Gore Vidal once famously said that each time one of his friends succeeds a little part of him dies. Recently I saw an article in the Times about a business run by an old friend of mine which gave me the opposite feeling.  In ten years he has built a hugely successful business that not only employs a couple of handfuls of bright and brilliant people but also that wins awards for being amongst the best places to work in the UK.  Not bad for someone who was forced into starting out on his own and without, as he said at the time, a single entrepreneurial gene in his body.  But he’s done it by dint of hard work, luck (both good and bad) and many ups and downs.  The whole thing made me think: why do some people become entrepreneurs when others don’t?

I once heard a very senior board director telling a journalist that it was “impossible to be entrepreneurial in a regulated company.”  I remember thinking at the time what a load of tosh that statement was (something borne out by legions of subsequent leaders of that same company proving him to be spectacularly wrong.)   However, even in unregulated companies it can often prove difficult to engender a free-spirited environment.  I think that there are two reasons why that is the case:

The first is the way that organisations tend to be run.  Hierarchy, not-invented-here syndrome, silo mentalities and a process-driven way of working can all lead to a repetitious and, potentially, stultifying environment.  Innovation, a key part of entrepreneurial behaviour, is often strangled at birth by endless procurement processes or death by committee.  Those people who do exhibit entrepreneurial attributes tend to be iconoclastic mould-breakers who spend their time fighting against the system.  Often they don’t last long, either upping sticks to greener pastures or ending up tired and broken-spirited.

The second reason is the prevailing view that entrepreneurs, like leaders, are born.  Plenty of  books have been written by and about the Bransons and Sugars of the world.  Common mythology seems to indicate that true entrepreneurs started early, usually involving some dubious playground activity, and shunned university in favour of an early start in the market.  But it is plainly not the whole story.  Thousands of shopkeepers and small businesses up and down the country are testiment to the fact that it is a mixture of opportunity and necessity that creates entrepreneurs.  For sure, some people are temporarily less suited to the rigidity of working in structured organisations but there are plenty of career options for them that don’t require them to start their own business.

Many organisations suffer from having employees who, despite elements of variable pay, churn out the same sort of work year in year out.  Institutional capture and a financially secure environment combine to create workforces where risk-taking is rare.  So the real question is how can more people be encouraged to take more control of their working lives and demonstrate a more entrepreneurial attitude within organisations. The answer for me lies in fundamentally changing the way that businesses are run, ditching the outdated command and control attitudes and introducing flatter, looser, and non-hierarchical approaches.   Encouraging three-way communications and engaging people in changing the way they work will lead to the creation of an entrepreneurial mindset that will challenge legacy systems and attitudes.  And all this needs to be supported with a pay and benefits package that rewards risk-taking and has a more equitable approach to sharing in success.

It is curious how so many organisations that were founded by spirited entrepreneurs have found themselves stuck in the rut of big company syndrome.  So perhaps the solution is to recognise that whilst entrepreneurs aren’t born, they do require a less staid environment in order to flourish.  After all, it’s neither nature nor nurture.  It’s a combination of both.

The other day I was talking to someone going through the process of moving into an open plan office.  He worked for a very traditional organisation (he is a lawyer) and the transition for him and his team was clearly proving difficult.  It made me wonder whether open-plan offices, like outsourcing, was a business idea that will soon start to become unfashionable.

Outsourcing is a classic case of the law of unintended consequences.  The idea is that moving transactional and commoditised services to people who specialise in those things will reduce costs and increase productivity.  Nice idea, but in practice it often takes far more effort to manage the interface than it saves.  There are also other issues: the more you dilute the business operations the more you dilute the corporate culture.  And, of course, if everyone is trying to be strategic then who is left minding the shop.

