Five Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Leader During Turbulent Times

Neil Shaw, Chief Executive of the University of Bolton’s Greater Manchester Business School, was featured recently in an article with Authority Magazine, a Medium publication, talking about “Five Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Leader During Turbulent Times”. Here is Kate Mowbray’s interview in full…

The University of Bolton has once again been named number one in Greater Manchester and the North West for student satisfaction in a top independent university guide. Their business school supports students from all backgrounds to stretch and challenge themselves to their full potential. Neil Shaw believes an important element of leadership is having confidence in your vision and the direction you are leading your team.

Thank you so much for your time! I know that you are a very busy person. Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘back story’ and how you got started?

I spent about 20 years in different senior leadership roles in the public sector, that included being the Chief Executive of a local authority, so I didn’t actually come from academia.

Whilst I didn’t come from a traditional business school leadership role, I’ve always been interested in education and I have a teaching qualification. I’ve done part-time lecturing on business, management and leadership. I’ve always been passionate about a connection with business improvement, the skills agenda, lifelong learning and those kinds of priorities.

I was headhunted last year, by the university Vice Chancellor, Professor Holmes. Greater Manchester Business School is a very entrepreneurial university and he was keen to have someone at the head of the business school that had spent a lot of time building connections with businesses, understanding the business world and driving change.

Extensive research suggests that “purpose-driven businesses” are more successful in many areas. When your organisation started, what was its vision, what was its purpose?

We launched the Greater Manchester Business School in January 2023. The separate schools of business, accountancy and law which make up the business school have been around for about 30 years just in slightly different forms.

But we rebranded about a year ago to create this new entity, the Greater Manchester Business School. We have many strengths but we also recognise that we need to change in order to improve. In Spring 2023, we set out a clear vision, which is focused on driving change in four key areas.

The first one is about providing a first-class learning experience. The second is around gaining a reputation for applied research. We’re quite limited on research prior to 2023 so we want to boost our research output and capacity. The third is around being driven by business and being much more consistently connected with business. And the last one really is around building an effective ‘proper business school.’

We start from a position of strength, the University is a top 30 UK university, in terms of student satisfaction, which is amazing, especially considering our size and student demographics. We pride ourselves on the personal nature of our teaching, giving students a high level of tutor contact time, strong feedback, and specialist additional support when they need it.

Thank you for all that. Let’s now turn to the main focus of our discussion. Can you share with our readers a story from your own experience about how you led your team during uncertain or difficult times?

In my 25 years of senior leadership experience, change has been a constant — different changes, different challenges — but the current cost of living crisis and government pressures to limit the opportunities for overseas students have brought considerable pressure, particularly on a business school like us wishing to widen participation.

Firstly, I think you must have confidence that you have the right vision and, as a business school, you’re heading in the right direction. I spent a lot of time in 2023, in discussions with staff, business partners and with students, exploring that vision and offering a clear direction. I talked about creating a more distinctive portfolio of courses and getting our students more closely connected with business. In terms of leading the business school where times have changed, I focus on listening to the issues raised by businesses, better understanding their future skills challenges, and working more closely with organizations like the Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce.

When the future seems so uncertain, and there is a lot of change. What can a leader do to inspire, motivate and engage their team?

I’ve always believed it’s important to be a visible and approachable leader. I place a lot of emphasis on that collaborative approach. For me, this has been spending a lot of time communicating, explaining both to students and to staff why we’re on the right trajectory.

It also means utilising the skills we already have in the team. We have a high proportion of teaching staff in the business school, who have worked in industry, I believe it’s around two thirds of our teaching staff, which is an unusual thing for a business school.

Lastly, it’s about creating a sense of working at pace. I think, coming from my experience of both public and private sector, things can often be a little bit sluggish. For us to be successful in the future, we need to deliver that change, bring forward that refreshed business school within the next 12 months, not the next three to five years. As a smaller institution, we can be more flexible and respond to change quicker.

How can a leader make plans when the future is so unpredictable?

As I say change is a constant, but putting together a strategic plan has provided me at least with a clear base to drive our strategic priorities. But we must be open and ready for the opportunities that present themselves.

In these uncertain times, I’m certain that the businesses of Greater Manchester will definitely still need the next generation of solicitors, operations managers, marketeers, human resource officers, and senior managers. There is still opportunity which is great for us as a university and business school.

We are one the fastest growing regional economies outside of London, there are 300,000 SMEs, with some of the largest household business names in the UK, including the BBC, the Co-Op bank and more. Our challenge is to harness the opportunity that presents itself and we are good at spotting trends. For example, in 2024, one of the things we’ll be focusing on is opening up more apprenticeship opportunities. When we spot opportunities, we look to move quickly.

Based on your experience and success, what are the five most important things a business leader should do to lead effectively during uncertain and turbulent times?

1. Have a clear understanding of where you’re trying to go
2. Collaborate with others to give you the capacity you need to drive the change, you can’t do it all on your own
3. Understand the capabilities you already have and understand where you need to get additional support from
4. Recognise that you don’t know everything and identify where you can take counsel and advice from
5. Communicate and continue to reinforce your communication so that the team understand the direction going and why they’re working on individual projects and initiatives

Where do you see Greater Manchester Business School in 5 years?

Who knows! A lot of people think they can predict the future, but if I was to look back five years a lot has been unpredictable. People are often beavering away trying to make plans but if you look forward five years did those plans really get delivered?

We want to try and build from a position of strength, which gives us confidence. We want to continue to provide a first-class learning experience, and hopefully for a growing number of students. Secondly, we want to grow our reputation for applied research, which we don’t currently have. To do that we’ll be publishing more research, raising our profile through that published research and conferences.

And lastly, really critically, and an element that probably gets lost a bit with business schools, is to be driven by business. And by that, I mean, utilising the input from businesses to influence more of our course delivery. This should help prepare our students to be successful in the graduate job market.