The weather has been gorgeous here in London the last few days. In fact, for Britain it has been down right hot!

Listening to everyone talk about the weather has made me laugh. I had a Canadian friend tell me ages ago that Americans (those of us from the United States) loved to talk about the weather. In fact a Japanese friend reinforced that a few years later. I felt that was quite true. But, and I think most of my British friends agree – talking about the weather in the UK is a favourite pastime for most people.

Its nice, you almost always something interesting to talk or complain about. Where I am from  we talk about the weather a lot but it can get boring for 100 days in the summer it is pretty much the same – HOT. You can talk about the weather, but its often a conversation about the difference between hot and hotter, trust me it can get boring. So as a result here in  the UK I always know how to start a conversation with someone new (especially as I am still learning to follow the football) because the weather is always changing. As a result of it always changing I am always looking to find out what it is doing next.

Believe it or not, and you may find it a stretch, thinking about the weather today has given me a new perspective on leadership. That special thing about British weather, that it is always changing, provides a nice back drop for leadership!

Since moving here, more than any other place I have lived, I have learned to be prepared for the weather changing unexpectedly. I now know to anticipate dramatic shifts in the weather on any given day and plan accordingly or deal with what comes my way. I’ve learned to plan for just about anything, and when the one thing I could not anticipate happens I deal with it.

As a leader it can be easy to become complacent about something that feels good and assume it will not change. It is also easy to become complacent when things don’t change fast enough. But leaders need to be prepared for changes, in fact they need to embrace changes and anticipate them.

It is too easy to become lulled into a false sense of security when the economy is running strongly, or when the government feels like an institution that is unlikely to change, or when an organisation is never quite bad enough. But nothing that I know of lasts forever and seasons change, winds shift, the tide goes out and when that happens leaders need to be ready for the shift, in fact they need to be talking about the change before it happens.

Maybe that is what went wrong when the economy was growing so quickly, maybe we didn’t have any leaders who were honest, willing to recognise that things change. In fact maybe they weren’t even leading, but were letting the winds of economic good fortune lead them?

I’ve heard a lot of people blame the media for talking the public into the recession, but couldn’t we also say that our leaders failed to talk us out of one. From what I saw most of our leaders were unprepared for what happened. During the height of our good fortune Greenspan and others talked us into it as well thinking they had solved the problems around economic bubbles and boom and bust. Their lack of vision (or excess of it) kept them blind, and as a result they failed to anticipate and possibly to even discuss what could be just over the horizon. Granted they have worked to deal with it, but how could leaders not expect some change?

Its too easy to sit back an analyse something that has already happened, but I hope we have learned our lesson. I know that in the next few days this heat wave will end, so my rain coat is with my umbrella still on the hook next to the door rather than packed away at the back of my closet. I’ll keep my shorts and sunscreen at the ready just in case the forecast changes and I’ll make sure to keep talking about the possibilities with others so that I can develop my own opinion of what will happen, whether I am right or wrong at least I will have made a decision based on a wide range of facts, conversations and information.

A programme on the The Investigators with Jonathan Maitland on BBC Radio 5Live has been broadcast on Sunday March 8th. We are appalled and disappointed that the serious allegations made against Common Purpose were given a platform by the BBC, many of whom have been on our programmes.

Common Purpose is an independent registered educational charity which works with every part of British society to help develop leaders in the communities they serve. More than 25,000 people from the business, government and voluntary sectors have been through our programmes. Some are paid for by their employers and we use the funds raised partly to find bursaries for 600 people each year who take part for nothing.

For many years a very small group of people have attacked Common Purpose. We have variously been described on the internet and elsewhere as paedophiles, ‘spies for Europe’, brainwashers, murderers and criminals. Our staff have received hundreds of anonymous phone calls threatening them and we have dealt patiently with 180 Freedom of Information requests, which all follow the same template.