The “fad” of open-plan is another example of starting in the right place for the right reasons but coming to the wrong answer.  Offices were seen as a symbol of the old way of working.  They represented a sense of status and hierarchy (I can remember the days when offices were carefully measured to ensure they reflected the relevant grade).  They were also seen as encouraging a silo mentality and of perpetuating inefficiencies.  After all, how much work actually went on behind closed doors, especially in those post prandial hours?

Open-plan offices are seen as being inclusive and meritocratic, and of providing a more creative and transparent environment that allows the whole team to be together.  But do they actually work?  Open-plan offices can also be a pretty difficult place to work.  Often they are incredibly noisy and distracting. Noise control legislation was originally introduced to protect factory workers.  Current regulations set the bar at 85 decibels and it would be interesting to know how many open-plan offices get close to that.  There is the constant whirring of photocopiers and printers, and “bing-bong, lift going up” every few minutes.  The constant ringing of phones (and the unanswered mobile left on a desk).  There are noisy co-workers: the ones with piercing voices that can be heard across a whole room.  And what about the “informal meeting” when someone starts chatting to the person next to you.  All very noisy, very distracting and, probably, not particularly efficient.

Recently some people have started to focus on the importance of introverts in business.  It probably comes as no surprise that whereas extroverts love brainstorming, introverts hate them.  Whatever technique is applied, the end result merely forces introverts further into their shell.  Which is a shame, for introverts tend to make up a majority of the gifted population.  They tend to have the best thought-through and most practical ideas.  And where do they have their best ideas?  Not in a public brainstorm but on their own at their desk.  In fact, at their desk with a bit of peace and quiet.  Making a bunch of detail-focused introverts leave their offices and placing them in a bear-pit, extrovert-friendly, open-plan office  tends to make them feel uncomfortable, increasing stress and decreasing productivity.

So why are these lawyers only now getting around to the idea of open plan?  This is where the diffusion model comes in.  New things start with innovators, the people who have the original idea.  They are quickly followed by the early adopters.  After them come the mass market early majority.  At this stage it’s less important whether the new idea works but more that everyone else is doing it.  This “safety in numbers” approach drives the next group, the late adopters, followed finally by the skeptics.  However, what this bell curve model also tells us is that once the critical mass has moved in the early adopters move out and on to the next big thing.

I wonder how long it will be before someone once again starts to extoll the virtues of the office.  In fact, I might just close my door, forward my phone calls, put my feet on the desk and take a few moments to ponder that very issue.

It is extraordinary the effect that having to make an acceptance speech has on the world’s most polished performers.  For people who make a living from promoting an image it is interesting how so many seem to miss the mark.  From Morgan Freeman’s 32 second speech to Halle Berry’s 4 minute 30second epic, Oscar acceptance speeches run the whole gamut from the good and the bad to the ugly. To be fair to these highly-paid thespians, it can’t be easy sitting there as the names of the other nominees is read out.  They will have prepared an acceptance speech and are desperately trying to remember their lines whilst not letting their forced smile drop.  They don’t want to come across as too needy or too grand or over-rehearsed.  They want to be happy in a measured way and to remember to thank everyone who needs thanking.  And then they hear their name and it all goes wrong.

Those who study Oscar speeches (and they do exist) tend to believe that what comes out of the mouths of the award winners is often a true reflection of what they feel at that moment.  In other words, it is an authentic expression of the emotion that they’re experiencing.  Well-delivered bon mots may have been prepared in advance but the release of all that excitement sees the words replaced with crying, screaming and punching the air.

It would of course be naïve to deny that getting an Oscar doesn’t  have a financial impact on the careers of winners, but the way that they react shows just how important recognition can be. Everyone likes to be singled out for praise, especially in front of their peers.  Winning is obviously important but the acknowledgement of having done a good job is what lasts.

HR professionals, and their advisers, place a big focus on reward and recognition.  However, when it comes down to it the emphasis is more on reward and less on recognition.  Financial incentives are created to reward the right behaviours, to align performance to business strategy, and to minimise resistance to change.  Money is seen as the great motivator both for personal development and for enabling culture change.  Recognition is often relegated to either in-house “Oscars” (oddly, these are rarely particularly successful) or to gift vouchers and a meal for two.

