Julia Middleton's thoughts on leadership

I was at a Common Purpose Quest last week. Participants from the UK and Germany went to Essen in the Ruhr to have their prejudices undermined. They expected grim dirty polluted industrial decay and instead – found green regeneration.

We were at Zeche Zollverein all day. It used to be the biggest coal refinery in Europe, serving the steel makers of the Ruhr. We were at the center where the coal came up and was treated , where all the mine shafts meet from entrances all around the focal point , many of them miles away.

Apparently you never say “Goodbye” in this region, you only say “Gluck Auf” meaning “come back up safely”. As we approach the end of a very tough and successful (through very hard hard work from all) year like so many others, I think maybe I will use “Gluck Auf” more often!

With everyone (colleagues, media, stakeholders, customers) asking you for leadership – can you drown in it? So that you become only a reflection of what others want of you? I sat with some students on an MBA last week and the big thing they seemed to be asking me was how not to drown? They hadn’t experienced it yet but they had seen it in many of the leaders they had met. Their curriculum was enviable, full of skills I need and would like to have. But they needed more on how to avoid drowning.

The patt response they had been given was that you had to learn to delegate, but they are not stupid. Even if you delegate you still risk drowning from the things you can’t delegate. We ended up talking about how to make space for quiet moments. My father used to tell me that I should never trust a leader whom you didn’t occasionally find with their feet on the table, staring at the ceiling, thinking, maybe dreaming – but not asleep.

In the UK, trust in leaders has eroded. It is worth saying that maybe in some ways this is a good thing. If it means we do a double take and think for ourselves. And if it means that leaders don’t over promise.

I have been doing work recently with people who have huge IQs. I don’t say this lightly. They are faster at all discussions and this is not just about numbers – where they see a sea of numbers and go straight to the wobbly one – it’s about spotting the weakness in a strategy – the logic gap in an argument.

I do get there eventually, but I take longer – and it shows.

Then we start talking about people and those same people rate nil – in fact minus nil – on emotional intelligence. They don’t know how to deal with people unless they are the same kind of people as them, motivated by the same things, worried by the same things.

This weekend my daughter was talking about me getting older. She told me that now I need to start riding, what she calls, a push button horse. This means a horse that has no will of its own, it turns left or right or stops or starts or eats or sleeps as it is told.

It made me think that the colleagues I have been working with can only lead push button colleagues (or people who choose to be push button at work), not that they are not bright or lacking for ideas. But when you push their buttons they do what you know they will do. Without emotional intelligence you have to stick to leading push button colleagues.

When will emotional intelligence be understood? When will schools, universities and business schools start giving it equal importance. Why do I think it ranks up there? So that we have diverse, difficult, creative teams and leaders who can cope with stakeholders who operate differently from them. Please may it be soon.

Opening The Times this morning I saw an obituary for Admiral Sir Peter White. Reading it, I would love to say that I was thinking “He was a great man whom I was privileged to know” but in fact I was thinking “Another great man whom I had the privilege to know and whom I did not listen to enough”.

When I was 23 and in my first job (utterly loving it) at the Industrial Society, I was told that some old admiral was coming to join the team and his desk was going to face mine. He was wonderful. And his desk was totally beautiful – utterly and deeply tidy. The pencils were all pointed and in rows. He used to gaze across at my desk -  a tip! He has a very lovely mouth that formed into half smiles. And that was the look he used to give me about my desk.

It must have been a nightmare for him being around me. This was a man who had been there to witness the atrocities of the Japanese invasion in Shanghai, who had been at the sinking of the Bismarck and the Scharnhorst,  been at the Dunkirk evacuation, who had liberated POW’s in Japanese camps and was one of the first into Nagasaki. None of this did I know or bother to find out. And never, ever, not once in the two years that we sat opposite each other did he ever once make me feel like the silly child that I must have been. He did though repeatedly and unsuccessfully tell me to tidy my desk. He also used to say to me – when I was off to do something that he knew I was worried about – “stomach in,  chest out”. He was a deeply affectionate man and I knew he cared for me too.

May I care for young people as he did. And may I remember as I get older that young people aren’t really much interested in past glories.

I think I can adapt to most situations if I put my mind to it. Sometimes I fail.

I fly into Germany and do not take the time to sort out my head and remind myself that I am going to be speaking to a German audience, not a UK audience, so I must treat them more carefully and with more respect, and not assume so much. Or I charge from one meeting to another and don’t take the time to prepare. I don’t mean preparation like reading the papers, I do that. But this is more a case of getting my head round the different people, behaviours and agendas.

But if I put my mind to it, I do think I can adapt to a lot.

The thing that I realise, but can’t get my head around, is being in places where there is no freedom of speech. I can’t figure out how to be when I know I can’t speak freely. When I can’t build a relationship with someone by being candid. When being candid makes you someone to avoid.

Experiencing this recently has made me far better at appreciating what freedom of speech gives us. I suspect I have always taken it for granted. I also understand better that with freedom of speech comes freedom to think and freedom to make friends.

I am dyslexic. Can’t even spell dylexic (I bet someone who is not dyslexic came up with the name).

It has never got in my way since I left school. In fact it probably makes me a better speaker. But it has got the better of me now that Common Purpose is expanding in India. One million Rupees makes 10 lakhs. And 100 lakhs make a crore.

So you have to get your head around the noughts, the many noughts. In groups of three. I just can’t do it. A sea of noughts.

Guess its important to know where you’re strengths are.

(By the way, it’s Xtraordinary Week 2010, a week that raises awareness of the strengths and talents of dyslexic children and adults everywhere)

My daughter is doing her driving test in a couple of weeks. So I have been sitting by her for the last few weeks as she drives around and gets practice. She judged a messy roundabout very well yesterday and told me a secret that her driving instructor had told her. “Don’t look at the indicators, look at the wheels”, people often indicate wrongly where they intend to turn next but if you look at their wheels they will tell you where the car is going next.

The next day I chaired a complicated meeting that felt a bit like a messy roundabout with everyone going in every direction. People kept on telling us – indicating – what they were thinking but you only had to look at their bodies – even wheels – and you knew they were really headed in the opposite direction. Sure as a leader you have to listen, but watching is often just as important.

Someone complained about me last week. I made a comment in a talk to a British audience (never mind the context) and what I said was “I have never met a superior man”. To me it was unnecessary to add: “neither have I ever met a superior woman”. I would not have added it because to me it is self evident. We are equal. But I was told I had been sexist.

Simon Singh won his court battle. I am glad. It was about his right to express his views freely. He didn’t make up facts he simply stated his views.

I never got close to the intricacies of the issues but I did watch a man stand up for what he believed in and fight on against the odds when a court had found against him.

I bet lots of people told him to walk away. But he risked his savings, and risked his reputation. And allowed himself to get diverted – no doubt obsessed – in order to do what he believed was right. I admire him.

Simon Singh wins libel appeal. Photograph: Fiona Hanson/PA (guardian.co.uk)

Further reading on the Simon Singh libel suit:

• Simon Singh libel case dropped (The Guardian)
• Libel case dropped against Simon Singh (BBC News)
• Simon Singh wins libel appeal (Daily Mail)
• Simon Singh wins key battle in alernative medicine libel case (Telegraph)
• Q&A with Simon Singh: Why UK libel law must change (Wired.co.uk)