Not one shred of evidence has been produced to justify any of these criticisms. We do not therefore see any point in engaging with the tiny handful of people who continue to make them either on this programme or anywhere else. Many organisations of all shapes and sizes have this type of campaign against them on the internet. It merely shows that while the internet is a wonderful tool for the majority of people, there are some people for whom it gives extremist views and silly ideas a wider platform. A few years ago this type of activity would have been reduced to a few leaflets.

We are of course happy to answer any questions about Common Purpose and to open our accounts to anyone.

Jude Kelly, Chair of Common Purpose Trustees

‘Harnessing talent’ is another expression you hear a lot, usually about young talent. But harnesses are thick pieces of leather used to strap down, control and direct cattle and horses. So the last thing we want to do is harness talent. We want it de-harnessed, set free, challenged to try new things, to take ideas further than we were brave enough to.

I met a young leader recently who had just unharnessed herself from a big job. She just walked. They must be furious with themselves for losing her. And she is so frustrated and angry, talented and successful. She could not understand why established leaders were so intolerant of the young. Finally she burst out, “Why should we grow up when you lot refuse to yourselves?” I thought it was a good question.

At Common Purpose I am watching some of our young talent fly high and wide, and what a joy it is. But the harnessers do seem to dominate; you almost feel it’s that they want to harness talent so that it too can suffer and survive “as we did”. I hope the harnessing stops soon because we will need all the young talent we can set free to accelerate, when the time comes, out of the chaos we now find ourselves in.

I love the idea of inherent conflict (positive) in all leadership decisions and styles. The idea there isn’t and can’t be one way. It’s refreshingly different to the proposition that there are a set of learned behaviours that can be applied.

 

Twenty years ago a friend gave me the Tao Of Leadership. By reading it again and again I got more used to the idea that it’s ok to approach tough issues in apparently contradictory ways. Sometimes being tough and resilient and at other times letting go. Leaders I come across though find this extremely difficult.

 

They want to reduce things to a solution, to take the behaviours they have just used and apply them to the next scenario. Instead take time to consider the role of being patient, being determined, to see what is happening. The nature of change means it is already happening, it’s something beyond you that you are also part of. You need to see what’s driving it, notice how you are interacting with it and from all these signals then decide on where you act. Do things in this way and you may help things evolve quicker. Act against what is happening and you’ll be tough when you should have been soft and vice versa.

At the end of September in the US, I don’t think I met anyone who did not use the word “authentic” in some way. “Authentic” was coupled with loads of words – “authentic leaders”, “authentic brands”, “authentic messages”, “authentic ideas”… It raises the question of what purpose “authentic” serves in such pairings. And more than this, other new words seem to be slipping in around it too. Words like “appear” and “create”. Yet it is very seldom that “reveal” gets in there.

The objective seems to be how to appear to be authentic. The view is that we should accept that authentic is an illusion - but an important illusion which needs to be created. And this in the context that we are addressing an audience, whether they are customers, stakeholders or citizens, that has largely lost the ability to discern what is authentic anyway. Given that we are often presented with leaders who claim that one identity after the next is the really authentic one, it’s not surprising that we begin to lose our ability to discern the real one.

As one new authentic version appears, no-one seems to spot that its very presence puts in doubt the previous authentic version (and indeed this one too). When the leader cries, is he or she authentic? Is authenticity only revealed in the toughest of times, when a leader gets into a fight, a real scrap?

Then the other word that slips in near to authentic is “moments”, and that’s the finale. Is authenticity revealed in moments, or is it in fact unveiled over time and over a period that the moments have little impact on? Except very occasionally to dramatically destroy it in one stroke!

“Time was when anyone who slacked off, back-pedalled, loafed around or otherwise failed to add value at work knew they were in for a good old-fashioned telling-off from the boss. It cleared the air and allowed everyone to get on with the task in hand. Nowadays, though, bureaucracy and the tyranny of balanced feedback rule.” 

With appraisals looming this opening paragraph in a Management Today article ‘Death of the Bollocking’ got me thinking about whether I’m brave enough to find a way to give critical feedback. I worry about whether I’ve become too soft, too worried about being too harsh, about de-motivating staff, about making sure any critical feedback is offered in a praise sandwich. I’ve had it drummed into me for years that praise is the thing we don’t do well, that we need to do better. 