The shape of work is changing and we are seeing the decline in the effectiveness of hierarchical command and control structures and the emergence of more collaborative models.  Aligning behaviours through reward schemes struggles in this approach.  Behaviours do change, however, when supported by leaders who see their role less about being decision-makers in chief and more as team builders.  True leadership is about creating the environment in which change can occur naturally.  It is about encouraging and developing people and about role modelling the right behaviours.  And the biggest impact can come from giving proper recognition to those who are making real contributions.  Not just money or gift vouchers, but a real “well done” and “thank you”.  After all, we all like to be recognised for having done a good job.  And then, perhaps, like Jean Dujardin we too would say “formidable.”

There has been much debate recently about the lack of women on the boards of big companies.  Senior politicians seem very keen on the subject, hosting various seminars and debates and generally giving off encouraging signals.  They all seem to agree that having so few women on boards is a bad thing and that having more would be a good thing.  Other than that there seems to be little consensus.  Many suggestions, such as those of creating all-female shortlists, are open to criticisms from both sides of the gender politics debate.

One question to consider is whether company boards need in any way to reflect either the nature of their business or of society as a whole.   Few would argue that any board would be richer for having a more diverse set of opinions available, but equally few would argue that the board needs to be proportionate in terms of race and gender to its constituency.  As many organisations become more global in both outlook and operations it is important that those businesses are properly cognizant of different outlooks but it doesn’t necessarily follow that they need to be run by a certain percentage of people with backgrounds in those countries. Likewise, women may represent half of the population but it doesn’t follow that boards need to do the same merely for reasons of gender symmetry.

Another question may sound obvious, but do women bring a perspective to boardrooms not available to men? Most business people have at some time in their career been through personality tests.  These are often fairly binary findings: for instance, extrovert or introvert, thinker or feeler.  These tests are supposed to determine how someone will approach and deal with an issue.  For whatever reason few tests differentiate between male and female.  However, there is much consensus emerging amongst neuroscientists that there is in fact a biological difference between the male and female brain (formed in the early stages of pregnancy).  The two brains are, it seems, different and are driven by distinct hormones.  As a result they are not organised in the same way leading to the two sexes processing information differently.

The third question is to ask whether we are looking in the wrong direction.  One of the reasons why there are so few female board directors is that there is a paucity of suitably qualified candidates.  And the reason for that is that fewer women than men make it to the executive committee level in large organisations, effectively blocking the pipeline one level below.  And so the answer to getting more women on to boards is not quotas or all-women shortlists; the answer is to get more women on to executive committees.  And the solution to that problem is a cultural reformation of what we have come to accept as work.

It does seem curious that at a time in history when there are millions of people unemployed and when technology is bringing us more opportunities than previous generations could ever have imagined, more people than ever are complaining of working too hard.  And not just working too hard, but spending too much of their time stuck on trains, buses, and cars getting to an office.  For many, work is not something they do but a place where they go.  A place full of processes and systems, and of emails and meetings.  And a place with its own set of cultural norms.  Getting in early and staying late is a sign of dedication.  “Going the extra mile”, and other hateful HR-inspired exhortations, ring in people’s ears.  Much of what goes on in many organisations, especially those with rigid hierarchies and a silo mentality, is inefficient and ineffective.

Cleverer organisations are using technology to let their people both work remotely more often and to be smarter and outcome focused.  They see quality of work as being more important than quantity.  It is these types of organisations that are at the forefront of changing the way we think about work and, as a result, breaking down the cultural norms that have seen so many women unable, for a variety of reasons, to break through to the top of organisations.

So perhaps rather than focus on artificial ways to get more women on to boards, the objective should be to help organisations to work smarter and more effectively.  It would be more impactful and better in the long term for society if more women helped to change the way we work from the bottom up rather than by being on non-executive supervisory boards per se.  As they say, the best change always comes from within.

