Kindred is an advocacy organisation based in Edinburgh which works with families of children with disabilities and other additional support leads. Being an operation that is run entirely by a voluntary board of trustees and a dedicated staff team of volunteers, CEO Sophie Pilgrim is no stranger to the value of providing expertise and services on a pro bono basis.
Indeed, it was her own experience of receiving and benefiting from free advice and mentoring from others that helped mould Pilgrim into the leader that she is today.
Sitting down on the Leaders Council podcast with interviewer, Scott Challinor, Pilgrim named a handful of mentors who had been a profound influence on her career thanks to the advice they had given her, namely Jane Gray, a former CEO of a housing association, leadership coach Jock Encombe, and Kai Harrod from the Lloyds Group mentoring programme.
Pilgrim said: “I’ve been incredibly lucky to be inspired by other leaders throughout my career. I had a colleague called Jane Gray who was chief executive of a large housing association and I’ve been fortunate that she has mentored me pretty much throughout my career.
“More recently we had some pro bono support from leadership coach Jock Encombe and some fantastic support through Lloyds Group mentoring system and I had a coach called Kai Harrod who was involved there.”
According to Pilgrim, when one is in a leadership role whether new to the role or not, it is always worthwhile networking with other leaders to collaborate and share ideas freely, because it has significant value in self-development and self-improvement and can help others hone their own leadership skills in similar ways.
She said: “I try to reach out to people regularly to share new ideas. It is exciting having discussions with other leaders and they always come up with ideas and strategies that perhaps you didn’t think of before and you can always share something new with them. That free sharing of advice and guidance is something I always try to make time for.”
Pilgrim’s love of freely sharing advice and ideas is not something that exclusively happens in her spare time outside of Kindred, but it is something that also forms part of her leadership model for the organisation too. This manifests in the shape of regular communication with every member of Kindred’s diverse board of trustees.
Pilgrim explained: “We have a great board here and every member is closely connected with disabled children in one way or another and can therefore relate to the experiences of the families we work with. Some are parents of disabled children themselves; another is a grandparent and another an uncle of children with complex needs. Their conditions can range from behavioural issues such as autism right through to complex genetic conditions.
“Having a diverse board experienced in business and in running voluntary organisations who have personal experience working with disabled children, I find very helpful. I often tap into different people’s expertise for different things and I find that way of working hugely beneficial. It is dependent on free sharing of ideas and collaboration, and it alleviates that feeling that you are on your own in a leadership role.”