“You need to tell people where they stand,” says Deborah Meaden, entrepreneur and Dragons’ Den dragon. “If someone’s done a good job, you should tell them they’ve done damn well. But if they haven’t, you should take the same attitude. Tell them: ‘That wasn’t good enough.’ It creates an environment where everyone understands where they are.” One of the dangers of not pulling people up when they underperform, she adds, is that they’re genuinely surprised when things don’t turn out well for them, or the project they’re working on isn’t a success.

It’s so unusual for leaders to speak out about what’s wrong. Zenna Atkins, a recent speaker on the Common Purpose Masterclass on Leading Beyond Authority, was recently quoted in an Observer article giving a critical report on the civil service:

“A damning assessment of the civil service as a ‘desperately overpopulated’, ‘broken’ institution which is stuck in the 19th century has been made by one of its most prominent figures. In an astonishing attack, Zenna Atkins, a director of the Royal Navy Fleet Executive Board, chair of its audit committee and also chair of Ofsted, the schools inspectorate, described the practices of central government as ‘utterly antiquated’. ‘I could say without doubt that significant parts of the civil service are broken,’ she told The Observer. ‘The machinery of government is not even in the 20th century, never mind the 21st century.’”

Does that mean she doesn’t care, or doesn’t think the civil service is doing a good job in many areas? I doubt it - would she spend so much of her time dedicated to working with it otherwise? Maybe we need more leaders like this. But as the Management Today article points out it’s harder for these people to operate in this way if those of us who are parents, teachers, managers don’t show our own leadership and practice being bold, speaking up and giving critical feedback. I’m sure it doesn’t mean we need to kick boots at people, or get the proverbial hairdryer out, just remember that we want things to improve

So what will I do differently? Try and notice when I’m cushioning every piece of negative feedback, make a few attempts to deliver only critical feedback (after so many years of offering the praise sandwich). How will it go? I’ve no idea, but I know I need to try and to learn, if I don’t I’m not being fair to anyone.

Last weekend I went on a surfing holiday with a group of friends.  We woke early Saturday morning and began preparing for the day. When I get up I love a good cup of coffee (filter coffee). One problem the house we were staying in only had Nescafe. Now I drink Nescafe at work because that is what is on offer, but it doesn’t mean I like it. In fact many of my colleagues joke that the reason they take their coffee with milk and sugar is because they don’t like the taste of Nescafe. So why drink it?

Judgements aside, the ease of making a cup of instant coffee is its greatest benefit. Scoop, pour, and stir – and you have a cup of coffee. But I will say the flavour, the quality, and the enjoyment of that morning cup of coffee is not the same. Think of the difference between fast food and a three-course meal, the level of satisfaction from the fast food rarely equals the level of enjoyment from a great three-course meal.

Our society is too caught up with instant gratification. Yes sometimes things need to be done quickly but in always looking for the fastest or easiest way out of a problem we forget about the importance of trying things. Quick wins minimise the importance and necessity of failure. They narrow the concept of success, causing a cycle where people are expected to succeed quickly and often.

We are not all born leaders. Becoming a good leader can take a lot of time. 

Recently I have started to play with the idea of the Nescafe leader. It is a fascinating concept. It is the “scoop pour and stir style” of leadership, where leaders are more likely to be born than made and if you don’t do it right the first time then it does not work. These are leaders who are off the shelf, ready to go, and super experienced with need for development but no need to be tried and tested prior to an emergency.

I have yet to meet a person who can do these things. Many of the inspiring leaders I speak to have had to take a much longer road with hard knocks. They did not hear someone’s top tips and become. They recognised the fact that we are all different. What works for you may not work for me and vice versa. So the leadership learning process is about transferring another individual’s understanding and making it relevant to me. 

Ultimately I ponder the value of top tips for leadership. Do they help people become better leaders of do they distract them from their goal, leading? Nescafe coffee drinkers could do with sitting and enjoying their coffee – from the process of making it to the flavours it can generate to the social aspect it can bring to one’s life. In the same way we should look at leadership as a process to be enjoyed, with stages and times.