The thorny subject of executive pay has once more returned to the political centre stage.  Many politicians have accurately defined the problem but no-one seems to have a sensible solution.  Most seem agreed that there is little wrong with high rewards for good performance. This, of course, does nothing to reduce the excesses of high pay and certainly doesn’t address the definition of what good performance actually is. For instance, many acquisitions that produced significant returns in the short term proved to be disastrous, but few compensation packages allow for claw-backs.

One of the problems in trying to find a solution is everyone’s at it.  It’s not going to be easy to find brave souls who are prepared to start a race to the bottom. Few boards are going to suggest that they set an example for others to follow.  It reminds me of a poor chap who’d brought his young son to a rugby match at Twickenham.  Every time anything of importance happened the crowd would rise to its feet leaving the little lad unable to see a thing. The increasingly exasperated father was imploring the crowd to stay seated and to pass the message around the rest of the ground for the benefit of others.  Needless to say he wasn’t successful.

So what is the solution?  Well, apart from banning “reward” experts (who tend to perpetuate myths, thereby creating an arms race of increased compensation) maybe it is time to reframe the issue.  Rather than pay per se being the problem perhaps it is the focus on shareholder value that is wrong.

The rise in importance of “shareholder value” came about for all the right reasons.  Too many businesses were inadequately focused on their investors.  One of the solutions was to ensure that senior managers had “skin in the game” and so share schemes were introduced to “align” their interests with those of the shareholders.  And this is where the law of unintended consequences came in. Many shareholders became too obsessed with “extracting” value from their investments and on the share price (especially when the new game of lending to hedge funds came in) Senior managers often became too focussed on creating value for their shareholders and, despite some attempts to shift reward towards the long term, were led towards making decisions that would prove unsustainable.  For instance, buying growth and cutting back on training and investment can be a good way to increase Earnings per Share (EPS is still a key determinant for many executive reward programmes) but it will rarely build long-term success.  And so we find that the needs of the shareholder (to extract value) and of the business (to provide excellent and differentiated service to its customers) can be at variance.

For me the key to reducing the excesses of executive pay has to be to decouple reward from the shareholder’s interests.  The first step would be to reduce the amount of shares that can be granted to executives (Bart Becht, in his last year at Reckitt Benckiser, earned £4.5m from salary and bonus and then picked up £90m from his share schemes.  Some would say that what’s right for the shareholders in right for the business, but when the ratio between basic pay and share rewards is a wide as in this case it is easy to see how some may get their priorities wrong).

The second thing must be to reframe the definition of success towards customer and employee satisfaction. Organisations need to return to the good old days when the focus was firstly on delighting the customer, and then on investing in the interests of employees, other stakeholders and society at large.  It followed that if those priorities were satisfied then the shareholders would be happy and would share in the success.

Naïve?  Maybe, especially in a global market, but long-term success comes from investing in people, playing a part in society as a whole, and, most importantly, in offering great service.  Creating rewards for the right things tends to lead to the adoption of the right behaviours.

And as for the rugby crowd?  Well, rather than trying to get everyone to sit down how about a return to the old days.  Take out the seats, stick the youngsters at the front, and bring back the great atmospheres of the past.  The days when the unsegregated crowds would commiserate with the losing supporters by generously sharing with them, in the immortal words of Max Boyce, “…that old bottle that once held bitter ale.”

The US presidential race has officially started.  The Republican Party has kicked off its search for a nominee with, as is its custom, the Iowa caucus.  The state – the size of England but with a population close to that of Wales – can now get back to normal as the coachloads of media and campaigners head off towards New Hampshire.  The presidential hopefuls have spent weeks parading their winning smiles of perfect teeth, spending bucket loads of money, whilst trying to say little of real substance and make as few gaffes as possible.  I’m not sure what the caucus members, or “gatherings of neighbours” as they’re sometimes called, made of it all but it made me think that frequently it is those who most want to be leaders who are often the least suitable.  It takes a certain type of person to want to forgo privacy, and spend vast amounts of their wealth, all to chase the chance to take on a role dealing with seemingly intractable problems.

