Julia Middleton's thoughts on leadership

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: That when they make the big decisions [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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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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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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 [...]

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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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Back from holidays, people ask me if I have a new sailing story. I have to report that this summer the episode was not caused by me…. We found a lovely cove in the sun and out of the wind. We got to this location in two parties – one  sailing and the other motoring. [...]

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I regularly misjudge situations because of pride. Especially situations when I am working with people from many countries. Partly because I don’t have much pride. I reckon I did once. But that over the years I have made so many mistakes – sometimes bad judgements, sometimes because I was over-stretched and didn’t make a judgement [...]

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I have always deeply rejected attempts to draw distinctions between how men and women lead. Mostly in defence of my sons. Just because they grow up to trust their instincts, use words with values in them, take the trouble to build relationships with colleagues and judge situations through a feel for people and not just [...]

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