A generation ago, when I was involved in trying to do something about the unemployment of the 80s in Liverpool, a4e, the controversial company with so many government contracts to help place unemployeed people in work, would have been a community organisation. It looks from the info we have about boss Emma Harrison, although I don't know her, that she is lacking something as a community leader that unemployed people might have confidence in. Steve Burghardt, in his recent book about community work says that community workers have to have a combination of chutzpah and humility. They need the chutzpah to get people who may not have a lot to aim for to see the possibilities and to sell their proposed solutions to politicians and funders. But they don't empower people unless they have the humility to enable people to get alongside them and learn from them.
The problem is that politicians like David Cameron like the chutzpah and latch on to people like Emma Harrison, it seems inspiring, but they don't look past it. People who have chutzpah without humility can't truly help people who are excluded from power. That's why so many apparently inspiring people in the end come a cropper; like Ms Harrison. But perhaps they also learn humility from their fall. Let's hope so.
Emma Harrison stepped down, saying: 'I don't want the media focus on me to be a distraction for A4e'.The Guardian on a4e boss leaving her day job
Steve Burghardt's book on macro social work
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