Power of Blogging: Leadership

Power of Blogging

Leadership

Leadership means different things to different people and, as we have seen in the pandemic, its requirements can change. Our blog series is intended to give an insight into different types of leadership and how to acquire those skills. You can see our Leadership posts here (legalwomen. org.uk) and also refer to our feature in the LW September edition (pages 16 to 28) looking at leadership from many different angles, from Presidents of Law Societies to barristers; those in law firms to in-house lawyers.

Below are insights from Francis Ennis who talks about women in leadership roles, in relation to her position as Trustee for an important charity – The Homeless World Cup Foundation. ■

Frances Ennis, from a Scottish solicitors practice, talks about women in leadership roles, in relation to her position as Trustee for an important charity – The Homeless World Cup Foundation.

Leadership

“You’re in a promoted position. It’s time to stop learning and start leading”.

This sentence, by a former senior colleague of mine many moons ago, has stuck with me ever since.

It’s stuck because it seems fairly fundamental to me that learning – about others and therefore about yourself, about both your chosen profession and the world outside it, must be the key to any personal or professional success, let alone leadership.

What is the Homeless World Cup Foundation (HWCF)?

HWCF supports national street football partners across the world. The players involved often come from backgrounds of homelessness, addiction or trauma. The Foundation arranges signposting, local tournaments, knowledge sharing, and training and development programmes to its partner teams. However, it is probably best known for arranging the Homeless World Cup Tournament, which brings together national teams from across the world. The tournaments typically take place in city centre locations, meaning that passers-by can drop in on their way to/ from work or shopping, or indeed make a day of it. The location inevitably brings the issue of homelessness to the fore, with the professionalism of both the set up and the players really providing an opportunity to challenge public preconceptions.

Football changes lives for the better. It’s that simple

Involvement with a local street football team can give a player confidence, build trust in others and a sense of personal achievement. These all translate to other areas of life and often give players a springboard for obtaining employment, housing and personal security for them and their families. I heard one player once describing his local team as giving him something to get out of bed for every day. These regional teams are also often part of local inclusion programmes, including for LGBT+ players and girls and women, who are traditionally prevented from playing football in certain countries.

Tournament team guide

My interest in the Homeless World Cup Foundation began in 2016, when the tournament was held in my hometown of Glasgow. I volunteered to be a Team Guide for the Belgian team competing at the tournament, having spent a year at the Université de Liège as part of my degree of Law with French. The role of the Team Guide was to befriend the team, help with any practical issues (anyone know the French for “goalie gloves”?!) and generally make them feel at home at the tournament and city.

A court lawyer might not be the most intuitive choice for this role. But at the time, I remember being very conscious of being comfortable and privileged in my corporate ivory tower, and I wanted to expand my horizons. Naively, the biggest question in my mind at the time was how I could apply my professional experience to the role of team guide.

What I didn’t appreciate at the time was that applying my skills to help others was only one, very small part of the process. The huge learning curve for me was that I had more to learn from the players than I could ever possibly reciprocate. There were so many memories that have stayed with me; as a volunteer I was given 5 days of 8-hour shifts, but I very quickly found myself staying with the team and coaches until the end of the day and joining players’ social events. One of the most striking parts of the tournament experience was walking around the athletes’ village and stopping to chat to people; some were players, some coaches, some volunteers. But you never knew who was from what background. There were no labels or invisible social structures. It sounds toe-curlingly clichéd but everyone was equal. It was a real eye opener for me of my own preconceptions, that I didn’t even realise I had.

Many players have experienced trauma in their lives that very few of us could ever understand. Watching them play with so much pride and being cheered on by thousands, is the most incredibly moving, humbling and joyous experience, and almost impossible to translate to paper.

Team guide to trustee

The year after the tournament in Glasgow, HWCF advertised for several trustee positions and, having seen what the organisation did, I jumped at the chance.

However, as with the tournament, I quickly found myself well out of my depth at the first Board meeting. I was… the only lawyer!!! No-one spoke ‘lawyer’. No-one thought ‘lawyer!’.

Many on the HWCF Board are from social entrepreneurship, charities and the arts backgrounds. None of these disciplines are interested in my well-honed ‘worst case scenario’ lawyer default position! I quickly realised that much of my initial time on the Board should be spent listening and learning from the more experienced Board members.

It can be unnerving to be surrounded by Board members whose focus is on growth, or vision, or creativity. As a lawyer, there’s not much room for any of these when you’re analysing utilisation and realisation. But that is exactly why it’s important to be around people who approach a problem completely differently from me. Operating in a purely legal and commercial environment lets you see the world in a very specific way, one which doesn’t reflect how most of the world operates. And putting my cynical lawyer hat on, seeing how Boards operate in practice allows me to give better advice to my clients.

What is abundantly clear is that the success of a strategy can never be down to just one Board member. It must always be following discussion amongst the Board, and with the incredible HWCF office team who are at the coal face. The decisions made are invariably reached after consideration of everyone’s views on what’s important and why.

Challenges

It will be no surprise to hear that the last two years have hit HWCF hard. We have been knocked off our strategic goals. There has been no flagship tournament for the last two years which greatly impacts global visibility for the organisation. Operations by, and with our partners have also been halted or restricted because of the pandemic. This is particularly galling given that the same pandemic has greatly increased the challenges faced by the players.

Funding remains an ever-present factor for us as an organisation. We have sensible and resilient reserve policies, but the pandemic has hit us strategically and operationally. As an organisation we could be better at shouting about our incredible achievements, and accordingly, not shying away from asking for donations/sponsorship etc. With 1.2 million lives changed, $364m created in social capital, improvements in health, education and equality, the HWCF is a phenomenal organisation. I am proud to be a part of it.

Anyone wanting to find out more about HWCF can go to https://homelessworldcup.org/ or follow us on social media. ■

Frances Ennis

Head of Litigation & Regulation at Bellwether Green