In organisations one frequently finds people “running for office”.  So desperate are they to become the leader that they spend their time plotting and scheming, surrounding themselves with true believers to whom they offer preferment.  Interestingly, these leaders in waiting often demonstrate the very lack of team playing that they demand in others.  They also tend to become obsessed with being seen to do things.  They measure their success by what they’ve done (sometimes changing things simply so that they can be seen to have changed something) rather than what they’ve achieved.  Quick to blame and shame, and quick to point out the failings of others, for them leadership is more about their own status than ideological or strategic differences.

As one observes the eager beavers, in politics and in business, expending large amounts of energy chasing the dream of leadership, the truth is that deep down we all know that far from being born real leaders are made.  It is circumstances that create leaders.  Identikit high achievers who say the right things and do the right things with the sole aim of reaching the top often find themselves disappointed.  Leadership is not about doing; it is about creating the environment in which things can be done.  It is about nurturing, empowering, providing vision and about satisfying needs.  In fact, it is all about giving and not about self.

Another point about true leadership is that there isn’t a particularly right way to do it.  Each person needs to demonstrate it in their own way.  However, what is important is consistency of behaviour.  In the transparent world in which we live it is now more important than ever that there is a link between what is said and what is done.  People listen to what their leaders say but, more importantly, they observe how they act.  True leaders recognise that speeches may be important but it is how they behave that makes the real difference.

So as politicians and business executives jostle for position, beware the ones who say that they’ve got all the right answers.  Watch out for the egotistical, and embrace the humble.

In the seminal Monty Python sketch, Palin’s character says that an argument is “…a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition” to which Cleese replies “No it isn’t”. Palin continues “Argument is an intellectual process.  Contradiction is just the automatic gainsaying of any statement the other person makes.”  “No it isn’t” Cleese again replies. Many observers of today’s political debates could be forgiven for thinking that far from being a humorous observation, the Python sketch was actually a fair summary of public discourse.

The twice-weekly session of Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons may only draw a small audience but it does, without a doubt, set the tone.  Arguments become binary: my Plan A is better than your Plan B.  The protagonists raise their voices over the baying backbenchers, turning serious debate into something like a blood sport.  This aggressive he-said-she-said attitude is too often replicated in other debates.  Broadcast journalists love what they call the head-to-head interview, encouraging attacks, constantly trying to trip people up and to find differences of opinion.

Two events this week have, however, given me hope.  The first was a panel discussion (held at PR consultancy, Fishburn Hedges) on the future of money.  The panel had a number of things in common: firstly, they were all incredibly well briefed and knowledgeable about their subject; and secondly they were there to debate and share ideas rather than score points.  The result was an engaging and thought-provoking evening.

The second event was a debate between two schools in the Debating Matters competition, supported by the Institute of Ideas, in which I was fortunate enough to be one of the judges. The subject for debate was whether the UK should follow other European countries and ban the Burka.  The two teams, made up of 17-year old school children, were outstanding.  They had done their research, mastered their brief, and synthesised the information in order to produce highly effective and compelling arguments which they both delivered well.  But it didn’t end there.  In addition to delivering a seemingly nerve-free argument (no mean feat for such young people) they also listened to what the other team were saying.  Too frequently people see a debate as taking turns to get their message across.  They use the time when the other side are speaking to silently rehearse what to say next.  These two teams not only listened but also took notes and, in real time, judged what arguments to employ that best counteracted the points made by their opponents.