2002 was an interesting year for people fascinated by The X Factor – not just the TV programme, but the principle the show is based upon: the magic ingredient that enables some people ‘to make it’, while others with no less talent fall by the wayside.

On ITV’s Pop Idol, Will Young (the housewives’ favourite) won the show, while on BBC Lemar Obika came third in Fame Academy. Five years later and both singer/songwriters release their fourth studio albums this autumn, continue to receive critical acclaim and generate commercial success.

What about all the rest? The other contestants on those shows, the people who beat Lemar into third place and the pundits’ favourite, Gareth Gates, runner up to Will Young – what happened to them? More interestingly, what was it that made the difference for Will and Lemar: the magic ingredient?

From my work with emerging leaders over the years, I believe that the magic recipe is a combination of three ingredients: Passion, Authenticity and Integrity.

Ingredient 1 – Passion of Cause

If I were to give you one minute to address a room full of your peers on your leadership passion, how would you feel? Putting aside the possible horror at having to stand on a podium and make a public address, are you confident that you would actually be able to identify what you are passionate about and clearly communicate it to others? What is your Passion of Cause?

I describe it as the goat or bed test: what really gets your goat, firing you up for a good old rant about your pet subject to your friends and family? Or what is it that makes you leap out of bed in the morning – the alternative answer to the “what do you do?” question. It might not necessarily be your job or profession, but it is the thing that you would do for free because you love it so much. It’s also the thing that keeps you going when the going gets tough. (Lemar had been trying to break into the music industry for five years, was on the brink of giving up and going to university to study computing when he won a place on Fame Academy. The show was his final attempt to make a career of his passion for music, and he made it count.)

This is your Passion of Cause: that thing that stirs you to take action as a leader. It might be on an issue in your personal, professional or wider civic leadership life, but it is something that calls out to you to create change.

What makes Passion of Cause so compelling is that it is infectious, and that is what makes passionate leaders so successful. When you communicate your Passion of Cause to others, you radiate out joy and positive energy to those you interact with. It is this “halo glow feeling” that engages others in your cause. People naturally want to be part of something fun and fulfilling. From my experience, leaders which identify and communicate their Passion of Cause are the ones that make it, when others with no less talent don’t.

Ingredient 2 – Authenticity to Self

But Passion of Cause without substance is not enough. Successful leaders also have an Authenticity to Self. They have a great sense of self-awareness, know themselves well and stay true to themselves.

Successful leaders know what their personal values are, remain true to them throughout their leadership career and stand up for them in times of adversity putting themselves and their projects on the line. (Perhaps the turning point for Will Young’s Pop Idol contest was standing up to Simon Cowell on the subject of good manners and about how appallingly he treated contestants.)

Furthermore, they know their strengths and weaknesses as an individual and a leader and are comfortable disclosing and discussing them with others. Successful leaders capitalise on their strengths, stretching their performance, while at the same time accepting and mitigating their weakness (looking to others in their teams and networks to cover these areas).

Leaders that ‘make it’ know how to leverage the power of themselves: the power of their personal leadership brand. They understand that people buy into people, as much as they do great causes and big ideas. When creating the support required to make change happen, successful leaders recognize that being yourself, and being true to yourself, compels to others to join you. 

Ingredient 3 – Integrity of Execution

The final magic ingredient is the way in which leaders go about creating change. How they lead, and the extent to which they execute the change with integrity. A leader can easily sabotage a great cause, a big idea, an exciting change because the manner in which (s)he behaves towards others. Likely as not this type of leader subscribes to one if not two old adages: “the ends justifies the means” and “do as I say not as I do”.

This is a mistake, the means are often as important, if not more so, than the end result. Think about it. The ultimate test of leadership is if the change is unsuccessful, will people still respect you as a leader and volunteer to support you on the next project? We look to our leaders as role models. We watch how they behave to others and towards us. We expect them to walk the walk, as well as talk the talk. The extent to which leaders are humble, consistent, brave and respectful of others is as important, if not more so than generating the change itself. 

