Is this all you need to know about leadership?

What's the secret of great leadership?
Apologies readers, I'm writing this on my iPhone at St Pancras after a very stimulating day. I've met some amazing guys at Motherlode Studioes. They've made a very cool film called The Four Horsemen - an tough documentary about our financial crisis and the systemic problems we have created for ourselves. I urge you to google it, find out about it and look out for a local screening. I've met a very senior police officer here in the city of London police and I've spent a morning at an amazing youth charity called Street League - changing lives through football.
What a day!
I'm increasingly coming to the conclusion that the techniques put forward in our modern leadership literature is only a part of the story. Really all you need to be an amazing leader is this;
Notice it
Step up
Carry on

That's what these amazing people I've met today, and others recently, have done. They've seen something that annoys them, they've had the guts to jump and they have grafted until it improves. And that's it.

Passion - performance- purpose.

All the techniques about skills and behaviour pale into insignificance in the face of a bloody minded desire to put something right, deal with an injustice, correct a corrupt system whatever it is, the great leaders have got off their backsides and done something.

So, just my top line thoughts on my day. There probably is more to leadership that the above but it's not a bad start and there are plenty of people doing a brilliant job of their little part of the world simply with some passion to do something about a problem and a bit of hard work.

Piers Carter

What is your context?

And more to the point, what does context mean and what has it got to do with leadership?

Context is the tone, the environment, the meaning behind the activity in a team or organisation and I think the leader’s job is to set the context.

If I ask you, what are the big leadership challenges you are facing at the moment what would you say.......?

·       Company merger?

·       Change initiative?

·       Large sales programme?

·       Implementation of a new IT system?

·       Organisational CSR initiative?

If I now ask you, as a community/town/city/country, what are the big leadership challenges you/we are facing.......?

·       Health care?

·       Economic crisis?

·       Education?

·       Employment?

·       Wealth gap?

Now, as a planet, as a wider community of humans, what are the big leadership challenges we are facing and going to face in the next 10, 20 even 50 years....?

·       Climate change?

·       Peak oil?

·       World water shortage?

·       Population explosion?

·       Food shortages?

·       Fuel shortages?

And what are you leading within all this?

Since this is my blog here is my perspective, we MUST lead any and everything we are doing within the context of the final list above, the big planet based stuff. And for me this is us leading with ‘sustainable development’ in mind all the time. It is the only possible viable solution. We need to lead everything we do with 3 things in mind all on the theme of profit. Profit is an enabler, more than that it is essential. But profit in 3 key areas;

·       Social profit

·       Environmental profit

·       Financial profit

Once you are interrogating all your decisions as a leader in the context of these 3 bottom lines then maybe, just maybe, we might be making more moves towards a better planet and, let’s face it, it is the only one we’ve got.

So, you have permission to make profit and the more profit you make the more good you can do; and within that try to make a social profit and an environmental profit.

That’s my context, my triple bottom line and I’m clear that all I do operates within that context ... what’s your context?

Piers Carter

Facilitation, coaching & leadership

Is there a silver bullet?

I've been having a fascinating time recently talking to leaders. Public, private and third sector leaders in depth about the problems they are facing and the issues they are trying to lead. It has been very revealing. Leadership is a lumpy, confused business which is hard and comprises a whole range of skills, leaders are tough minded individuals who have to make tough decisions and yet win hearts and minds and bring others with them.It challenges the text book version of a leader which is within the pages of all the business & management books on the shelves of the book shops.
I think leadership is someone who just isn't happy with how it is at the moment, someone who wants it to be better and is prepared to step up and do something about it. Often with little training in the finer arts and skills of leadership.
And there is no one answer, no great solution to any single problem. Today's problems are complex and multi-agency/stakeholder and the lonesome leader has to find a way through that.
I heard a saying recently which was; "There is no silver bullet - but there is lots of silver buckshot."
I like this - leadership across society comprises lots of silver buckshot, lots of people doing something about the things they aren't happy with.
What are you doing something about? What's your silver buckshot?


Piers Carter
Facilitation, Coaching & Leadership