Leadership and the Philosopher’s Stone

January 30, 2012

There is no shortage of wisdom out there for those in leadership positions, but perhaps the best advice, writes Nicholas Dobson, is the simplest: be yourself.

Forests have been felled in the frenzy to find the philosopher’s stone on leadership and management. A quick Amazon search will demonstrate. For many of us with these responsibilities would like to know the magic formula – the pot of gold at the end of the corporate rainbow – which will turn us into big leadership hitters. But I often think that seeking the answer to the question of the leadership universe only in the ideas of others is rather like trying to find that mythical treasure.

Don’t get me wrong. There is much important wisdom to be found in the leadership and management library (not least in the ACSeS Leadership Series of which this article is part) and you do need to know what’s out there and to keep well up to speed with developments. For only fools think they know it all, safely ignorant of what there is to know in the first place. But . . . By all means absorb all the ideas and thinking you can.

Learn by heart the lexicon of smart leadership mantras. Walk the talk and talk the walk till you (or more likely your people!) drop. But when you’ve done all that, it is vital that you find your own leadership voice. What works for both you and yours. For if you try and don another persona you’ll be doomed to failure. Authenticity is the key i.e. your leadership style needs to be wired-up to the real you. For a phoney is soon found out.

Understand the Context

None of this of course is easy. A leader is someone that people are inspired to follow and not someone who simply wears the leadership badge. So whilst you need to find your own voice as indicated, there are some essentials that need to be hard-wired. Amongst these, you need to understand the organisation, its purposes, constitution, objectives and personalities. For to your people (and to external stakeholders) you are the organisation.

Then you need to understand your people; all your people. What are they good at? What do they like doing? What don’t they like and why? What’s getting in their way? What would make things easier? Are there any passengers? Are there any saboteurs? Are there any front runners. If so why? Only when you’ve got a real handle on the skills, experience, talents, upsides and downsides of your people can you start to wake the sleeping giant of what your team can potentially offer.

Equally vital is to keep closely in touch with national policy developments in the context of your organisation and its objectives. For these developments are the climate in which you operate. And currently there is a profound change in the weather as the present government seeks to downsize the state and push power down to the lowest practicable level. As the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister indicated in their forward to the Open Public Services White Paper issued on 11 July 2011 the aim is to ‘wrest power out of the hands of highly paid officials and give it back to the people’.

But whether or not you go along with the thinking, that is clearly the political reality and the climate in which you and yours have to function. For those without umbrellas can’t complain when the rain starts to fall.

But those of us familiar with the British weather will be equally used to its changeability. And so with national policy, which whilst of course is subject to alteration on change of government, can equally veer in a different direction with a mere ministerial reshuffle. So you do need to be fleet of foot in adapting to alterations in national or local policy contexts. For in the electronic communication age, radical changes can occur at lighting speed. As I write, the debacle surrounding the newspaper hacking scandal is rapidly changing the political weather in connection with press regulation and otherwise. And whilst this has no immediately direct bearing on local government, it is likely to raise the bar on corporate governance generally.

Taking People with You

A good leader needs to be a jack of all trades as well as being master of most. Amongst these you need to be a physician (in the sense of being able to do a diagnostic on what is needed and what prescriptions are going to work for different people under different circumstances), a pharmacist to prescribe and a nurse practitioner to administer.

Sometimes you might have to be the SAS (but best not smokebomb your way into meetings!). Sometimes a caring counsellor. Sometimes blunt; sometimes expansive. But personal resilience, a sense of humour and some external personal hinterland are vital. As is a rock solid sense of proportion. For so often in local government this week’s potential career finisher can be completely forgotten the next.

But whatever you do, it is vital to be able to take people with you on the journey. For journey is what it undoubtedly is, with the scenery constantly changing. Your people need to be persuaded that they should join you and in doing so have confidence in you as their leader. For whilst it might look OK on paper if they don’t, if they are all pulling in different directions and pursuing different narratives and agendas you’re likely to have a dysfunctional and less than effective operation.

At the risk of tautology, to win the confidence of your people they will have to trust you. They need to know who you are and that you operate fairly and consistently and are able to offer a clear vision. They need to know what you are expecting from them and how they should achieve it. So far as possible it is best not to be overly prescriptive as to how people do things as long as they produce high quality and adhere to organisational policy.

Post Austerity

Whilst it certainly didn’t feel like it at the time, the public sector had been growing until the financial crisis of 2008. The fact that the country had run out of money was evident from the note left on change of government in May 2010 from Liam Byrne, former Chief Secretary to the Treasury to his successor: ‘'Dear Chief Secretary, I'm afraid to tell you there's no money left. . .'. So a retrenchment in public spending became inevitable to a greater or lesser degree. But, as mentioned above, there is also a strong political drive from central government to reduce the size of the state, devolving power as far down the line as possible.

So the shape of local government and the wider public sector is likely to look very different in future years. Fleetness of foot and an ability to read local and national runes and react quickly and effectively are going to be key hallmarks of the post austerity leader. But whilst leadership is always a simultaneous analytical, emotional, communicative, strategic and inspirational juggling exercise, you shouldn’t need to be Harry Potter to find your personal philosopher’s stone.

Dr. Nicholas Dobson is a Senior Consultant with Pannone LLP specialising in local and public law is also Communications Officer for ACSeS. He can be contacted at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.