Leadership In Action:
25th February, Novotel Hotel, London

We staged our latest Executive Briefing in London on February 20th, under the banner of “Leadership in Action”.  It was a well attended event with client and partner representatives from : National Grid, London Underground, United Utilities, South West Water, Vodafone, IPL,  London Power Associates,  Carillion, AES Corp, Ministry of Defence and East Coast Trains.

The day started with keynote speaker Heather Brooke, an author and Freedom of Information Campaigner, who was responsible for unearthing the MPs’ expenses scandal in 2009. She maintained that the Freedom of Information Act 2000 was an important point in UK history and with the vast use of the Internet and technology advances in and around data, both have transformed the access to information for all.

Heather was adamant that transparency is the only option available to democracies and gave interesting examples as to how the UK government and its agencies in particular have been a reluctant converts to FOI best practice.

Following Heather was Howard Collins, who is the COO London Underground. Howard’s task in London Underground is largely people-based and is underpinned by strong Leadership.

The history of LUL has been a challenged one with poor conditions in the 1970’s,  the Kings Cross fire in 1987 and the PPP conception in 1999 when the Government realised that urgent funding was required through a long term investment strategy. Essentially, renewing and improving infrastructure to improve capacity was mandated.

Leadership for Howard was much about the future of what’s happening in LUL. London 2012 and the public infrastructure will be key to the success of the Games. There is massive pressure to deliver and the leadership of the people making it happen is critical.

To round off the morning session Colonel Stuart Birrell DSO (Royal Marines) gave the audience an incredible insight into his Leadership and responsibility of 40 Commando for a 6 month tour of Helmand Province. The focus of the tour was all around governance, operations, security and to grow and develop the Afghan capability. Not one part of their focus was about waging a war against the Taliban.

Stuart stressed the need for preparation, preparation and more preparation. Education was key to Stuart in his Leadership of 40 Commando and the necessity to understand everything from the soldiers, environment, the enemy, constraints, the training and deployment of the group in order to make decisions and understand the risks.

Our Chairman, Steve Norris, graciously took the graveyard spot of after-lunch, and presented a tour de force when describing some leaders he had seen in operation. He regaled the audience with examples ranging from Ronald Reagan to Margaret Thatcher, Jimmy Carter to Daniel Ortega, and Mikhail Gorbachev to Yasser Arafat.

Interestingly, when asked about the qualities required for great leadership he dismissed factors such as academic prowess, attention to detail, and charisma and instead opted for strong conviction to strategic direction.

Bernie Cotton from the British Olympic Association examined leadership in Olympic sport, and showed how the British Olympic performance had been improved since the nadir of Atlanta in 1996 when the team returned with only one Gold medal. At the Beijing Games of 2008, Team GB returned with 19 Golds and a best ever performance of finishing 4th in the medal table.

Bernie explained how this transformation had happened through the Games of Sydney and Athens prior to Beijing. He suggested that Lottery funding had been vital, but also the development and/or recruitment of coaching and management talent had ensured a system which was now geared towards high performance and excellence.

Finally, Shaun Ley of BBC Radio 4 is an experienced Lobby correspondent at Westminster who now hosts various news and current affairs programmes. He has interviewed dozens of senior UK and European politicians, and concluded that their true leadership qualities are often only displayed behind the scenes. He argued that perhaps patience was the quality most required to make it to the top of the political tree.