I suppose it is inevitable that a relatively new academic field will get rather mired in definitions and distinctions before it eventually moves on to more practical matters. While the cognitive psychologists and moral philosophers would doubtless argue that right thought leads to right action, I am rather bored of leadership being so theoretical. Leadership is a fundamentally messy activity, and research across the disciplines shows that ‘trial and error’ tends to be far better teacher than any guru in a book or a classroom. To me, the word is also problematic. Leadership feels more like title or status rather than on-going activity. So I am now going to call it leadersmithing, because it is about apprenticeship, craft, and hours of practice. Read More
The latest edition of 360° The Ashridge Journal comes out on Monday. I’ve written a piece in it about embedding L&D into organisational culture, and I’d welcome your ideas. Here is my example of what I think good could look like. Read More
At Ashridge I have the great privilege of working with lots of different leaders. One of the most useful theories I have come across to help them understand the complexity of their role is Art Kleiner’s Core Group Theory. Essentially, Kleiner argues that the core group in any organisation has the same effect as does a magnet on iron filings. When they are around, everyone snaps to attention. I see it visibly when we have certain CEOs or Ministers come in to address a course: the fanning out, the standing up straight, the self-conscious gesturing, the laughing at their jokes, the sounding slightly better spoken than usual, and of course the asking of terribly clever questions. Read More
We’ve just had a wonderful conference at Ashridge. The theme was the global ethical leadership compass, which set me to musing on the adequacy of the metaphor. It occurred to me that the navigational compass is a very poor metaphor. Magnetic north is slowly drifting from Canada towards Siberia over disputed territories; it also wanders many miles a day; changes depending on where on the Earth you take the reading, and could swap with magnetic south at any time. A compass magnet is also affected by local magnetic fields and, to cap it all, because opposites attract magnetic north is actually the south pole anyway. Read More
I recently gave a talk about my research to the LSE’s Hayek Society. Our discussion ranged widely, inevitably majoring on the current economic climate. I suppose once the rather smug recriminations raining down through the media evaporate all we really want to know is: what next? What is the most effective and sustainable balance between private enterprise and public intervention, and how can we find it? Read More
Let’s face it, Jesus himself was no fan of regulation, continually clashing with the Pharisees over their legalism and replacing their red tape with the simple principle of love. And what got Luther cross, leading to the Protestant Reformation? His feeling that the brisk trade in Indulgences – religious securitisation – was evidence of the Church slipping back into something like this Pharisaic tradition: ‘justification by works’ when simple faith should suffice. What is terrifying about Luther, and about faith, is how risky it is. Read More
At Ashridge we have been conducting research with leaders about what they wish they’d known 10 years ago. One finding has particular resonance with a constituency who suffer from exponentially increasing workloads and growing concern about work life balance. It is about delegation and how to choose what work to do. It is the ‘lead through/learn from’ criterion. Read More
We hear a lot about self-obsessed New Yorkers with their mandatory shrinks, with the UK opinionators bewailing the imminent import of this kind of navel-gazing to our famously repressed shores. We also hear that Blessed are the Poor, but Maslow suggests we can’t attain spiritual ‘self-actualising‘ until our material needs have been met. Read More
Ashridge has kindly granted me a study break to catch up on my PhD, which I am taking at Douai Abbey. Spring is sneaking out around the Abbey, with star-shaped daffodils and shy blossom wherever I look. Our meals here are silent, and over lunch and supper we are read to. At the moment we are working our way through Simon Winchester’s Krakatoa, from which I have learned about the vital role volcanoes play in our biosphere. Today I am reading about philosophy, from Pythagoras to Wittgenstein (the Carlisle Red Cross charity shop was kind enough to sell me Anthony Kenny’s marvellous A Brief History of Western Philosophy for 50p – a fitting reward to mark the end of our walk along Hadrian’s Wall). Read More
If we ever broadcast the Ashridge Desert Island Leadership Tools, these would be my eight picks: Read More
