What leadership practices are needed to address systemic poverty?

We believe moral leadership — grounded in courageous conversations, openness to uncertainty, and stories that move people to act — is the engine of lasting change.

Communicating across lines of difference

Leadership in the social impact space often means navigating messy, high-stakes challenges. It requires influencing boards, local authorities, funders, and corporates, while building bridges across politics, class, race, and ideology. This kind of leadership must hold opposing views without losing sight of a shared cause, amplifying resources, energy, and collective will.

The Fellowship
explores leadership choices and how navigating complexity requires humility, deep listening, and respectful engagement. When stakes are high and passion runs deep, having courageous conversations — embracing different perspectives without alienating others and grounding people in shared purpose — is a true act of moral leadership.

100% of 2024 Fellows reported that  the programme significantly improved their ability to have courageous conversations across lines of difference.

Navigating complexity with humility 

Many social impact leaders spend much of their time in “firefighting mode,” responding to urgent crises with technical fixes — necessary, but limited. Safe, but short-lived.  Tackling systemic issues requires something more.

The Fellowship
explores what it means to be adaptive in leadership,  acknowledging that the most pressing problems don’t come with straightforward answers. They demand experimentation, listening, and sensing the emotion beneath the issue. They call for engaging stakeholders, creating feedback loops, and fostering shared ownership of solutions. This leadership embraces risk and accepts uncertainty in service of deeper exploration. 

75% of 2024 Fellows reported a significant increase in their ability to manage fear, take risks, and embrace the unknown.

Mobilising hearts to act 

Too often, leadership is stripped of authenticity — reduced to facts and figures that appeal to the head but leave the heart untouched. This creates distance from the cause, eroding trust. Leadership without integrity and human connection struggles to inspire.

At its core, leadership is about mobilizing people. True moral leadership calls us to lead with honesty, courage, and lived experience. The Acumen Fellowship places storytelling at the centre, with Fellows learning to craft their public narrative — the story of self, us, and now — in ways that build trust, spark action, and connect deeply with those they serve. This is more than communication: it is leading with integrity, translating values into action, and inspiring others to imagine and build a more just future.

100% of 2024 Fellows said the programme strengthened their ability to articulate their vision in ways that mobilizes others.

Learn more about how the Fellowship enabled Sam Palmer, CEO of Respect for All, and Yasmin Khan, CEO of Staying Put, to deepen their leadership

Equipping leaders to build a future based on dignity

The challenges facing the UK are complex, and reimagining systems will not happen overnight. But by embracing complexity through courage, Fellows are not only strengthening their own leadership — they are modelling what moral leadership can look like. 

Join the Fellowship

If you’re tackling issues of poverty and want to deepen your leadership capacity, consider applying for the United Kingdom Acumen Fellowship. Stay up to date with the Fellowship here.