Leaders who are so blinded by their passion of cause, so wedded to being authentic to themselves that they forget about treating others well don’t make the grade. Successful leaders know that their conduct is what builds their leadership reputation and gives others the sense of confidence to sign up for the journey, even if they don’t know where it will take them.

Working with young people you quickly learn that many youths who don’t conform, lash out and generally misbehave, are desperately seeking attention. They don’t necessarily care what the attention is, just as long as they are noticed.

Having dealt with numerous youngsters when running summer camps,  I quickly found that 90% of my time and attention was spent on those who were misbehaving. Through them receiving this extra attention, over a period of time they developed into positive leaders within the group.

Watching the American Presidential Election; Senator Obama was attacked at one point because he advocated reaching out and speaking to countries that the US has traditionally isolated for ‘bad behaviour’. Bad behaviour is an understatement, but I do wonder if embargoes and isolation work as well as we think.

Most parents will know that ignoring problems with children does not work and punishment only works when you follow through (one parent cannot ground a child while the other lets the child go out and play).    In addition if you’ve worked with children, the worst thing you can do is talk condescendingly towards them,  so why is it that we do these things on an international scale. The West scolds Russia for what happened in Georgia, but didn’t Georgia play a role in it too? 

International issues are complicated, and I won’t pretend to know how to solve problems, but one thing I have found is that sometimes tackling a problem from a new angle yields a more favourable outcome. The solution is not to get exasperated with and ignore them, but rather take the extra time to support them for them to see the world in a new light. Why aren’t world leaders looking at new ways to dialogue with countries that are misbehaving and why do we taunt someone for suggesting it?

I was cycling yesterday, outside Glasgow, and came to a favourite and feared steep hill that my legs knew only too well. As I approached, I changed down gears, got myself ready and headed upwards. Before I did I made the mistake of looking up and saw  the summit away in the distance. I gulped.

At this point I thought of the comments the Olympic Gold Medalist, Victoria Pendleton made after winning in Bejing this summer. Talking about her success, she put a lot of it down to her coaches and how they urged her to focus on the process and not the result.

This comment reminded me of how much there was to admire in the performance of the GB cycling team in Bejing – both on and off the track and how it made me think about various aspects of leadership.

Going back to Victoria Pendleton. She was ready to give up the sport after her failure in Athens but she had a team of people who believed in her, encouraged her and supported her. I think it demonstrated that some of the greatest results need a bit of time and patience.

One of the other riders in Bejing, Shanaze Reade, failed in her attempt to win a medal in the womens BMX cycling. The first thing her director told her to do after the race, when no doubt she was feeling down, was go and talk to Victoria Pendleton and find out how she could turn a past situation of defeat into a present triumph.

The team had a visionary cycling coach, Dave Brailsford, who was really clear in what he wanted and stuck to this. They were supported by generous lottery funding but as we all know this is no guarantee of success. Time and again, interview after interview, the success of the team was credited to Brailsford, a strong leader, who involved everyone and who had a clear vision.

Chris Hoy also emerged as an unlikely leader not only of the cycling team but as a representative of all the athletes from various disciplines who were involved in the tournament. It was interesting to watch as he emerged as an inspirational figure the longer the competition went on and that the more successful he became he also demonstrated one of the greatest but often most elusive of leadership attributes – humility. A leadership trait that is often talked about but is just as often, hard to find.

It was refreshing to see him emerge at a time when sporting leaders are often equated with massive egos. I would imagine and hope that his example would be an inspiration to many young people throughout the country and gave them the feeling that they ‘could do that’.

I like the way in which you can take an event like the Olympics and look at the different leadership stories and draw inspiration from them. There are so many different styles and attributes that can lead to success and as we search for our own leadership style/story I think that we can take inspiration from the fact that one size doesn’t fit all when it comes to leadership.

But back to that hill. I put my head down and thought of the process: One foot in front of the other, push the pedals, don’t think of the gradient. And then I was there, at the top. Legs pretty sore today though.