Julia Middleton's thoughts on leadership

I spoke at the start of a Frontrunner (our course for university students) specifically for disabled students, which we run in association with Santander. They were a hugely focused and dynamic group who were determined to work across disability and other organisations as leaders rather than stick to networks for people with their specific disability. [...]

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When I started work, I was very lucky. My first boss gave me opportunities to lead small teams from a very early age – to learn some of the lessons at an age when I could simply bounce back from my mistakes – to mess up when the stakes were not high – to succeed [...]

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Sometimes someone suddenly stands out at a meeting and makes a point with total clarity and finesse based on their very considerable knowledge and expertise. And when they do you realise how much rubbish you talk yourself and listen to from others. A short time ago one of the Common Purpose trustees stopped us all [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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The 360 Day approaches. For so many leaders, Common Purpose provides an opportunity to see the world through other people’s eyes so it’s great that the Common Purpose 360 Day should challenge people to do something along these lines. Common Purpose extends to every leader an invitation to do one thing, big or small, to [...]

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It’s been a pretty big week at Common Purpose, with the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom paying our emerging leaders course a visit in Bangalore. The occasion has me thinking about what is emerging for leaders in India – and Hinglish leaps to mind. It’s the language of the future I am told – [...]

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When UK Prime Minister David Cameron asked a participant in Bangalore what had shifted in his thinking by being on a Common Purpose course, the participant said: “I knew I was a leader at work but not for a minute had I thought of myself as a leader of Bangalore” This says it all. What [...]

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There is a lot of discussion and commentary at the moment in the UK about boards and governance following the Financial Reporting Council’s publication of the UK Corporate Governance Code (formerly the Combined Code). It’s all about how you ensure that the boards of the future protect us from the disasters over the last couple [...]

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