Very few things today are completely black and white.  The complexity of modern life and the inter-dependency of so many issues mean that it is important to understand nuances of thought.  Debates which are little more than shouting down opponents are of little value.  Today’s politicians could do well to take a lesson from the young people taking part in Debating Matters.  It isn’t just about who can shout loudest; it’s about listening effectively and choosing what to say and how to say it. Perhaps it’s time to debate debates.

Giving advice is an art form in its own right.  Knowing what to say requires a mixture of wisdom and diplomacy and a high degree of emotional intelligence.  People ask others for advice everyday and few, whether consultants, counsellors or friends, are usually backward in coming forward with ideas and suggestions.  In fact, telling people what they should do or how they ought to act seems to be a particularly compulsive human activity.

The problem with all this advice giving, however, is that it rarely works. Providing the ready-made solution frequently fails for a number of reasons.  Firstly, ownership for the solution rests with the wrong party.  If you are going to act differently then it needs to be for your own reasons rather than for someone else’s. Secondly, it is unsustainable.  If every time we have a problem the solution is provided for us then we will never learn to think for ourselves.

When it comes to changing behaviour or thinking the trick is to let the other party arrive at their own solution.  And the way to achieve that is through judicious questioning. By using incisive, open questions you can get them to reframe the issues, see through blockages and find their own way to solve the problem. That way they see the light in their own way and in their own time.  The solution is theirs and the change will be all the more real because it comes from them.

A friend of mine recently spent the whole day on a trip in the company of his CEO.  They were talking about internal communications when suddenly, the CEO said: “I know. I’ll write a monthly business newsletter that we can send to everybody. That would work, wouldn’t it?”  My friend said nothing, but his silence said it all.  “Why don’t you agree?” asked the CEO.  “I’ll tell you at the end of the day” said my friend. Their day together continued, visiting an operational centre and meeting people far away from the corporate head office.  At the end of the day the CEO said: “Actually, I’ve got it.  What I should do is write a blog every few days saying who I’ve met, what I’ve found and ask people to let me know their thoughts.” “What a good idea.” said my friend.

That interaction could have gone two ways.  My friend could have immediately knocked down the CEOs original idea and replaced it with his own.  Instead what he did was effectively to make his boss think of what he’d like to receive as a communication rather than what he thought he ought to give.  He came to his own solution.  He owned it and the outcome will be far more effective and authentic as a result.

This approach, of course, goes against the grain.  Since our schooldays we’ve become used to a top-down, didactic approach to problem solving and learning.  We’re told to pay attention and learn how solutions are arrived at.  Of course, absorbing information like a sponge and learning how to regurgitate it effectively is marvellous for achieving success on the treadmill of examinations, but rarely does it lead to insight or creative thought.  Isn’t it surprising how the teachers we most remember tend to be the ones least bothered by exam results and most bothered by holding debates, asking good questions, and encouraging us to say what we really thought.

The truth is that we all need advisors.  Much of life comes down to coaching; indeed, that is the true basis of leadership.  Telling people what to do, in a command and control way, is increasingly counter-productive.  Perhaps the coaching and consultancy industry can take a lead and stop trying to provide solutions and start by active questioning to allow the true change to emerge from within.

As the conference season for UK political parties draws to a close some are beginning to wonder whether they have now passed their sell-by date.  What was once a cross between rah-rah events for the faithful and serious policy-making forums has now become little more than made-for-tv events that take place in front of an audience of bused-in supporters and lobbyists.  And to ensure that there is no chance of the politicians, and the London-based chatterati, actually bumping into real people these events take place behind a cordon sanitaire that makes airport security look free and easy.

Another event that has similarly failed to evolve is the Annual General Meeting.  Each year hundreds of quoted companies spend enormous sums on events that, in most cases, have become pointless.  There is no doubt that the leaders of publicly-quoted companies should be both accessible and accountable to their audiences. However, AGMs are not the place.  Shareholder democracy has joined the ranks of top oxymorons.  The meetings are typically attended by a mixture of former employees, axe grinders, professional shareholders, and the lost and bewildered. For most organisations they have ceased to serve any real purpose.

