NABS Reveals Industry Plea for Better Leadership as Demands for Services Rise

The top three factors needed to create positive change in the advertising and media industry are empathetic leadership, better training for managers, and increased diversity, NABS will reveal at its annual President’s Breakfast event on Tuesday 4th February. 

These factors were identified in the inaugural NABS Track survey: a new, twice-yearly ‘state of the nation’ survey. NABS Track’s results will transform NABS’ ability to lead industry change for good, responding directly to what people across the industry need in order to thrive at work. 

NABS Track demonstrated a clear call from respondents to improve leadership and management styles across the industry. In particular, 95% of respondents agreed that an important subject for NABS Track going forward was how much self-awareness managers had around their own behaviour and stress levels, as this factor can have a huge impact on team wellbeing.

More results from the first edition of NABS Track will be revealed at the President’s Breakfast, alongside a first-look outline of NABS’ new future-focused strategy. Designed for the next five years, the strategy will be insight-driven, using results from NABS Track as well as feedback from its service users to transform NABS’ impact on people and points of view across the industry as well as its service provision. 

NABS will also reveal at the President’s Breakfast its 2019 usage statistics, the rise of which indicates the advertising industry’s increasing mental and emotional health needs:

• More than 2,900 individuals used a support or careers service or came to a NABS Talk.
• Together, these individuals used our services 7,000 times.
• The Advice Line took more than 4,400 calls – over 1,000 more than last year, and a 76% increase since 2017.
• A third of calls are from people seeking emotional support, 58% of which were for mental health reasons (compared with 44% in 2017).
• NABS has made 33% more referrals year-on-year for therapy.

NABS’ work has a clear impact on people’s ability to improve their wellbeing. For example, 93% of its coaching clients say that their sessions helped them to develop new ways of thinking and behaving.

NABS Track’s striking findings around leadership have inspired the theme of this year’s President’s Breakfast: Creating Courageous Culture. During the event, NABS senior leaders Diana Tickell, CEO; Kerry Glazer, president; Simon Daglish, chair; and Nicky Harris, director of strategy and development, will share updates from the past 12 months and their visions for the year ahead as well as their thoughts on the importance of empathetic, wellbeing-focused leadership.

Meanwhile, Kerry Glazer will talk about the successes of timeTo, the campaign against sexual harassment in the industry run by partners NABS, the Advertising Association and WACL. So far, more than 260 organisations have signed up to timeTo as endorsers. Kerry will also reveal timeTo’s latest innovation: group training sessions, designed to increase awareness and understanding of sexual harassment across the industry.

Diana Tickell says: “Our vision for 2020 and beyond is to address the urgent need for our industry to address its leadership styles. With NABS Track, we’re leading the way in investigating and revealing insights into the industry that will help us to do this.

“We’ll find out why people leave their roles, whether managers have awareness about their own impact and stress levels, and how we can help with all of this to improve retention and attrition in our industry.”

More than 150 people, including many of the industry’s senior figures, are expected to attend the President’s Breakfast.

NABS is now encouraging everybody in the industry to sign up to the NABS Track survey panel.