In the social housing sector, leadership carries a unique responsibility. It’s not only about managing budgets and meeting regulatory requirements - it’s about stewarding communities, building trust with tenants, and ensuring that organisations deliver on their social purpose. Modern leadership in this sector demands transparency, empathy, and accountability. Yet, in too many organisations, outdated behaviours continue to quietly shape culture, performance, and outcomes for both staff and residents.
In this piece, Rachel Birbeck explores why certain leadership styles persist, the red flags boards and executives should be alert to, and how the sector can ensure its leaders truly reflect the values it aspires to.
What Modern Leadership Looks Like in Social Housing
Modern leadership is not defined by charisma or control. In housing, it’s about clarity of purpose, integrity, and inclusion. It’s about being accountable not just to regulators and boards, but to tenants, staff, and communities.
The most effective leaders in the sector align organisational strategy to social purpose, build trust through open communication, and create environments where colleagues feel respected, safe, and able to contribute. They balance performance with empathy, commercial realities with social responsibility.
Crucially, in today’s housing landscape, influence is earned-not imposed. Staff want to work for leaders who genuinely care, and tenants expect housing providers to be led by people who are visible, values-driven, and connected to the communities they serve.
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Why Outdated Leadership Styles Persist
Despite the sector’s strong values base, we still see behaviours that belong to an older, less accountable style of leadership.
The leaders who hoard information rather than share it.
The ones who play favourites, shift blame, or hide behind their authority.
The “hero leaders” who arrive to save the day but leave teams burned out and disempowered.
Sometimes these individuals deliver short-term gains, or they’ve been part of the system so long that their behaviours are normalised. Others have learned to “manage up” effectively, looking the part in board papers and external meetings, while leaving their teams disengaged and unsupported.
Red Flags Boards Shouldn’t Ignore
There are consistent warning signs of unhealthy leadership cultures:
High turnover in specific teams or functions
Passive-aggressive or opaque communication
Compliance driven by fear rather than commitment
Silos and inconsistent performance across the organisation
Burnout without acknowledgement or support
These patterns are often subtle, and because they don’t always appear overtly toxic, they’re too easily excused. Yet over time they erode trust, drive out high performers, and weaken organisational resilience.
Why Staff Stay (Even When Leadership is the Issue)
In housing, people often stay despite poor leadership because they are motivated by purpose: loyalty to residents, commitment to their colleagues, or passion for the organisation’s mission. Others stay because they fear what’s next, or because they’ve normalised dysfunction.
But eventually, your best people - the quiet, high-performing achievers who hold things together - will leave. And when they do, they rarely make noise. They simply take their skills, credibility, and cultural influence elsewhere. By the time boards notice, the damage is often already done.
The Leadership Audit the Sector Needs
Boards and executives should be asking themselves tough questions:
Are we rewarding leaders for the right behaviours - or just for outputs?
Do our leaders build trust, or quietly erode it?
Are we promoting leaders who lift others up - or those who succeed at the expense of their teams?
When we see red flags, do we act - or protect the status quo?
In social housing, results can never be the only measure. We must ask how those results are achieved, sustained, and experienced - by staff and by tenants.
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The Cost of Looking the Other Way
Poor leadership in this sector is not simply an HR challenge. It is a governance and reputational risk. It undermines culture, damages tenant trust, weakens staff engagement, and puts compliance at risk.
The most concerning issue is that poor leaders often present well to boards and regulators. They excel at managing upwards while the culture beneath them quietly deteriorates. To address this, boards must look beyond surface-level reporting. Independent cultural reviews, 360-degree feedback, and tenant engagement data are vital tools. Skip-level conversations - where executives and board members speak directly with staff at all levels - can be one of the most revealing mechanisms available.
Leading for the Future
For the UK social housing sector, leadership is not just about managing organisations - it’s about shaping communities and stewarding trust. Outdated behaviours cannot be allowed to undermine that responsibility.
Modern leadership is about integrity, influence, and the culture leaders leave behind. As the challenges facing the sector continue to grow - from building safety and regulation to tenant voice and sustainability - the need for courageous, values-led leadership has never been clearer.
Boards and executives must not only set the standard but be prepared to act when leaders fall short. Because thriving housing organisations - and thriving communities - depend on it.
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