A good example of how pointless they have become would be the annual vote on directors’ remuneration.  There is usually an acrimonious discussion during which ordinary shareholders complain about the directors of “their” company receiving the sort of sums of money that would make Croesus blush.  This is normally followed by a vote.  The small shareholders unanimously vote “no” on their handsets, wait while the computer works out how statistically insignificant they are, and then it is announced to the hall that thanks to the previously received votes from the absent institutional shareholders a total of 98% have voted in favour.    It always reminds me of that great joke from the Two Ronnies: “Last night the Kremlin was broken into and next year’s election results were stolen.”

The two events could do with a face-lift.  Both suffer from a lack of real understanding of their core purpose.  They both take place because they’ve always taken place. In each case the organisers feel constrained by what they have to do and feel unable to focus on what they’d like to do.  Attempts to re-purpose them often end up merely tinkering around the edges.  In my experience, as much effort goes into deciding on the contents of the shareholder goody bag as into the content of the keynote speech.

Introducing a greater level of interactivity would be a good idea.  At the party conferences, rather than the usual suspects lining up one after another to give set-piece presentations to a somnolent audience, perhaps they could get the delegates to split into groups to discuss specific issues.  The same could work with AGMs.  The formal business could be rattled through and then the senior executives – and there are normally plenty of them – could sit with small groups and hold discussions.  And what’s more, these discussions could be webcast making them far more inclusive. Radical though it may be, in both instances it would be the delegates who would decide what they wanted to talk about rather than the leaders. Who knows, the leaders may even find it useful.  But whatever happens, I just hope that those planning the next round of meetings don’t just start by saying: “Now, what did we do last year?”

I recently took part in a discussion about leadership.  A top research organisation was presenting some initial findings of whom members of the public considered to be leaders and what they thought the characteristics of leadership actually were.  Many of the usual suspects, like Churchill, figured highly as well as a few less likely people such as Princess Diana.  And given the public’s ideas of who most personified the idea of leadership it came as no great surprise that the top two characteristics identified were integrity and decisiveness.

The discussion itself was lively and centred mainly around whether true leadership was about dynamic, energetic decision-making or more about nurturing, empowering and team-building.  It struck me that there is a consensus growing around the idea that leadership is less about doing per se and more about creating the climate in which things can be done.  Slowly but surely the myth that leaders are born and that they a special breed is being debunked.  The purposeful walkers and strategic decision-makers are becoming to be seen as less capable of true leadership.

Society today is increasingly complex.  Issues rarely fit into nice neat boxes. Binary yes or no scenarios have given way to various shades of grey.  It’s often all about context and all about nuance. Navigating through the various ‘what ifs’ requires a greater level of understanding and emotional maturity than the traditional, uncompromising, ‘just do it’ school of management.  The leadership qualities required to succeed in such environments are often the softer ones including empathy, listening and, most importantly, team building.

One particular point was raised that I’ve been thinking about a great deal since.  A participant said that in tough times what people wanted most was decisive leadership. I can understand that point: it is indeed what most people want.  However, it is often not what they need.  What they need most is vision, understanding and a sense of direction.  They need to understand the context and what they need to do as a result.  It was Kennedy who said that rather than asking what your country can do for you, one should ask “…what you can do for your country.” Too often we see that decisive leadership can create a dependency culture.  In many organisations decisions are upwardly delegated leading to both paralysis and the creation of personality cults around the leader.  Society and organisations need more people to recognise that true leadership is for everyone and not just for a clique of the ambitious. True leadership is about taking control of ones own life and surroundings and making a positive contribution.  It is not about waiting for someone else to decide for you.  And so for those who have risen to positions of influence and authority, their primary role must be to help create the right climate. Rather than being the telegenic, celebrity Chief Entertainment Officer, the true leaders are starting to see nurturing as their key role.