Society Matters

Society Matters

Strengthening Leadership Capability at Society Matters Group & Citizens Advice Gateshead

The challenge

Leading teams across social welfare, legal advice, and community services requires more than technical knowledge—it demands confident, emotionally intelligent leadership. The organisation identified the need to:

  • Equip managers and senior leaders with practical leadership tools tailored to the voluntary sector.
  • Improve communication, decision-making, and team dynamics across diverse service areas.
  • Support internal learning and development capability to deliver longer-term cultural change.

With participants ranging from case managers to the Chief Executive, the programme needed to resonate across all levels and align with the organisation’s strong values and people-first culture.

The Solution

People Spark co-designed and delivered a bespoke Management Development Programme, underpinned by:

  • MBTI personality profiling, helping managers and leaders understand themselves and their colleagues better to strengthen team communication and effectiveness.
  • Tailored training sessions, blending relevant theory, interactive delivery, and real-world application — ensuring the learning was engaging, accessible, and immediately useful.
  • 1:1 Coaching for the organisation’s Learning & Development Manager, providing reflective space and strategic input to enhance internal delivery capacity and creative thinking.

Throughout the engagement, we maintained a collaborative relationship—ensuring full visibility, clear communication, and a shared commitment to long-term impact.

The Results

  • Exceptional Participant Feedback: Both middle managers and senior leaders praised the training as transformative and energising.
  • Measurable Culture Shift: Improvements were observed in communication, confidence, and decision-making across leadership teams.
  • Ongoing Impact: The success of the programme sparked internal discussions to extend development opportunities to the wider workforce.
  • Stronger Internal Capacity: Coaching support for the L&D Manager enhanced internal design capability, enabling a more sustainable approach to people development.

We partnered with People Spark to initially deliver MBTI as part of our wider Management Development Programme for our management and senior leadership team, and the experience exceed our expectations.

For background information our managers on this programme lead teams of case workers, call handlers, solicitor/legal advisors and social welfare advisors. Senior leaders also attended including our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Operating Officer.

From the outset, they demonstrated a deep understanding of both the voluntary sector and our company values and tailored the content to our specific needs. During the scoping meeting they understood my vision and brought it to life!

An additional service they provided which proved valuable; Viccy provided coaching to our L&D Manager throughout the programme which he found insightful as she encouraged our him to explore creative and fresh thinking when plotting the programme.

At all stages of the programme, I was kept up to date and knew we were in a “safe pair of hands”.

The training was engaging; with our managers appreciating the balance of theory and real-world application, as well as the interactive delivery style that kept everyone involved.

Feedback from the training was quite remarkable – with all participants – management and Senior Management level over the moon with the training and found it beneficial.

We have already seen measurable improvements in team communication, decision making and overall leadership effectiveness. And we are in discussions to roll out a programme to the wider workforce!

People Spark brought professionalism, expertise and genuine passion to every session. The facilitators were not only knowledgeable but also skilled at creating an inclusive and motivating learning environment. I would highly recommend them to any organisation looking to elevate their management capabilities.

Claire-Louise Hall, Head of People and Culture, Society Matters

Case Studies

Case Studies