The role of the director of children's services continues to feature prominently in the media, whether in relation to the performance of local schools or on the back of a number of high profile child protection cases, and is the subject of significant public and political scrutiny.

Professionals who lead the services that support and protect our children are publicly accountable for their practice, and they operate in an occasionally harsh environment, so they need to ensure they develop their knowledge, skills and resilience if they are to make a sustainable impact on children's lives.

Developing the skills set needed to become a successful, confident director is challenging: the ability to bring about change in complex and often high risk situations and the ability to demonstrate leadership and influencing skills in order to convince local agencies to act with common purpose in a multi agency response cannot be underestimated.

There is never just one "right" way to do things, the combination of history, geography and economics creates a unique set of challenges for each local authority, and whilst there are common approaches in some areas, each director will need to adapt their approach to the reality in which they operate. 

Despite the very clear line of accountability to the director, children's services are not one single ‘system'; they operate at the intersection of several equally complex systems. One key aspect of the role of a DCS is to build positive relationships, to be persuasive and adaptive, and to take the long view on behalf of children and families to help agencies that are not under their direct control to align their thinking and to adopt complementary priorities.

It is key that directors of children's services develop and embed an operating framework and culture in their local area, built on evidence and validated ways of working, if they are to crack this  high profile, complex role. And each il director needs to continually work on developing their own skills if they are to keep ahead of the massive changes we face.. There is no "one-size-fits-all approach": each director will bring their own strengths, weaknesses and experiences to the role.

The development programme currently being delivered by the Virtual Staff College to meet the needs of both serving and aspirant DCSs addresses the issues of leadership of safeguarding, commissioning, integrated and partnership working as well as the myriad of other elements of the DCS role.

The programme offers exposure to different leadership, strategic and operational approaches and a range of peer support and challenge opportunities

Directors recognise that supporting the development of self sufficient, high performing teams both within their local authorities and with partners in their children's trusts is crucial if successful and sustainable change is to be achieved.

Directors can never hope to personally influence all those staff for whose performance they are accountable, so the distribution of leadership across an area must be designed to create a collective response, and one which understands what its key successes need to be.

Directors need to be clear about their personal core values, and communicate these to others; they need to be far better attuned to listening to others than ever before, and they need to develop a mind-set that allows for the participation of many – acknowledging that this can lead to progress being clumsy at times. The days of leaders being able to spend time developing elegant solutions to complex problems, then implementing them to a time-line agreed by all (if they ever existed) are long gone! But the solution isn't to assume we can just make things up as we go along, we need an evidence informed framework in which to operate.

Leadership in complex systems is in its nature multi-faceted and dynamic – that is the challenge for today's and tomorrow's DCSs. We must continue to use our pivotal position at the heart of local public service to the greatest possible effect – and to do that we need to look after ourselves and each other.