Leadership in and through the voluntary and community sector: a state-of-the-art review

Carol Jacklin-Jarvis and James Rees

Chapter 3 in Research Handbook on Leadership in Social Work and Social Care, 2025, pp 37-49 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: This chapter explores the context and nature of challenges that shape leadership in voluntary sector organisations when engaged in the complex landscape of social care in England. Complexity and diversity are features of the sector, ranging from national charities to informal grassroots organisations, contributing in myriad ways to social care delivery. Research on leadership in the voluntary sector has been slow to develop, though it is gathering in pace and accompanied by a move away from the focus on individual ‘heroic’ leaders towards accounts that stress the collective, collaborative, and practice-based character of leadership that reflects the reality of the sector. We provide an account of the sector, outline the functions that voluntary organisations fulfil in social care, and provide a ‘state-of-the-art’ overview of leadership concepts and theory that sheds light on the reality of leadership practice in the sector. In so doing, we hope to equip social care professionals with tools to better understand leadership in this, at times fragile, sector.

Keywords: Leadership; Voluntary and community sector; Collective leadership; Collaboration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781035314485
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