Julia Middleton's thoughts on leadership

Dishaa (our Venture which connected leaders in the UK and India) was so successful, unbelievably successful, that we have been asked to launch similar Ventures between lots of countries around the world (see www.commonpurpose.org/ventures). Dishaa means direction in Hindi, so we will have Phambili (direction in the Nguni languages inc. Xhosa and Zulu), Dao Xiang [...]

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Appointed leaders know, but so often forget, how different it is for elected leaders. How normal behaviour resumes months after an election and ends months before one. Listening to a friend reminded me why China seems to have halted in a trajectory just at the moment. It’s the ninth year, next year is the tenth [...]

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I am more and more interested in how good senior leaders are at inspiring younger people. Or rather how many are not good at it. Is the generation gap getting bigger these days? Probably not. Am I getting older and so more aware of this? Probably yes. Are young people less prepared nowadays to give [...]

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Made a pitch this morning to an international  organisation. The pitch team regrouped to give each other feedback. Very helpful reminder from a colleague “Julia never say anything negative .” Even if its only one negative point amongst plenty of positive ones. For some leaders negative points are signs of weakness; not being on side. [...]

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When the old can’t talk to the young, you just smile and say it was ever thus. When they fail to capture attention, fail to resonate, when the old and young pass in the night..it’s just the way it is and always will be and could even be a pre condition for progress. The young [...]

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I have been working with many Chinese people recently. New thinking, new jargon and new acronyms. It’s always the acronyms that group people quickly and un-reliably, whatever the culture. This time it’s BBC’s. This stands for British Born Chinese. It was said with disdain, but I didn’t ask…

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