiran Trehan and Professor Julia Rouse from Manchester Metropolitan University.
It presents evidence on the assumptions underlying women’s enterprise policy and, finding these problematic, the review draws on research-led arguments to problematize the real policy problems to which (women’s) enterprise policy should respond, and then argues for policy to shape diverse enterprise ecosystems and ‘good work’.
Understanding experience of migrants and their pursuit of entrepreneurship as a vehicle for survival, poverty alleviation and social mobility has been subject to various policy and academic debates. Research calls for better understanding of how women experience migration and what contribution they make to entrepreneurial activities in new countries to which they relocate.
WE LEAD’s Associate, Dr Natalia Vershinina with her co-authors have showcased how transnational entrepreneurial activities for migrant women may have emancipatory potential in their recent journal article:
Vershinina, N., Rodgers, P., McAdam, M., & Clinton, E. (2019). ‘Transnational Migrant Entrepreneurship, Gender and Family Business”, Global Networks Journal.
WE LEAD’s researchers, Professor Kiran Trehan and Dr Jane Glover, worked with the institute for Family Business (IFB) Research Foundation to produce a report which provides new insights into the ways UK family businesses work to support their communities.
The study revealed that effective community engagement requires leadership, time and resources, a genuine commitment to making a difference, and a willingness for a sustained and long-term effort, all commonly found in family businesses.
Key findings included:
- Impact is particularly strong where a sustainable, long-term relationship between the business and the community has been established and in areas of economic decline
- Community engagement activities in a family business are driven by family values
- The main challenges identified by family firms were finding time and freeing up the necessary resources to support community engagement activities.
In the summer of 2020, the killing of George Floyd and the consequent Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement spurred action within corporations to assess and advance their diversity and inclusion (D&I) efforts.
Following this, a group of professional services organisations in the West Midlands commissioned the Centre for Women’s Enterprise, Leadership, Economy and Diversity (WE LEAD) at the University of York to undertake research to understand what they need to address to ensure under-represented groups in their workplaces were valued members of their organisations, and had as much opportunity as anyone else to advance and grow.
The report ‘Beyond Box-Ticking: Driving Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) Efforts To Deep-Rooted Organisational Change’ lists five key take-away points to focus on and each of the take-away points has associated action recommendations to help senior executives within corporate professional services organisations lead current and new D&I initiatives which result in meaningful and lasting change.
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