Julia Middleton's thoughts on leadership

Small acts. Small unexpected acts. Small unexpected quiet acts. They have a huge impact.

I seldom do anything as “Mrs. Middleton”. Over Christmas I attended something alongside my husband as “the wife”. It was a carol service and he did the final reading. As he spoke most of us in the congregation followed him on the sheet we had been given.

Half way through he read “person” rather than “man”. Not a single woman missed it. I assume the men didn’t either. But it was the women who quietly, as they left, commented on his “slip”  with a smile on their faces.

So it was a delight being only Mrs. Middleton. Just for an evening.

I met someone who liberally used the expression “grown-up leaders” this morning. I asked him what grown-up meant for him. He said he had discovered the answer by reading books by Austrian and British philosopher Karl Popper. He said that grown-up leaders had discovered and understood two things:

1. That when they make the big decisions they will always be  on their own.
2. And that ultimately they will die.

Cheerful stuff. Probably not far from the truth.

I heard someone explaining how, as leaders, we need to work better together by using the analogy of a demonstration. You have to learn to link arms because this means you don’t fall and that the strongest sets the pace for all. The person sitting next to him agreed but added – remembering his demonstrating youth – that you had to be careful that your arms did not become frozen because then you all fall down.

Everyone has a different way of assessing people. Just spoke to someone who always uses “winners” and “survivors”. Any organisation, he says, needs a lot of survivors to do the work in a professional way. Any organisation also needs winners because they will create something new. He says of course there are losers but most of the world is made up of survivors. The most common mistake is to give survivors roles that call for winners. In these roles survivors will never gain a mandate. He said he analyses organisations on whether they have enough of both and if they are in the right places or roles. He uses the same analysis for sports teams. Interesting.

Did it again. Sat next to someone at a supper, fascinating conversation, and then I asked him what he did and he looked a bit surprised. Not arrogant or pompous, just a bit surprised. That I didn’t know. All it reveals is how boring my life is that I work, and do family, and little else.

This time it was Matthew Fort – The Great British Menu judge. My daughter says he is utterly wonderful.

The fascinating conversation was about food and its power to bring people together through the sharing of cultures and passions.

It was about the lost art of eating together: something leaders may have lost because there is little time to eat. Maybe we should reclaim it? Not long lunch hours, and not long liquid lunch hours, just short intermissions to share food and more.

Common Purpose has always been about getting leaders to look beyond their own space and to take responsibility for what happens around them. It’s interesting, as cities become the driving – leading force – in the world – they need to do the same. I visit city after city and they seem to have no real interest in the region or state that surrounds them. It’s their “hinterland”, one that it at best ignores and at worst runs rough shod over. This is of course made easier because it’s more than likely that the “hinterland” resents the city and partly of course because it is so heavily reliant upon it. I believe that just as leaders who take a wider view will eventually do better, so will cities. By understanding and engaging with their “hinterlands”. It’s what responsible leaders and cities do.

I am very interested in the expression “earned leadership”. Leaders earn the right to lead because they do or are – what? Of course the expression “earn” implies something important. That people do not become leaders (other than in title) simply by being appointed – whatever the method of appointment. They have to earn it from the people they are proposing to lead.

But I am more interested in unpicking what it takes to earn permission from those who are lead. Is it who the leader is or what he or she does? Or are the two are intertwined? Is it because they can see farther than others and express what they see in an inspiring way? Is it because they take care of the people they lead and help them to achieve great things? Does the answer differ in different cultures? Is it simply because they are older that they have earned the right to lead those that are younger?

I would be interested to see how people would complete the statement below:

“__________ earned permission to lead me because…”

It can be anyone – your boss, a coach, a chair, a friend, a colleague, a family member. Very curious to hear about how and why people have earned permission to lead you.

I was in a meeting with some leaders from Ireland during which the national debt went from 38 billion to 50 billion. It was interesting talking about the sense in Ireland amongst leaders in such times. They said two things:

1. Everyone just wants to know what the final figure is. They don’t much care what it is, they just want the final one.
2. Deeper perhaps, they seek a sense of detachment. They listen to the radio in the morning for example but limit themselves to 20 minutes otherwise they get too depressed.

I think this must be right. After a while you have to protect yourself from too much reality.

Then a conversation developed between the Irish and Hungarian leaders at the meeting. The Irish said, 38 billion (it was 38 then) and “No one has apologised”. The Hungarians responded, “Ours have apologised but nothing has changed”.

Grim discussions between leaders these days.

Yesterday we had the first Advisory Group meeting of Dishaa: a new initiative for future leaders in the UK and India.

The Advisory Group for this initiative includes senior leaders from both countries who, throughout the careers and outside their areas of work, have achieved extraordinary things. They set the challenge which will be met by a group of 40 – as Michael Duck of UBM described – hungry, intelligent people from the UK and India, all from very different sectors of work. These future leaders will meet in Pune in India early next year.

After much debate over various tough issues facing both the UK and India today, the challenge the Advisory Group settled on was:

‘If major heart surgery at $1,000 USD can be done, what has to change in how society innovates – including models and mindsets – for this to happen?’

Can it be done at this cost?

A member of our group is one of the few people in the world who would not only know, but could deliver it: Dr Devi Shetty. He has done 70,000 major heart surgeries in his life and opened a hospital with 5,000 beds. He said it could be done.

It was the rest of the Advisory Goup’s response to his statement that was intriguing. It seemed ridiculous, unthinkable…until you clicked that it was him making it.

We pushed him to tell us how much it currently cost. He thought probably $3,000 USD to $5,000 USD in India, so his proposition would probably reduce the cost by 75 per cent in India. He said it costs around $100,000 USD in the States, and he could not hazard a guess in the UK because of how the NHS does its accounting.

We had set some criteria for deciding the challenge for Dishaa. It had to be compelling, common to both countries, big (so it was worth spending time on) and small (so that the group could grasp it – and propse meaningful and potentially achievable solutions).

So when should a leader grow up? And what does growing up look like?

I pose this question because, when I sign off letters and emails to people I care about, I do so with a ‘love Julia’. I always have. People I care about are people I know well and some that I know a little and respect a lot.

Why do I do it? Maybe because I haven’t ever grown up and I still want to be different. Maybe because I really do love people, generally. Maybe because I always have and just because I am getting old – or more successful – why would I stop? In fact maybe, as I get older and more successful, I shouldn’t stop.

Maybe I just don’t feel good about the alternatives…yours, yours sincerely, warm wishes, all that formal pleasantry.

I have never written ‘love Julia’ to anyone I don’t have a good relationship with, and I have occasionally demoted people to a simple ‘Julia’ sign off. Indeed if you get ’yours Julia’ that’s pretty bad.

Nor have I ever held back on ‘love Julia’ because the person I wrote to was too swanky, or not swanky at all. Everyone I care about gets the same. Westerners and Easterners, Muslims, Christians, Jews and atheists, men and women.

Various people tell me to grow up. They might as well say “stop being you”.

I know some people just smile and say “Will she ever change?” Some are horrid about it, somehow implying I shouldn’t love so many people. Some say I should become more culturally sensitive and that it can offend. I have never had that sense. Some people have certainly been surprised, but never offended.

I do think leaders should grow up in lots of ways, but the trick is to remain yourself as you grow.