We all screw up from time to time. We're human. We make mistakes. Admitting to our weaknesses is hard. Yet sometimes it really is the best thing we can do.
Yesterday the UK charity Kids Company was declared insolvent and shut its doors. The evening TV news was full of scenes of inner city children howling in disappointment.
The charity was set up on 1996 to provide extra care and support for kids from the most troubled and disadvantaged backgrounds in inner cities across the UK. It delivered this support through a network of street level centres, alternative education centres, therapy houses and over 40 schools.
Kids Company told the government that it would close its services on 5 August 2015 less than a week after receiving a government grant of £3m. Yet despite this massive cash injection, the charity was still insolvent. It had no alternative but to close.
This was a charity which had enjoyed the patronage of many of the UK’s most high profile people from David Cameron to wealthy celebrities. The cash simply poured into Kids Company. During its lifetime, it received more than £25 million from the government, and another £4.25 million in early 2015. Prince Charles praised it. The band Coldplay donated £8 million. Richard Branson, J.K. Rowling, Jemima Khan, Credit Suisse, Morgan Stanley, John Lewis were all eager donors.
Kids Company’s founder and former Chief Executive Camila Batmanghelidjh was an archetype of the mantra that with passion we can achieve anything. Her motives, commitment and compassion are not in doubt. Neither is her ability to gain personal influence and profile. She became a brand.
 |
| Camila Batmanghelidjh in 2008 Credit: Garry Knight |
In 2009 Batmanghelidjh was named Businesswoman of the Year by the Dods and Scottish Widows Women in Public Life Awards. She has also received Ernst and Young's Social Entrepreneur of the Year award (2006), Third Sector Magazine's Most Admired Chief Executive (2007) and the Centre for Social Justice's lifetime achievement award in 2009. Batmanghelidjh has been awarded received honorary degrees and doctorates by several universities including York St John University, the Open University and Nottingham Trent University. In February 2013, she was named one of the 100 most powerful women in the United Kingdom by Woman's Hour on BBC Radio 4. In the same month, she was appointed an honorary Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to children and young people. In September 2014 she became an Honorary Fellow of UCL.
Some, notably senior civil servants, said she had also become untouchable and that the charity’s financial affairs were not well managed. When the continuation of government funding was made conditional on her stepping down from the role of Chief Executive early this year, her reaction was to play her trump card. She called David Cameron and asked him to overrule the demand. Which he did.
Yet the critics wouldn’t be silenced. There were reports from former employees that the charity was simply handing cash over to children. That its statistics about the real numbers of children it helped were exaggerated. That its management accounts were inadequately transparent.
These allegations were fiercely rebutted with all the passion Batmanghelidjh is renowned for. Yet no amount of rhetoric and robust defence could alter the fact that Kids Company was a financial train wreck.
Kids Company would never have existed were it not for the passion, work and talents of Batmanghelidjh. But here is a classic example of how these things alone and even the patronage of the most influential people in the land do not make us untouchable or able to sidestep the requirement for money to be properly managed. Especially when it is not our own.
Leaders must recognise their own strengths and weaknesses and if they are not so good at some things, make sure they delegate the responsibility to someone who is.
Batmanghelidjh is unrepentant. She blames civil servants and the media for her troubles. She seems unable to accept the reality that her personal credibility is at stake unless she accepts responsibility.
Sadly she has so far failed this real test of leadership. A true leader accepts that everything which happens on their watch is their responsibility and blaming others regardless of their failings can only reflect badly on us.
Such a simple gesture of humility and responsibility is what’s called for now if Batmanghelidjh wishes to be remembered as an innovative philanthropic entrepreneur, rather than a failed charity CEO.
No comments:
Post a Comment